Ups and Downs

I had meant to write about our February Break family getaway right when we got back, but events took place that made me need to wait and calm down before losing my cool over the internet. So bear with me, I am still a bit angry...

For last week's February School Break, our family headed out to see my cousin Jenn get married in Canmore Alberta. Back in November when we first found out that Jenn and Jordan had decided to get married in the mountains, Roland and I decided we would also scoot up to Edmonton for a few days after the wedding. We had been talking about doing this ever since we got custody of Brayden. We thought it would be fun to head to West Ed for the Waterpark, rides, and a bunch of shopping considering he had never had the opportunity before.

Canmore was absolutely beautiful. It was great going with the two Saskatchewan boys that had never been in the mountains "Look at how big THAT one is", "That one goes way up into the clouds!"... these are statements I heard along the way, but I can't remember who said what. They were both completely mesmerized. I remember feeling like that when my family went skiing when I was in grade 12. It was weird that the sky was only UP when you were right in the thick of the mountains at a ski resort. Although we didn't go quite that far in this time, it was still fabulous to hear how excited they were. We will definitely be going back to ski when the kids are a bit older.

View from our hotel room. Unfortunately, it was a bit foggy that day, you can barely see the bigger mountains in the background. Good enough for a couple of Saskatchewan boys ;)

The wedding was a great time. They had an outdoor ceremony, and it wasn't too cold, but it was snowing the whole time. Such a perfect setting for a winter wedding. The food was great and the party was fun. Hanging out with family I haven't seen in years was also great. We were totally pooped by the end of our night, which was at about 10:00, because Rosalie got really cranky, but that's ok, I think we were all a bit tired.

I got her shoes, tights, and diaper hider off before she rolled over and passed out like this. She is out COLD.

Monday morning we left Canmore on our way to Edmonton. Brayden has been talking about going to Edmonton for months and he wasn't disappointed. I think if he had it his way, we would have gone to the waterpark every day. He could go on every slide in the park except for the ones that drop straight down, and the Cyclone, which is the new slide that drops you straight down and then goes in a loop so that you are almost upside-down. Roland and I went on that one twice, although Roland almost didn't do it. I guess I have the more guts out of the two of us ;). Rosalie even got to go on a little slide with me, but I think she was actually happier just splashing around in the kiddie pool.

The day before heading to the waterpark, we all got our geek on at the Telus World of Science. We had tickets to an Exhibition called Star Wars Identities, which is a travelling exhibition where you build your own Star Wars character throughout the tour and see costumes, puppets, sets, concept art, and other memorabilia from all of the Star Wars movies. It was a bit of an effort to NOT go broke in the giftshop. We also caught an IMAX movie while we were there. Brayden had never been to one before. We had the choice of three films; one called The Flight of the Butterflies, which Roland had absolutely no interest in seeing; Hubble, which was narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and was (obviously) about the Hubble Space Telescope, I'm sure it would have had some amazing pictures of space; and the one we went to, which was called Rocky Mountain Express, which was all about the CPR's development into the Rockies. It was perfect considering that we had just come from the mountains. VERY interesting movie, although I am sure that most of the IMAX films are. I can't think of a single one I have seen that I can say I didn't like.

It was an extremely busy few days. We shopped until we dropped and slept until the mini dictator informed us it was time to get up. We were exhausted every day, but I think that's a sign of a great vacation. We were definitely never bored, and we filled our time sufficiently. It was the perfect amount of time to be away from home, and we were glad to be on the road to come back home...

Until...

Brayden's mother called us. Guh.

Brayden's mother has not even seen him since last May. Almost a year. 9 months if you want to get technical. But she called just as we were filling the truck with gas to come home. She stated that this was her weekend and she wanted to come pick Brayden up...

Now, some might think this was a mighty big coincidence that she would all of a sudden want to pick him up on the very weekend we were out of town, but that is not the case. Her parents facebooked Brayden to call them on Saturday night (they never call us, just leave messages on Facebook on weekends which sometimes Brayden doesn't get until Monday), when we were just getting ready to go to bed in Canmore. Brayden informed them we were out of town until Friday, when we get back from Edmonton. They asked him to call when he got home, he said he would. Then TA-DA! The freakin' mother of the year wants to see her son when she KNOWS we won't be back in town yet. We told her so and said we would be back in town at about 10pm and she was more than happy to pick him up then. Brayden was a bit excited to go, so that was fine with us.

About an hour and a half away from being home (North Battleford for anyone that wants a geographic reference), she calls again and wants to pick him up at 9:00 rather than 10:00. It was about 8:15 at the time, so there was NO way that she could pick him up then, but called just to make a fight. She was talking to Brayden on Roland's Cell phone, until we said it wouldn't work and then she insisted on being put on speakerphone so she could talk to Roland.

What followed was not pretty.

Her and Roland shouted at each other over the phone for about the next 20 minutes. She spouted lies about calling every weekend purposely so that Brayden would hear, when she has in fact not called since the summer, at a time when clearly Brayden would not be awake, to tell us that she would not be taking him for her allotted two weeks and we should stop expecting her parents to see him (at that point, they would call to see him on her weekends, that stopped after that conversation). She also attempted to blame Roland for withholding Brayden from her, which is not true, he knows he can ask to call whenever he wants, but never wants to. When we told her that she can pick him up at 10:00, which she was fine with a few hours before, she said she was then going to keep him until 10:00 on Sunday night, to which Roland stated she couldn't because he has school the next morning. And her response "I don't care. It's MY TIME." Good that she would put her son's best interests before her own petty bullshit.

The other kicker is that she was demanding it was her weekend, but it actually wasn't if you counted back to when her first weekend after the summer was supposed to be according to the court order. But we didn't even mention that until she completely lost her cool on us and her main argument became "It's my weekend! You shouldn't have taken him anywhere!"... even though she hasn't seen him or showed any interest in seeing him since last May... right... And she still claimed it was her weekend after we proved that it, in fact, wasn't.

So all in balance, right? A wonderful perfect family vacation is ruined by a sociopathic cow...