Salt Lake City got a direct flight to Edmonton, and do you know what that means?? It means for under $200, I can go visit my friend Rachael without driving for twenty hours! It turned out that in the first week of July, Rachael's husband was going to be teaching at FSY in Calgary (he is an institute teacher). And she had one son attending the same FSY, and one son being a counselor at the same FSY. So she was going to be practically all alone at home! Well, what other conclusion could we come to? I asked Sam if he could live without me for a few days (he said he did not like to, but he would anyway, bless him) and bought a plane ticket! After much deliberation I decided to take Daisy with me, as Rachael and I wanted to do a lot of writing [we are working on another book together, which we may never finish because it's already taken us YEARS, but we can always hope] and Daisy is a very helpful editor!
We had to get Daisy a passport because she didn't have to have one when we went to Quebec. Children under 16 don't need one when you're driving, but all ages need one when you're flying! And that was also a pain because Daisy was about to turn 16 when she could have gotten a 10-year passport…but this trip was a month before her birthday so we had to just get the 5-year one! Grrr. There were a few weeks where we weren't sure she'd even have time to get the passport back, but luckily it came quickly and it was SO fun to travel with her, it was all worth it!
Daisy has flown on a plane once before, when my mom took her to Seattle to visit my aunt, but it was so long ago she felt like it barely counted. She was very excited to go on one again! Sebastian and Teddy drove us to the airport and then stayed to watch our plane take off. They watched us from the parking garage, and we saw them as we were taxying [wow that word looks weird] down the runway.
Seb's picture of Teddy looking out at us…
…and my picture looking back at them from the plane! Can you see them waving on the top floor?
Because we were flying on WestJet, a Canadian airline, all the announcements on the plane were in English and French. It made us homesick for Quebec! And these Château cookies made us homesick too!
Flying to Canada is amazing, especially after having driven there. It is so fast! You take off, then you're over Bear Lake, then over Yellowstone, then before you know it you're about to land! This is Bear Lake from the air. So blue and beautiful! (I wouldn't have known what it was, but of course Sebastian knew our flight path and was texting me updates of what we would be seeing.)
The Edmonton Airport is small, and on this particular day it was so empty. This was the line for Customs! We were out in 5 minutes!
Daisy disapproved of these pillar-breaking football players by the luggage return. We had only brought the tiniest bit of luggage (these cheap tickets don't even include a carry-on item, only a "personal item") so we didn't actually have to wait there.
Then Rachael picked us up and drove us home and we immediately built ourselves this beautiful charcuterie board so we could just sit and eat and talk. It was heavenly! We talked about our kids, our book, Daisy's book, and every other subject under the sun. The thing that felt the most restful but also strange? The quiet! It was so quiet! We never got interrupted once. Just talked and talked and talked as long as our hearts' desired, ate when we felt like it and not when we didn't, and sat working in comfortable silence in the same room for as long as we wanted to. Can you imagine??
We were not quite alone for the whole day. Tommy was home. But as we have Great Plans for Tommy and Daisy, that was all to the good. And he was working most of the time anyway.
It was such a great few days. We went on walks and checked on Rachael's garden. Walked by the lake.
Saw the big Edmonton bunnies nibbling on clover.
Daisy and Tommy picked…oh no, now I'm going to forget their name again. A berry I had never heard of. Hashberries? Stashberries? Oh, I think it's Hascap berries, but I have no idea how to spell it. (UPDATE: it's "haskap berries.") They are delicious.
On Canada Day, Rachael's son and his wife came over, and her mother-in-law Jennifer (who I have known for years and absolutely love) and Tommy's wonderful cousin Tressa. The nicest group of people you can imagine being with. We played in the yard, spikeball and ladder toss, and then some fun board games too.
Tommy and Tressa disappeared for half an hour and then reappeared bearing all the most quintessentially Canadian things they could think of—a gift for Daisy. She was SO happy! Timbits, "All-dressed" chips, the smarties-that-aren't-smarties, a real Kinderegg. It was the sweetest thing to do.
The weather was pleasant, in the high sixties most of the time, with a little rain. We sat out on the back deck a lot of the time just enjoying it. We had to share the space with some very aggressive squirrels, about whom Rachael had many choice words to say, and the loudest squawking crows in the world. Rachael kept throwing unripe pears at the squirrels, but it didn't bother them in the least. They just kept standing up on the fence and chattering at us like they owned the place.
Daisy relaxed in the hammock and only fell out about four times.
Sam sent us updates every day about how everyone was doing at home. They went to a free outdoor concert one night at the new ballpark nearby!
Daisy and Junie missed each other so much that they spent quite a long time talking together on FaceTime. This is a screenshot from one of those conversations, if you'd like to get the flavor of them. MUCH SILLINESS.
Rachael's son George does the pool maintenance for one of their neighbors who is never home (he lives in British Columbia most of the time, apparently, so I don't know why he bothers to open his pool in Edmonton at all, but he does. I guess his married kids use it occasionally). Since George was gone all week, I helped Rachael take care of the pool, which is quite a process, you may be interested to know! All kinds of pH balancing and filtering and cleaning cycles and so forth. But the great thing is that the neighbor also lets Rachael use the pool when it's free, so we got to go and swim one warm afternoon! That was really fun.
James (Rachael's husband) got home from FSY after the first couple days, so we all went to the temple together. The Edmonton Temple is tiny and has the exact same layout as the Montreal Temple! It was so good to be there with Rach. We did initiatory ordinances while Tommy and Daisy did baptisms.
James served his mission in Taiwan, and tried a special kind of shaved ice there which he had always pined for. A few years ago he finally found a machine for home use that can make it. You freeze a special mixture of milk and fruit juice and then the machine shaves off the thinnest ribbons which you pile into a bowl, and you eat it with berries or condensed milk or other toppings on top. It is so good. One of the most surprising things I have ever eaten. Just the texture of those smooth, thin ribbons of cold, fruity flavor…it is almost indescribable. Almost like cold thin noodles…or creamy strips of fruit or…??? I had purple, taro flavor, and it was delicious. (Watch this to get the idea, or look at this.)
Daisy is intrigued and bewildered
Another interesting thing…how long the days are that far north! Just look visually at the representation of day and night on my watch. Do you see how long those daylight hours extend, leaving only a little pie-quarter of night on the bottom? It was endlessly surprising to Daisy and me. We couldn't stop going outside to see how light it was at 11 pm! Rachael had pinned up a blanket over our window to keep it darker, and when I said, "Oh no, we probably don't need that!" she said, "You don't understand…it starts getting light at 3:30."
10:24 pm
11:07 pm
11:45 pm!!
I must report, not very repentantly, that we stayed up very late talking, laughing, playing games, and watching "Anne of Somewhere." But in spite of taking advantage of nearly every daylight moment and many of the non-daylight ones…it was over all too soon. We were really sad to say goodbye to Rachael, but we were missing everyone else at home too.
We flew home the morning of July 4th, and the airport was just as deserted as it had been a few days earlier. We were the only ones going through security! The workers were chatting with us as if we were neighbors chatting across a fence!
On the way home, we flew right over our house, and Daisy was able to take a picture. You can find it pretty easily because of the bally hill.
See, there it is…you can even see some towel or tub of water left out in the middle of the basketball court in the back yard! It's so fun to see familiar things from above!
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