Friday
Of course the one day we want to leave the house first thing in the morning, Roman wants to sleep in. Luckily when we wake him up he isn't a total bear and was happily eating his oatmeal in no time. Once we loaded everyone up, including Bronx and Lola, we headed in Regina to drop everyone off. The first drop off was Bronx at VIP Pet Care. We use this kennel fairly often and Bronx use to go to daycare there the odd time when I was working in Regina. They are a great kennel and I highly recommend them! Lola isn't a big fan of playing with other dogs and would much rather sleep for an entire weekend so we usually send her to my parents' house with Roman.
With everyone dropped off, John and I hit the road! The drive to Estevan went by pretty quickly because we spent this time talking like adults without a certain someone screaming "money" (which means semi by the way) every three seconds. We stopped at 7-11 in Estevan for some water and a bathroom break and quite frankly I'm surprised I made it that far without having to stop. I also picked up a few bags of mini eggs since I've been mildly addicted to them lately. Those mini eggs sparked an interesting discovery. Apparently if you eat enough mini eggs your farts smell like cookies. Maybe a little TMI but I felt the need to share. Next stop, North Portal, SK!
There is something about crossing the border that always makes me feel like a criminal. Does anyone else feel like that? Just as we were rehearsing our answers to the questions that were going to be hurled at us I spotted a miniature donkey in a nearby pasture. At that moment I was totally prepared to abandon this trip all together, sneak into the field and nab that tiny donkey. That donkey was clearly better than anything I was going to find in a store in Bismarck anyway. John managed to convince me that it probably wasn't a good idea, which was likely for the best, so we continued through the border crossing. The North Portal crossing has these huge towers that the border guards are in, which is obviously handy for the semis that are crossing but not so much for passenger vehicles. Once you've cleared customs they give you this slip of paper that you then have to give to the guard as you enter the United States. Well be darned if the guy in the tower doesn't have one of those claw/pincher/grabber things like you can buy on a million infomercials to reach down and grab the paper. At first John thought he was going to pinch him but we managed to escape unscathed!
Here is something to ponder. At the border crossing we were asking if we had any fruits or vegetables with us. Not a strange question I agree, but think of this. Most of our produce comes from the U.S., so why can't we bring it back to the U.S. after they ship it to us? Food for thought!
Welcome to the USA where it looks exactly like in Saskatchewan! Driving to Bismarck isn't exactly exciting when it comes to scenery. It's a lot of farms, small towns, farm equipment and if you're lucky the odd cow. The drive between Minot and Bismarck seemed to take longer than the rest of the trip but we managed to survive and arrive in one piece, and mostly sane. I probably would have taken some pictures of the drive if there was something to see, so I guess you'll have to use your imagination.
Since we are heading home Sunday morning we didn't want to waste anytime, and immediately got to shopping! First stop was Hobby Lobby followed by Joanne's for some crafting and planner supplies. I managed to find a few good items and lucked out that most of the scrapbooking supplies were on sale 50% off! Once we concurred the craft stores we needed to take care of our hunger pains. I feel like I need to start off with a disclaimer; John and I are taking the trip to indulge and not worry about nutrition what so ever. My parents had gone to Golden Corral with my Aunt and Uncle a few years back and told us we absolutely had to go there just to see how huge it was. Huge is exactly the word I would use to describe this place. To be honest we didn't have very high hopes for the yum factor of the food but we were pleasantly surprised. Not only was there a ton of food but it was all pretty tasty! My favorites were the mac & cheese and of course the red velvet cakes. After stuffing our faces with more food than we should have, we decided to head over to Target and the Kirkwood Mall to burn some of it off. We picked up a few things at Target and I found a pair of shoes in the mall. I wasn't in the mood to look for clothes since I felt as round as a beach ball. Of course no shopping trip is complete without a trip to Wal Mart. I wanted to pick up a laminater there since they are half the price there as they are at home, and we also found a few things for Roman; like Thomas the Train socks!
By this point we were both exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel and get some much needed sleep. After all we have another day of shopping again tomorrow!
Saturday
We slept in until 7:30am!! Now this may not seem like sleeping in but to us it is! I guess it was actually 6:30 our time but even that counts as sleeping in in our books! One of the reasons we chose to stay at the Days Inn was because it had a fantastic continental breakfast! The had a chef cooking eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns and pancakes to order, toast, cereal, oatmeal and ever a waffle maker! This is a great way to save a bit of money while travelling because if you fill up at breakfast you might be able to make it to supper with just a small snack.
John has been looking at the Menards flyer since we first started talking about making the trip south. Ever since we went to Menards years ago with my parents and found BBQ sauce for $0.50 a bottle John has been obsessed. Plus where else can you buy flooring and pre-cooked ribs within two isles of each other? John found some tools that were a killer deal, a new light fixture for our kitchen, and I managed to find myself a new slow cooker since I melted the knob off of my other one. I also picked up some slow cooker liners. I've never seen these in Canada but they are genius!
