the rest of the story about that trip we took to Terrace

So, obviously, the kids and I spent a few hundred hours in the van traveling a few thousand kilometres to BC and back. It was 95% awesome and 5% what you’d expect when you take a solo-parenting road trip with three kids. Or, really, what you’d expect when you take a dual-parenting road trip with three kids. I cannot even tell you how fantastic all three of them were. It was miraculous. I only lost my cool once the whole 10 days we were gone, and that is probably a record for spending 10 solid days together.

We spent most of our time in my hometown of Terrace, BC. If you watch the video below, you’ll think Terrace is the BEST PLACE ON EARTH. And in some ways, it is. Take a looky see.

See? Perfect, right? They forgot to mention a little detail about the fact that IT NEVER STOPS RAINING and everyone knows EVERYTHING about everyone and there is absolutely no way to live there anonymously. I had to laugh a few times while I watched this perfectest-ever-place-to-live video because they are only telling you the good things that happen in only the best non-raining conditions. But, I’d be lying if I told you I did not have good memories about the place.

Like the river Steph, Sara, and I would walk across in the spring.
And the theatre roof I used to climb on top of … until we saw the cops coming.
And the school I stole the VISITORS REPORT TO OFFICE sign from.
And the Bat Cave down by the river where Tom and I used to smoke weed in. (I mean, JUST KIDDING, MOM.)
And the keggers we’d have every Canada Day weekend to celebrate Tom’s birthday.
And the nine (!) houses I lived in.
And the four places I worked.
And Lakelse lake where we spent many, many nights camping and swimming biking and fishing with hot dogs and dissecting bull-heads.
And the back yard of the house I grew up in where countless games of kick the can were played.
And the parking lot where countless games of street hockey were played.
And the hospital Kaylie, Liliana, and I were born in.
And the street light under which Noah proposed to me.

But it’s also the place of bad memories and skeletons and events I’d rather not think about ever again.

It’s the place where, exactly 10 years ago (on one of the days we were in Terrace), something happened that I will never forget, never get over, and is the story behind my forearm tattoo. I thought by now I’d be able to write about it here, but I’m just not ready. I had to mention it vaguely, though, because I couldn’t not. And I’ll just stop there because when someone writes vaguely about something but doesn’t tell readers what, it drives me mental. I just hope you’ll understand I had to make note of it because time milestones are important to me.

The kids LOVE Terrace, though, and I know that most of it is because my parents live there, but a little part of it is because there is NO SNOW there. The kids spent the first couple days we were there in my parents’ back yard. In t-shirts. And shoes.

On the first day of our trip we were up bright and early, and drove from Saskatoon to Prince George–1,260km/783mi in 13.25 hours–where we met my mom at Esther’s Inn. My secret to getting kids to behave in a van for 13 hours and 15 minutes? Thirteen hours and 15 minutes worth of movies. And lots of snacks. My van is disgusting and needs to be detailed badly.

We also had great and lively conversations along the way. I hope you note my sarcasm here, although some conversations were quite entertaining.

Me: “Hey, guys, look. Buffalo!”
Kaylie: “I thought they were extinct!”
Liliana: “Why are they stinked?”
Kaylie: “Extinct. Like the dinosaurs. They’re all dead.”
Liliana: “How did the dinosaurs die?”
Kaylie: “Well, a meteor fell to earth and killed them all.”
Liliana: “Oh. I wonder what buffalo scat looks like!”

Me: “Be kind to each other or no water slides.”
Liliana (ever the fearful child): “No water slides and no pool? Or just no water slides?”
Me: “No water slides and no pool.”
Liliana: “Oh, because if it was just no water slides, I would be delighted to have that!”

Liliana: “Where are we staying tonight?”
Me: “Prince George.”
Liliana: “Oh, cool! Is he a real prince? Do we get to see him?”

I told my mom we’d meet her at the hotel at 7pm. We pulled up to the main entrance right as the clock in the van changed from 6:59 to 7:00. I’m that good. She met us at the doors and the kids were STOKED to see her.

