O, Canada!

This poor blog is SUFFERING! Remember the days when I posted every 24 hours? That was when I had to be on-call for my job like, all day, every day. Now I have this dream job where I only work three hours a day (for three times the pay, I might add) and I want to spend as much time away from the computer as possible to make up for those two years where I was chained here. In any case, I've been getting a lot, which explains the sad lack of posting aroudn here. But the kids are blissfully coloring, the house is clean, work is done and we went out for dinner tonight, so I can post about my latest trip to Canada.

My littlest brother Dallin got his mission call to Leeds, England. The call went like this:

Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Dallin: Jacqueline?
Me: Yes?
Dallin: I got my mission call.
Me: And?
Dallin: I haven't opened it yet. No one is home.
Me: Well, open it!
Dallin: I can't! Mom's not home.
Me: So?
Dallin: She'll be mad!
Me: We won't tell her! Just do it!
Dallin: OK. I'm putting you on speaker phone.

He opened the envelope and saw a letter "E" leading him to believe that he was going to Ethiopia or England, besides the fact that those are not the only two countries beginning with an "E." (Ecuador or Estonia, anyone?) Anyway, my mom called me later to chew me out for peer pressuring Dallin into opening his mission call with no one else around, but she's not very threatening 2,000 miles away.

Meanwhile, my other little brother (I say little like they don't tower over me. I assure you, they do.) received a job offer in Botswana, where he'll be living for the next year working at an AIDS clinic of all things. So I had two little brothers heading off to he world, so I fanagled a trip home with Justin and the kids out of it.

And guess what? We did box karaoke again. I'm weak! I couldn't help myself! Nothing beats belting out "Telephone" with my brother as a backup singer. Unfortunately, Jonathan and me had arranged to sing at Dallin's farewell the next morning. We so committed ourselves to the karaoke experience that we both woke up hoarse and resorted to mainlining Fisherman's Friends for an hour to try and get our voices back. For those of you who don't know what FFs are... count yourself lucky. They're vile.

We were able to have a BBQ/pool party for Justin, since he turned the big 3-0 on Sept. 1st. He naturally felt awkward and yelled at everyone for giving him presents. My parents spoiled the kids while I snuck naps on the couch and watched bad Lifetime movies. Oh, and we had a massive farewell party for Dallin. Turns out, my parent's house becomes a large oven when you put 75 people inside.

We also took the kids to Ontario Place, an amusement park which admittedly seemed much larger when I was a child. Addison had a good time, seeing as she kept yelling "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER" at regular intervals throughout the day. I forgot about Toronto's humidity and wore JEANS and felt like I was wrapped in Saran all day long. It was lovely.

If you aren't my friend on Facebook (and clearly just stalk my blog) you can check out pictures from our great adventure here. It's good times.

So now we're back. We did a weekend at the cabin where I went to Swiss Days ( a massive arts and craft type fair in Midway, UT and by which my entire house is furnished) and now we're home until Wednesday until we go for our annual Lake Powell trip.

Is it possible to be all vacationed out?