goodbye, ontario!

Last week I travelled to Ottawa and Listowel/Harriston to visit family and friends before I leave for Fiji. It was a pretty full week, but was also very relaxing.

The first day involved a strawberry yoduly bubble tea with popping bobas (instead of tapioca pearls), lamb and chicken kabobs (without the sticks), my first time going to a bar/club in Byward Market, and some Settlers (of course!).

Steph playing Settlers

My dad and Kate threw a goodbye party for me the first weekend I was there. It was a true-ish pot luck and we ended up with a lot of chicken wings (woohoo!!). I really enjoyed seeing family friends and high school friends, and visiting with everyone as I hadn’t seen everyone there since the winter holidays or last summer!

It was a nice day! Also, sweet ramp Jet.

The youngins (like Steph and Cameron) stayed later to play games and eat all the leftovers.

The rest of my time in Ottawa was very casual – dinner with Winnie and Callum, a beach-scapade featuring copious amounts of shawarma (shawarmas suck in BC), visiting Bell, hanging with Steph (yay!) and delicious dinners.

Me pigging out on potatoes and a massive shawarma at Britannia Beach. Anyone that knows me well knows that I can’t actually eat this much food (unfortunately).

On Saturday, my dad, Kate and I headed down to Southern Ontario for my Grandpa’s 80th birthday party. It was really nice seeing all of the family at once! It was fun! We set off fireworks, had a campfire, and had lots of delicious food (delicious steak and om nom nom cedar plank salmon). Everyone left early on the Sunday, but I stayed around and spent some time with my grandparents and flew back from Kitchener in the evening. That was nice.

Grandpa (birthday boy!) and Great-Aunt Trudy

The whole crew

And Settlers got brought out for the 3rd time for this trip (it was Paul’s idea twice though!)

It was nice experiencing Ontario summer weather again.. because it is sooo hot. I hope my body adapts well to Fijian weather, I am definitely going to have to get used to it.

The Kitchener airport is funny – it is very small, but was jampacked because Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier convocation was that weekend. For some reason, I really like walking on planes even if it is pouring rain. I found it very amusing when they announced that the airplane to Ottawa was boarding and only three people got on. Anyway, the flights were great (I love WestJet), I got to Vancouver earlier than scheduled (I love WestJet) and my suitcase was the first suitcase to come on the carousel (I love WestJet)!! I should be a WestJet spokesperson.

Rob was in town when I got back Vancouver.. he said earlier he’d meet me at the airport. He also came with a car! I’m a lucky gal.

All in all, it was a great trip and I am really happy I was able to see so many people, relax and be back home! I got strep throat though….. who licked my fork??