I planned our arrival around the closing of the pools and waterslides. They closed at 9pm, and I figured if we arrived at 7pm, we’d have a good two hours of pool time with Grannie. The two littler ones had their fill by about 8:30, so Grannie and Kaylie took off for some more watersliding while I bathed the other two and got them ready for bed. I don’t remember it being too hard to get everyone to sleep that night, though I’m pretty sure it was 10pm (11pm Saskatchewan time) by the time we finally were all in bed.

The next day’s trip, from Prince George to Terrace, was only six hours. Much better. (Although I have done the trip in five hours before. Without kids.) Kaylie went in Grannie’s car, with plans to switch with Liliana when we hit the half-way point.

Telkwa feels like a second hometown to me. My family spent many weekends and holidays and summers there visiting my Opa/aunts/uncles/cousins. It really is very beautiful.

We visited my Opa’s grave and put flowers by it, took some photos down at Eddy Park, and had lunch at my aunt’s cafe.

We left Telkwa with both girls in Grannie’s car, which left just me and Preston in the van. It was so quiet.

We pulled into Terrace in the early afternoon and the kids spent the first couple hours outside. Without their coats on. Not one of them was happy with me when it was time to get ready for bed.

Preston was a bit terrified of my parents’ dogs at first, but quickly warmed up to them, and would yell, “DOCK!” at the sight of one.

Before we left, I got after Liliana for bugging one of the boys AGAIN, and she says to me, “I’m going to tell your parents tomorrow that you are giving me a BAD DAY!” And you wanna know what? She did. She told on me for being the horrible parent that I am.

I went out with my cousin Shawna on Saturday night and had a blast. We were close when Kaylie was a baby, and hung out all the time. But, then our lives went in different directions and we didn’t live in the same places, and I miss hanging out with her. It was definitely a highlight to the trip.

On Sunday morning we went to the church that Noah and I attended when we lived in Terrace. It was bittersweet to be back. And I barely recognized half the people there, which, you know, happens when you don’t visit a place for four years. It was good, though, to see all the familiar faces of friends and acquaintances.

After church my mom hid Easter eggs all over the back yard, colour-coordinated for each kid. The girls thought it was the BEST THING EVER. Preston, however, collected tennis balls in his basket instead and didn’t search for a single egg. The girls thought this was fine and took over the search for his eggs.

The kids LOVED being outside so much, and the first couple days we were in Terrace, they were barely inside at all. But, then Terrace did what Terrace does and it rained constantly for the next few days. But, for the sunny days, we pretended that the rain did not exist.

Sunday afternoon my mom (and my dad and Kaylie) made a Turkey dinner, which was fantastic. I’d completely forgotten about the whole Easter dinner thing, what with the trip and dealing with the kids and stuff, so it was a pleasant surprise.

My dad visits my grandma every Monday morning, and since my mom had the day off too, we all hopped in my van and headed over there. My grandma is one of my very favourite people, so it was great to see her. And, well, seeing her was one of the main reasons for our trip to Terrace. I miss the coffee (tea) visits we had when I lived there. I loved listening to her stories.

I always like taking photos when I see Grandma, but getting a four-generation shot with her, my dad, and the kids was pretty sweet. It was also neat seeing the kids play with the toys that my siblings and I played with at Grandma’s house when we were little. I love passed-down-the-generations stuff like that.

After Preston’s nap we headed over to my friend Ann’s house. We have an equal hatred for being in photos, so it’s a good thing we have three girls who love being in front of the camera. Ann’s one of those friends I can be completely honest with without fear of judgment. She’s one of my favourite people on the planet and I miss living near her (and in her basement, as we did in transition just before our move to Regina). The girls and Michaela played outside while we caught up, and Preston tried his best to join the girls outside. The poor boy loves being outside so much, and the snow in our yard needs to GO AWAY.

