Never a dull moment!!

Last weekend was our trip to Banff with Cam's company. We left Calgary just after lunch and Chance slept the whole way there. We got an early check in to our hotel and then went shopping at all the little stores in Banff. Chance was very good and didn't get grabby or anything, just stood there and looked for the most part (except the store that had baskets of stuffed animals on the floor, he couldn't help himself!). We went to the Christmas Store there and let him choose an ornament, he picked out a wooden rocking reindeer. He wanted to carry it, so we let him, but in the next store (a candy store) he got excited and tripped on his snow boots and fell, dropped the ornament and one of the rockers came off. It was salvageable, so I pocketed the rocker and tried to put the ornament away, but Chance still insisted on carrying it. Fine. Next stop was the Bay, to get Cam an undershirt for his itchy turtleneck he wanted to wear to the Christmas party. While we were standing in line to pay, Chance saw a kid with caramel popcorn, it must have twigged his memory that we bought caramel popcorn at the candy store, and he started clamoring for some "pa-corn, pa-corn!" I told him to wait a minute till we were out of the store and - BAM - he pitched his poor rocking reindeer and had a tantrum right there in the store. The rocking reindeer is now just a set of legs. No rockers, no tail, no head. Oops. It is hanging on our tree just the same and I wrote "Chance 2008 - Banff" on the bottom with a Sharpie.

The party was excellent, very nice dinner and drinks, Chance was a good boy and slept for his babysitter. We went for breakfast and a walk the next day, returned back to the hotel for a nap and then took Chance swimming at the hot springs, he enjoyed it so much. Cam went out to meet some coworkers for a drink that evening and I stayed with Chance in the hotel room, lights out at 9 PM for both Mommy and Chance. Woke up and had a hotel room breakfast of oranges, bagels and apple juice and then packed up and went home. Around Lac des Arcs (near Canmore) Chance started making uncomfortable sounds, at first I thought he was just bored and so gave him a few books to read. The whining continued, so I offered him his soother, which always gets a "yes please / vigorous nod ". 30 seconds later he puked. Poor kid! We pulled over, I stripped him down and got new clothes while Cam wiped up the mess. I'm sure every vehicle that passed us pointed.

The hotel air was very dry and he has a few patches of eczema now, every night we have to rub him down with lotion and dab on his Rx cream. He is getting used to it so now we make it a game "left foot out, right foot out, etc." Wish we could say the same thing about teeth brushing...

This Friday was my company work party held at the Hyatt hotel in a beautiful ballroom. They had lots of light displays, everything was purple and teal and silver. We had a nice meal, unfortunately no chocolate for dessert. Hard to please everyone in a crowd of 2000, I guess.

Will have to post some photos later, for now it is time to get the day started. I got up at 7 to do the morning operations call on the well I am working on and no one has made a peep yet, 9 AM now. Chance will be ravenous when he wakes up, maybe will whip up some muffins or something now.