Road Trip

Last Friday I posted a picture of myself. I was feeling kinda boring and awful. My wife had told me earlier in the day that we were going to have wake up early to go out to Kemptville to see a specialist on some kind of brain balance strategy techniques and related treatments that we might want to use for our autism spectrum son. She’d gotten a friend to loan us the car for the day and my mother to watch the kids overnight so that we’d be able to make an earlier appointment that had just opened up.

Saturday morning my wife told me I needed to shower and picked out my clothes for me. Always good to make a nice impression when meeting a new doctor. We hit the road a little early so we could stop for breakfast.

(Sunrise Outside of Starbucks, Photo by Trisha Turner)

Me: Wow, this car seems really new for someone to lend out.

Her: Yeah, I think they must be rich.

We hit Starbucks and I didn’t mention that we might not want to eat in someone else's clean new car because it was early and I didn’t want to start a thing. I got a doughnut to go along with my triple-grande-vanilla-latte because I’d suggested we stop at Tim’s and get doughnuts and my wife had given me a look and taken us to Starbucks instead. When it turned out that Starbucks had doughnuts I couldn’t NOT get one at that point. It was a glazed old-fashioned one and they warmed it up for me and it was delicious.

My wife had ensured that I brought my tablet and book because it’s a long trip out to Kemptville. Reading and playing on my tablet and talking to my wife I didn’t notice we’d driven past Kemptville until I saw the bridge to the USA. My wife tried to tell me that Kemptville was in the USA and this was the first of her lies that I didn’t believe. Clearly we were headed to the USA for some reason she wasn’t telling me… Oh wait… this weekend is my cousin’s sixteenth annual Horror Movie Viewing Marathon (Sweet Sicksream… also it’s less of a Horror Movie Viewing Marathon now that he is married and has kids… more of a Hallowe'en Party and Fall Movie Event).

( Header my cousin posted for the Facebook Event, Photo By Alistair Da)

So, no appointment, the car was a rental, grandma’s got the kids until Sunday and we’re heading down to Rochester for the day. She’d planned it all secretly with my cousin’s wife so my presence was going to be a surprise for my cousin too.

This was mostly a “my wife got me good” post but I can’t leave you hanging so the rest is going to be me describing what we did.

First off… the road trip was lovely. I forgot how nice road trips could be when you don’t have kids complaining the entire time or trying to insinuate themselves into our conversation. I think we may have had extra conversation because my wife was trying to keep me distracted from the road signs telling me I was approaching the border. It’s odd that forcing yourself to come up with things to talk about kinda opens up the channels. Also, I’ve been enjoying reading Jenny Lawson’s new book ( http://thebloggess.com/furiously-happy/ ) and it was nice to read in a comfortable front seat of a rented car instead of a mostly metal bus bench.

We got into town and had lunch as a lovely not-so-little all-you-can-eat sushi place ( http://www.osakasushiroc.com/ ). We both ordered a shrimp tempura bento from the “not-all-you-can-eat” menu… which was good because neither of us even finished it so “all-you-can-eat” would have been less food than we got by getting a meal.

I don’t think they know what “bento” means because each meal included miso soup, a side salad, a bowl of rice, four tempura jumbo shrimp, a collection of tempura vegetables (mushroom, broccoli, eggplant, zucchini, and sweet potato… I think), four gyoza, and six pieces of sushi (crab roll… I think)... that’s like two bentos worth of food to me… maybe it’s me who doesn’t know what “bento” means.

Next we drove over to my cousin’s place and surprised him… he didn’t freak out too much but seemed glad to have extra hands around to help set up all the activities in the backyard. I think my uncle’s family have gotten burned out on surprises because my uncle is really into surprising people… like “surprise! we kept our baby secret until after it was born! again!” class surprises… so “cousin I didn’t expect to has shown up for my party” doesn’t really rate.

For the kiddo’s there were quite a few activities (it rained just a little bit but no so much as to ruin the fun).

Setting Up

Skeleton Digging: A Sandbox with plastic skeletons buried in it.

The Maze: Caution Tape Maze/Obstacle Course, Tent With Red Christmas Lights and Ghost Balloons and Dead End, Plank Bridge etc.

Monster Can Throw: Throwing Tennis Balls at Decorated Cans

Pin the Eye on the Monster

Train Rides (Not Spooky... unless Thomas the Tank engine freaks you out)

A fire

Pumpkin Bowling (Bowling with pumpkins as balls... not as pins)

(Bean Bag Toss, Photo By Trisha Turner) 

(Fireplace, Photo By Trisha Turner) 

(Front Yard, Photo By Trisha Turner) 

(Ghost Balloons, Photo By Trisha Turner) 

There was also a spooky snack food competition. From memory there were (not a complete list): 

(Vampire Coffee
Photo by Trisha Turner)

(Broken Glass Cupcakes
Photo by Trisha Turner)

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes

Giant Gizmo Cookie

Vampire Coffee (in edible chocolate mugs)

Chocolate Pretzel Eyeballs

Chocolate Covered Spaghetti Monsters

Mulled Apple Cider With Floating Shrunken Heads

Baked Pretzel Stakes with Garlic sauce or Silver icing.

Someone also brought a bunch a totally non-spooky assortment of fried stuffed chinese wonton things from their family restaurant. They weren’t as pretty as the bloody broken glass cupcakes or the vampire coffee but they were delicious.

(Photo by Keith Davis)

Eventually we came in from the backyard for movie watching. These things used to be an all night movie marathon but now it’s just four movies on two screens. One room had “kid friendly” movies like Adam’s Family and Monster’s University while the other had “grown up” movies. My wife and I secured the love-seat in the “grown up” movie room. We watched: Gremlins, Dark Skies, What We Do in the Shadows, and Housebound… and then it was after midnight so we went to bed.

I had eaten too much of something my gallbladder didn’t like so I woke up just before 7 am with “angry insides” but it was the kind that a couple painkillers and an rice-bag clears up so I was pretty much OK except for a slight queasiness by the time everyone else woke up. Driving home I slept almost all the way to the border.

That was pretty much it. To summarize; my wife is awesome though suspiciously good at lying to me, my cousin throws a great spooky-movie-viewing-event, and I have a new profile photo.