Busy Weekend in Bowmanville

What a busy weekend!  That's my only complaint with going to Bowmanville, we seem to have so much to squeeze into such a short time.  We tried out Grandma's new GPS and headed to Auntie B's office (my old office).  Everyone was surprised and glad to see Ella.  We haven't been to the office since Ella was in the stroller.  I can't believe how everyone has aged!!  I guess it's not been good times in the stock market the last 7 years.  It was really nice to see my friends again, there sure are a lot of new faces.  My good friend was off Thursday, which was disappointing.  It cost us $20 to park downtown (just over an hour).  We stayed at Belinda and Stefan's house.  Uncle Stefan works for Elections Ontario and had to be away -Ella was very unhappy about that.  I don't know where Ella has come up with this face from, but it's appearing in more and more pictures lately  :)

Friday we just sort of hung around Belinda's house, after running a couple of errands.  We headed to Great Grandma's in the afternoon.  We had a small family party for Belinda and Ella.  It's hard to believe Belinda is 36.  I don't feel old -how can my little sister be that old? 

A couple Aunts and Uncles came by.  The one family was sick so thankfully stayed home.  Ella was very happy, she got a new pair of ballet slippers -her old ones were getting tight, but they are so expensive.   A special surprise for Ella, Uncle Stefan was able to get back from Ottawa/Brockville in time to catch the last half hour of the party.  Ella was so happy to see Uncle Stefan.  Momma was happy because she didn't have to drive Auntie Belinda back to Scarborough at night (I'm not comfortable driving in Scarborough/Toronto).

Saturday we met up with my girlfriend Charlynne, we've been friends since before kindergarten.  Unfortuately Corry (my friend since Brownies) was working and couldn't come, it was her b-day today too.  We met up at East Side Mario's and had a great time.  Charlynne brought her husband Andrew and her parents (Gregory too of course).  Grandma came with us and so we all had a really nice visit.  Ella likes seeing her friend 'Geggy'.  Gregory will be 7 in the fall, but gets along well with Ella.  I think it's because he's in Montessori school, not public school.

After lunch we headed over to the museum's family centre (the old library).  They have a great display up for Girl Guide's 100th Anniversary I remember going to the 75th anniversary celebration, how did we get to 100 already.  Charlynne was largely responsible for most of the displays.  Needless to say I'm in a lot of the pictures too  :)  Not too many pictures from the 'old days' didn't have the two of us in them.  We were both rather shy and so did everything together.  The kids had fun playing in the old tents.  These are almost like the tents we started camping in, except that ours had canvas floors not wooden ones.  They still had that canvas tent smell -lol.
The kids (and Andrew) built a tower of Girl Guide cookies, well the boxes anyway.  They did a good job, I didn't think they would get it as high as they did.  We spent a good couple hours at the library.  Then we said our goodbyes and we headed over to the big Chapter's -Momma can't pass up the opportunity to rummage around a big book store.  Ella doesn't mind either because they have Thomas the Train set to play with in the kid's section (and a chair for Grandma).

Sunday we headed home, but first we stopped by Grandpa Jim and Grandma Linda's house.  Unfortunately, we couldn't go until 3 because Linda was working.  But it was Grandpa Jim's 65th birthday on Tuesday so we went for a visit.  Ella has such fun playing with their two King Charles spaniels -they exhaust each other  :)  We ended up going out for supper so we had a very late drive home.  It's 3 hours from Peterborough to home.  We got home just about 11pm. 


All in all a really good weekend.  And after today's board meeting, that should be the end of the craziness.  I'll be able to stay home and get some work/sewing done.