May long weekend!

TRIP TO HAMILTON
I made a foray into the great warm south of Ontario, this weekend. It's funny, because I am from there, and not much about spring in southern Ontario should surprise me, but there I was, unable to keep from exclaiming over and over again about the incredibly lush, vibrant, green, cultivated aliveness of it all. It was SO beautiful. So what was going on ... had I forgotten it? or is this just an especially green spring for Hamilton?

I also spent some time in great conversation with a friend of mine, Andrea. We like to get together to discuss life, love, and the mysteries of the universe :). We had breakfast at our favorite breakfast place - The Pancake House - on Main Street in Hamilton (which actually gets pretty close to Dundas...). At about 10:00, Andrea glanced at the clock, and did an impressive double take. "Tricia! We've got to go!!!". It was Sunday, and we always go to church at the Meeting House after breakfast. Now, I had been checking the clock responsibly myself, and at her reaction, I chuckled. "Don't worry silly, doesn't church start at 10:30?". It was then, that I began to suspect that perhaps Hamilton was not actually having a greener spring than usual ... because the Meeting House service does not start at 10:30 ... my Sudbury church service starts at 10:30. I had forgotten. It was disconcerting ... I didn't like that 'home' was becoming a stranger that I was needing to relearn! I later went to Fortinos to pick up some food, and couldn't, for the life of me, remember the name of that very visible, trademark Hamilton/Dundas food superstore. And now I know: I've been gone for too long. I can't believe this is happening. Hamilton had been home for so long.

And here is the littlest Dundas sweetheart, Maya. I wish I had a better photograph of her ... but I wanted to stick with pictures from this trip. Nina will be sending me some of the pictures she took of the two of us blowing bubbles together in the back yard... and when she does, I will put one up here. I stayed with Nina and Bruxy this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with them at my home away from home ... or ... my real home as they would insist on putting it. Here we are in the tent in the back yard. Maya is going to grow up loving the outdoors and the hiking/camping environment - just like her mama.
Nina is heroic - parenting, and preparing for the defense of her thesis. It is an amazing thesis, and I cannot wait to get a copy of it for myself.
Calvin stayed with James, Arienne, and Nolan this weekend ... and loved it :).

Here you can see him moping in the back seat - it was time to leave. And just one more picture ... (I really was blown away at the beauty of the outdoors in Hamilton).
This is the street James and the kids live on. In the end,


itwas a perfectly lovely weekend.