After Menards we headed to Shoe Carnival followed by Old Navy. We each managed to find a pair of shoes at Shoe Carnival along with a pair of sandals for Roman. I knew Old Navy was going to be an expensive one because Roman and I both needed clothes. While we were heading back to the truck I noticed there was a Dollar Tree a few stores down. Of course I couldn't resist checking it out. Unfortunately I was really disappointed. I was surprised to find that the Dollar Tree store actually had less of a selection than our Dollar Tree in Moose Jaw! At the very least I figured they would have about the same selection. I guess there is one store that is better to shop in Canada than in the U.S.! Another store that fell short for us was Big Lots. Maybe we just had the store built up in our minds because of the commercials we've seen for it, but it wasn't nearly as good as we expected. We did a quick trip around the store and then decided to head back to the Kirkwood Mall to give it a more thorough search.
Target is very much like Wal Mart in that you intend to go in for one thing and come out with $200 worth of stuff you had no intention of buying. After going in for some clothes, we came out with clothes, makeup, red velvet and peanut butter Oreos and an inflatable pool for Roman, along with a few other things. John was getting hungry by this time so we stopped in at Grand China for some Chinese food. The buffet was just okay for me. The sesame chicken I had oddly tasted like ketchup which was a little strange, but overall it was okay. After wandering the mall for awhile I managed to find a few more clothing items and John found some phone cases for super cheap at Radio Shack since there were going out of business.
After taking a break back at the hotel we settled on Red Lobster for supper. Yes we have a Red Lobster in Regina but we don't go often so it was still a treat for us. John had surf & turf while I had the ultimate feast. I really didn't have any room for my salad, and I never thought to tell our server not to bring it, so I pawned it off on John. He was a trooper and powered through them; such a nice husband I have! I tried to remember to take pictures of our food but I didn't do a very good job, which is obvious by our lava cookie dessert. I tried to make up for it by taking a picture of the coaster that had a picture of the cookie on it. Points for effort right? The rest of the night was spent enjoying some interesting COPS episodes before taking advantage of one more child free sleep!
Today is the day we make the long trek back home and back to our baby boy! All day yesterday John and I kept seeing little kids around Roman's age and we really started to miss him. It was getting to the point where even a toddler having a meltdown made us miss him. You know you have it bad when. Granted the video Mom sent me of Roman playing with Grandpa's changes didn't help matters much.
After filling our bellies with another delicious breakfast we headed over to Dan's Supermarket to pick up some snacks for the road and something for supper. We try to leave the fridge fairly empty when we're gone for a few days so there wasn't going to be much in the house for supper tonight. We ended up with some Lunchables (mature I know) for lunch, cheese slices, water, a frozen stir fry for supper and John found some jalapeno popper chips which turned out to be angry spicy. After two chips he was coughing and sputtering. Why do men do this to themselves? By 9:00am we were on the road. Thankfully the trip North went by a little faster, but the drive between Bismarck and Minot still seemed to take forever. I don't know what it is about that drive but it is not fun.
When we finally saw the sign for Portal, ND we were both more than ready to cross back into Canada. I had all our receipts totalled and ready to hand over if need be. I've never actually had to but I figured better safe than sorry. Turns out I was right. This was the time that we were hauled into the office to have our receipts added up. I had to pee really bad so I was hopefully it would be over quickly. Wrong! After they were satisfied with our receipts they had us pull the truck into a garage where two border guards searched the entire vehicle. Not sure looking for but the didn't find anything, obviously. We were laughing that because they new I was a stay at home Mom they were probably looking to see if we had a baby walker tied to the truck's exhaust. 10 minutes later and we were on our way to Estevan and to a much needed bathroom break!
Two hours later we pulled into my parents' driveway to reunite with our handsome little man, and of course our fuzzy little poodle. An hour after that we picked up Bronx at the kennel. Apparently he was an angel and had a great time with the "crazy and flaily" dogs. Crazy and flaily are definitely two words that I would use to describe Bronx. By 4:00pm we were back home. There is something so instantly peaceful about walking through your own front door, even after only a few days. John and I weren't exactly looking forward to unloading the truck but we managed to get it done in record time. Partly because Roman and Bronx seemed to miss each other so much that neither of them really cared what was going on in the house as long as they could play together.
This was the first time John and I have spent any significant time together away from Roman. Usually when we spend time away from Roman it's so that we can finish some sort of project; like painting the house. It was so nice to take a break from being John & Kendra the parents and be John & Kendra the couple. This was definitely a much needed trip for us and we will not be waiting near as long for the next trip. Of course this trip would not have been possible, or the same, if it weren't for my parents. We are so thankful that they were willing to sacrifice sleep and sanity to look after our little monster!
If you would like to see a post of clothes or planner supplies I picked up in Bismarck please comment below and I'll hop right on it!
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