A whirlwind tour of the nation's capital

I'm back after my longish weekend in Ottawa, sans kids or husband. It was fun but fast and tiring. I accomplished everything I set out to do. I also came home with an aching back after driving there and back on my own, with my pregnant belly sitting leisurely on my hips and lower back for five hours each way.

I spent most of my weekend with my good friend Meredith who, although she refused to let me eat until 10:00 pm on Friday, still gets the big kudos for letting me drag her around all weekend looking for our things in storage, in our basement and then helping me to buy a fridge.

We found almost all of the baby stuff I was looking for save for half of the baby monitor set and my Ergo baby carrier. Clearly I found these near the end of our move and just shoved them in unmarked boxes somewhere.

I'm very happy with the fridge I got. It is decidedly larger than the previous antique that is dying a slow death in our kitchen in Ottawa. The new one is 20 cubic feet, very suitable for a family of 5 (!) but still able to fit in the space we have available, standard freezer on top and Energy Star so we should see a nice drop in the hydro bill after the existing energy-sucking beast is removed.

I ate my fill of shawarma on the weekend, spent some nice time with my brother-in-law and his wife (I never know what to call her - she isn't really my sister-in-law then is she? I just call her Cibele). I had dinner with Pam and Jim and kids and sat around talking until my contact lenses were begging to be removed and I also visited the knitting store that I really like. Not to mention that I bought a new battery for the car and had Meredith's husband, Ron, and Meredith's dad install it for me. I'm good like that.

To top the weekend off, on Monday I visited the new T&T Supermarket - a monster Asian grocery store recently opened near our house - and swooned over everything. I will be shopping there frequently in the years to come. From there I went to our school and registered Hope and Emily for the fall. Emily's teacher from last year (and Hope's for the coming year) Mrs. B, gave me a big hug and told me how much she missed us all and how excited she is that we're coming back. I got a similar reception from Mme C, Emily's French teacher. Now that's a school where I want to hang my hat. It's a wonderful example of what a community school is all about.

I really love Ottawa and I'm glad we're going back at the end of the summer. I miss our house, I miss our friends, I miss the school and our neighbourhood. I miss the entirety of what Ottawa is - the people enmass, the draw people have to be outside no matter the weather, the canal, the buildings, just the placeness of it.

And yet I was so happy to pull into our Waterloo driveway yesterday and hug the three people inside the house. I missed them so much. Home is wherever they are.