My sister Julie came to spend a few days at Mom’s house, and then I moved to her house for a couple of nights.

Her kids are such kind, cool little kids!

Selinah and I played this new board game that Mom’s cousin Sharon gifted the kids. It had this owl character that you had to press down on and if it showed a happy face, your move continued. And a grumpy face meant your turn was over!

After we were gamed out, of course we had to visit the goats on Highway 23! There were baby goats!!

I wasn’t paying attention and one of those young goats started eating my shorts through the fence! I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the first time! Goats are rascals!

We also ran some errands during the days we were together, and went to the park a couple times, blew bubbles on the back deck, went out for breakfast, and watched so many episodes of Blues Clues! By the way, swinging on a swing never loses its appeal. I love swinging! And Selinah is big enough to jump up on the big swing all by herself!

Little Jordan is talking already! Julie taught him how to say “Oh Lisa…..” 🤣 And while I was just trying to get in a bit of exercise one afternoon, Selinah joined in, and then made me do her yoga with her (they do yoga at her school!) and wow, yoga looks so effortless… when you’re 4!

On Monday, I got to go with Julie and Selinah to a hospital in London to do an allergy challenge. Selinah’s allergic to various nuts and has been doing a desensitization process for a while now. For her peanut allergy, she’s gone from having a bit of peanut flour every morning, to having a spoon of actual peanut butter every single morning with an allergy pill. This will keep her safe from any accidental exposure, especially at school, which will be such peace of mind for Julie! She’s started tackling her almond allergy now too, having a bit of almond milk every morning, which will increase in dose over the next year.

The next nut that she was possibly allergic to, is the cashew. She’s shown a reaction to it before on a test, yet on a previous one she didn’t, so they decided to do a challenge in a safe environment.

For several hours, Selinah had to eat cashews, that Julie needed to provide. The first dose was less than half a cashew, then she had 4 more doses, every 30 minutes, with increasing amounts, up to 5 cashews at a time! She was a champ! A brave kid, who ate them, and quite fortunately, didn’t react!! YES!

She wasn’t crazy about the taste of them, but she did it! She was allowed to eat anything else while we waited, so she had a Happy meal, and we spent the time watching videos, and colouring. We were sharing the challenge room with a boy her age who had to eat hard-boiled eggs after having a bad reaction as an infant. (YUCK! Eggs!) (Similarly, I had an allergic reaction to eggs as a toddler and I’ve never eaten once since – except when it is cooked in food.) (Oh, except for that omelette I was served when I was visiting new friends and was far too shy to say NO, EGGS ARE GROSS.) This other kid really hated his eggs, but he didn’t react too much so it was a good outcome. Someone else was getting served big chunks of lobster!

I was so glad I was able to be there for Julie as I’m sure it was a stressful time internally! We had a button to press should any allergic reaction symptoms start, but luckily we didn’t need it! Her doctor explained that if you are allergic to cashews, you are also allergic to pistachios, and vice versa, so they encouraged her to try a pistachio soon too.

Julie and my Dad live nearby, so I went back and forth a couple times. One night I had pizza at Dad’s with him and his wife and her son. Oh and Patches, their cat.

Julie had said she saw a bird go into her dryer vent, and her dryer hasn’t been drying ever since! Her landlord had someone out to look at it *three* times! So Dad came to the rescue and look what he found!! A bird nest!!! How did the other guy miss this!? I think he had no idea what he was doing. Thank goodness it’s been rainy and the nest was really damp and didn’t catch fire!!

On my last full day in Ontario, I got up to see Julie and the kids off to school (after a Pokemon Go battle session with Selinah), and my brother-in-law Wole made me a fabulous fresh smoothie! (berries and fruit and cucumber!) I hung out with Wole for awhile and then Dad picked me up and made me some pancakes and bacon!

I hung out at Dad’s for a while, and then we went out for lunch. Afterwards, he drove me to his sister Cecilia’s house after lunch. Cecilia conveniently lives about 10 minutes from the Toronto airport, and she offered to have me spend the night, and then she’d drop me off at the airport in the morning.

After a visit, Dad headed home to miss the big thunderstorm we saw brewing in the distance. Cecilia’s radar app said we were going to be clear of rain for a couple of hours, so we grabbed our binoculars to do a hike along the river to Lake Ontario. I don’t know how this is Toronto!? It’s so treed and nice. A really nice neighbourhood to live in. Can’t believe it is a big city.

We were about 2.5 kilometres away from her home and the dark cloud and thunder was starting to seem rather ominous. Cecilia had her camera too, so we decided to turn around.

Then it happened. It POURED! With thunder and lightning!

Soon enough we were soaked to the bone. It was actually pretty fun, and we got to splash in all the puddles since our feet and clothes were already soaked. I wish I took more pictures of the two of us drowned rats, but my phone was already pretty wet!

We stripped down on her back sun porch before even going inside. So soaked!

My clothes were half-dry the next morning for my trip home. No worries, I just packed them in my suitcase with my half-dry shoes, and wore socks and sandals for my flights home.

We were 40 minutes late leaving Toronto, but no worries, it was a nice day.

But then in Yellowknife, we seemed to be on the tarmac for far too long?

You don’t have to get off the plane here, so it usually takes 20 minutes, maybe 30, to let some people off, and load some new passengers, and shuffle their luggage. Also service the plane, and fuel up.

Then I realized…. isn’t that our pilot in that high-vis vest on the tarmac?

For some reason, we had no ground crew. I don’t know if it was because we were late, and there were another couple planes there at the same time? But our Air North pilots both put on safety vests and they serviced the plane! From luggage, to putting the blue liquid in the toilets, the pilots were our ground crew!!

It took about an hour, and then we needed to find someone to back the portable stairs off the plane, since the pilots needed to be inside the cockpit! And we were off.

However, even with making up some time, we were at least an hour late. I had a really quick layover in Whitehorse before my flight to Dawson City. Despite every Air North attendant saying my luggage would transfer, it did not.

But no worries, they drove it to my house the next morning, after sending it up on the next flight. Sure it had my wet clothes and shoes still in it, but no problem! Everything was in fine shape.

So now I’m home. I had such a great trip and filled so much in, yet still didn’t see so many people. I wanted to visit with Becky, check in on my Uncle Joe, see my Aunt Maria’s new deck, visit my inlaws…. I guess it just means I better go back! When I’m there, I feel a bit sad I don’t live closer so I can spend time more often with everyone. I do truly love living up here though, and this community and support system we have here. I think it just means I need to travel home more than once a year though!