Tuesday morning my cousin Rayna came over. I get asked all the time where Preston’s red hair comes from, and I usually mention Rayna in that well-rehearsed speech because she’s the only one of us cousins (by my count there are 25 of us) who has red hair, and hers is more of a beautiful strawberry-blonde. Our Grandpa had red hair (or so I’m told, apparently it got lighter as he got older), and my cousin Nick has a son with red hair as red as Preston’s. I wish I had a dollar for every compliment I’ve received about Preston’s hair because I’d be a gazillionaire.

Anyway. Rayna. It was quite wonderful visiting with her. I haven’t seen much of my cousins in the last five years since we left Terrace, so it was great to catch up with her and hear how her family’s doing. They are some of the most selfless people I know and I’ve always admired them.

One of my regrets from the trip is not using my big camera at all. I really should have, but I’m lazy and I’m impatient, and my iPhone fixes both those problems. The photos aren’t as awesome, but crappy photos are better than no photos, right?!

My mom had Tuesday off as well (convenient for me, thanks, Mom!) so I left her with all three kids and took off to have lunch with my friend Debbie at a restaurant we used to frequent, the Hot House. It’s Indian food done DELICIOUSLY MOUTH-WATERING. I wish I knew of something similar here in Saskatoon, but I think I’d just be disappointed in anything that did not taste exactly the same.

Debbie’s one of those friends that, if I haven’t talked to her in months, or a year, we can pick up exactly where we left off, which, for us, works perfectly, as our kids are similar ages and life is just BUSY and you know what? It’s hard to keep in contact with long-distance friends, especially when I’m not a huge fan of the phone.

We didn’t have any visiting planned for Wednesday, so the kids and I headed to Ferry Island. It’s a little island just on the edge of the main part of Terrace that is very popular for camping and picnicking and day walks and fishing and seeing tadpoles and frogs and it’s just beautiful. Liliana, however, was a little confused about the name.

Liliana: “Is this Fairyland?”
Kaylie: “No, Ferry Island.”
Liliana: “Fairy Island? I’m so excited to be here!”

I’d planned to go to Ferry Island at some point in the week and take photos of the bridges, but I completely forgot and I’m disappointed about that. There are two bridges–the Old Bridge and the New Bridge–that cross the Skeena River and lead into Terrace. They’re the photographic centrepiece to any Terrace-type of photo. We have such a photo hanging in our living room that I totally love. I couldn’t get a shot of the bridges from the part of Ferry Island we were on, and by the time we were done, Preston was a MESS, so we just had to go home. And that’s okay.

The kids loved just being able to run. I think Ferry Island is one of the things I miss most about Terrace, for the kids’ sake. There’s just nothing like it here (that I know of).

There are many faces (most of them quite small, not nearly as big as the one in the photo above) carved in the trees on Ferry Island. Many of them were carved by my dad’s cousin, whose family is incredibly artistically-gifted. I forgot to look for them, but this one (not carved by him) was hard to miss.

Kaylie wanted to find a couple geocaches while we were there, so we found two before Preston reached the end of what he could take. I’m glad that they were so easy to find. The girls just LOVE geocaching, so hopefully we can do more of it here in the spring.

We reached the frog pond to find it dry, which I think is normal for spring. The area in front of Preston in the photo above is usually a pond full of tadpoles and frogs and salamanders. Preston started walking down the rocky hill, and when I asked him to stop, because I figured he’d go too fast and fall down the hill, he started running, which, you know, I should have figured and should have just run up behind him and caught him and not said anything at all, but I don’t always think the most logical thoughts, so I yelled for him to stop and he started running and he went face first down the rocky hill. His forehead got a bit bloody, but he was okay. He didn’t leave the stroller again, though. (Which was fine, because we were almost done with our time there, although he did not know that and screamed for the next ten minutes straight.)

We found our second geocache after Preston’s little fall and then headed back to the van.

We grabbed a quick lunch and then dropped Kaylie off at school. My mom works at the school I went to for 11 years, and where Kaylie attended first grade. She still has a few friends there, and my mom pulled some strings to have Kaylie there for the afternoon.

I’d meant to take some photos of Terrace from up where my parents live, but kept putting it off, and when I finally took the photos below, the skies were their usual grey and the snow-capped mountains didn’t stick out as much as they did the days before. And, obviously, I was using my phone and not my real camera, so really, what did I expect?

Hometowns are such strange things. It was so weird being back there. Terrace just doesn’t feel like home anymore, it just feels like some place that existed in the past, yet it’s still alive and kicking, even though we are no longer there. Friends’ kids grow older just like my kids do, and it feels a bit like time-travelling, since I still see them as a nine-year-old, yet all of a sudden they’re 16 and I don’t know how time went by so fast.

When we first arrived in Terrace, Liliana was terrified of the dogs. After a day or two, the dogs were her BFFs and she couldn’t get enough of them.

Wednesday evening we went on a little family history tour with my dad, starting at the graveyard where my great-grandparents (his grandparents) and my grandpa (his dad) are buried. It just so happened that it was the fifteenth anniversary of my grandpa’s death, so I guess it was the perfect day to be up there. It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years already. I still remember the last time I saw him and the last hug I gave him. I was with my friend Stephanie. She is also buried up there, close to where my grandpa is, and I visited her grave as well. (Goodness, I just got a little teary.)(Graveyards are hard, yo.)

From there my dad showed us a house he used to live in, one I did not know about, and then we drove down the hill to the place I will always call my grandparent’s house, which is now a bed and breakfast or something like that. They’ve kept the house looking almost exactly like it’s always looked, which is pretty awesome, in my opinion. They’ve kept it in great shape, too.

I took off to pick up a birthday cake for Liliana as soon as we got home, so that she could celebrate her upcoming birthday with Grannie and Papa. It was late and I didn’t want to make another stop for candles and my mom didn’t have any, but Liliana didn’t even notice, which was fantastic. She was just happy to have all the attention aimed at her, and to have some cake.

Thursday morning we headed to my friend Sirena’s house. I know I took photos while we were there, but I cannot find them for some reason and that is kind of frustrating. She has seven children, the oldest of whom is Kaylie’s age, and the youngest is three months old. The older ones took off and we barely saw them (ten children in the house and it wasn’t noisy at all)(for real, no sarcasm intended). Preston was in love with baby Abi, and kept touching her arm and saying, “Baby!” Little Ezri is his age, and they climbed the stairs together and hugged the dog together and it was pretty much the most adorable thing ever. I love seeing him make friends so easily.

When we left, I asked the kids if they’d like it if we had seven kids, and Kaylie, viewing herself with six younger siblings, said, “No way!” Liliana, on the other hand, saw having six siblings as having six best friends, and said, “YES! Can we have four more kids?!”

One of the things I really wanted to do while we were in Terrace was take a trip to Prince Rupert to see the ocean. It turned out that it was raining on the day I planned to go, so we went to Kitimat instead. It was also raining there, but I figured a 45-minute drive in the rain was better than a 1.5-hour drive in the rain, and the ocean is the ocean. I prefer Prince Rupert over Kitimat, but we had a long drive planned the next day, so I figured, for the kids’ sake, I’d pick the shorter distance.

My friend Rob came with us, and Liliana, doing what Liliana does, instantly attached herself to him. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind.

We went for lunch and then checked out the pool I’ve been hearing so much about. All three of my kids love water (unless it’s running water, LILIANA) and had a blast. After swimming we headed down to Alcan beach so we could see the ocean.

Rob showed the girls how to search for the teeny tiny wiggly shrimp-shaped things under the rocks, and the girls also searched for shells and did their best not to slip on the kelp-covered rocks. It was misting rain, but we barely noticed.

We also found a sea snitch.

When we had our fill, we climbed back in the van and headed home. Before we left, though, we introduced Rob to geocaching and found this one. I’m not a hardcore geocacher or anything, but the kids love it so much, and it’s fun introducing it to people who have never heard of it.

When we got back into town, the kids and I headed over to my friend Barb’s house. Apparently her daughter Tatiana plays drums. And now Liliana wants to play drums. Good thing she still has a couple years before band starts.

I tried to get a shot of Tatiana and Kaylie, but their younger siblings insisted on being in the picture, too. Fine by me! Willing subjects are a photographer’s dream. Barb is one of the few people that I get to see in Saskatoon as well as in Terrace, as she has family here. It’s always a treat when Terrace people come through here, because it’s such a rare occurrence.

Our time in Terrace went by lightning-quick, and soon we were on our way back to Saskatoon.

I’m going to take a moment to mention that the van hadn’t moved yet, and Liliana did wear a seat belt the entire trip. I even brought along an extra five-point-harness seat in case she decided that wearing a seat belt properly wasn’t a thing she would to do willingly. Posting photos of kids in car seats is always a gamble, because there’s always that person who points out SOMETHING you’re doing wrong. SO I’M DEFENDING MYSELF AHEAD OF TIME, OKAY?!

I’d been warned that the highway between Terrace and Jasper had been hit with snow, but that it wasn’t horrid conditions, so we took off hoping for the best. We definitely hit snow (I wasn’t passing that semi, I was parked beside it), but we never hit ice, and for that I was thankful. I had to pull over for a power nap around Fraser Lake, though, because the snowy roads were killing my will to live.

Also, I do not get cell reception between Prince George and the Alberta border, so that didn’t make me worry about getting into an accident and not being able to call for help AT ALL. I’d planned on visiting my cousin Chelsey on the way home, but with the roads the way they were, I wanted to keep our stops to a minimum to give myself as much daylight as possible.

We got to our hotel in Edmonton about an hour after the sun went down. Our last two hours of driving felt like an eternity, as I was driving 30-40 kilometres below the speed limit because of snowy roads. I don’t remember ever being so happy to see a hotel before. The kids weren’t asleep until at least 11:00 that night, because apparently being strapped in a car seat for 14 hours gives kids energy.

The plan was to meet up with Kaylie’s biological dad while we were in Edmonton, and for the first time, Liliana started to ask questions about who he is. She’s met him before, but hadn’t really put two and two together. So, I explained things to her and after she understood, she declared it “no fair” that Kaylie has another dad and she doesn’t. “But do I have two dads, too? WHY NOT?! It’s SO NOT FAIR!”

Liliana also just found out (even though she’s been told numerous times) that Auntie Erica is my sister, so, you know. Family connections blow her mind. “Grannie and Papa are YOUR PARENTS?! COOL!” She also asked my grandma if she had any little kids that she could play with. Never a dull moment with that one.

Kaylie wanted to find an Edmonton geocache, so that’s what we did after breakfast while we waited for the mall to open. We didn’t find the only one we attempted, but there was fresh snow on the ground, and that always messes things up a bit.

We walked around the mall for a bit, waiting for the World Water Park to open. The above photo of Preston trying to get into the sea lions’ cage is the only one I took the entire time we were at the mall because keeping track of three kids in a sea of a bazillion people? It’s a little stressful. Preston was in the stroller (much to his dismay) and I made it a rule that Liliana had to hold someone’s hand every second of every minute, so it went okay and we left the mall with all the people we came with.

The water park was quite fun. Liliana is TERRIFIED of waterslides, so I stayed with her and Preston in the kiddie area while Kaylie and Colin did the wave pool and the waterslides. I sat Liliana on the “beach” for a bit while I took Preston out into the wave pool and he LOVED it. Liliana had sent me out to “rescue” Kaylie and Colin because she was scared that they were going to get eaten by the waves. Her brother did not have that fear.

When we were done, I took the little ones to get some lunch while K&C headed into Galaxyland for a while. There was no way I was going to get Liliana on any rides, so I didn’t even try. Heaven forbid I MAKE her have more fun than she wants to have.

My goal was to be on the road by 3pm so we could make it to Saskatoon before dark, so we said our goodbyes and hit the road again for the final leg of our trip.

Preston celebrated our return home by staying up for ever and ever. But, after 18 days of single-parenting, I didn’t feel bad handing him off to Noah and heading to bed.

We’ve been home a week now and I still haven’t unpacked our suitcases. Maybe I should get on that.