Back to our stomping grounds...

We spent this past weekend in North Vancouver where we lived for almost two years before moving here to Walnut Grove. My parents went away for the weekend and we stayed at their house to take care of their dog Penny. Ian loves Penny. When we talk about Pappa and Grammi's house he brings up the "puppy". So on Friday we packed up a lot of stuff for the kids and set off for the North Shore. First we went shopping and Rob bought a bunch of stuff that makes him happy, but I'll talk about that later because it really deserves it's own post. Due to our unfortunate timing Ian didn't really nap, just a snooze in the car and not nearly as long as he usually gets. So the first night was a little rough for Ian, different room and bed and Rob ended up sleeping a good portion of the night with him, but that wasn't so bad since they had a queen size bed, which left me on my own in the other queen size bed (which I had to share with Rob the next night while Ian got a big bed to himself, ha ha). And Jayden slept fabulously in the bassinet that they have, which was the bassinet that I slept in as a baby, and was silent and still from 11pm to 5:30am, and then right back to sleep again until 9. Ian on the other hand awoke at 7am. Needless to say I was really looking forward to nap time.
It's really funny how a young child can have a bad nights sleep, be up early, and yet have seemingly boundless energy throughout the day. How does that happen? So on Saturday Penny Puppy was a little mopey, stopped eating, and spent the majority of her time in another room from us or laying in front of the front door. It's difficult to say whether she was really missing my parents or if Ian was just a little too much for her. Because to be honest, Ian was a little too much for all of us...well, too much for me, since Jayden was super good and slept a lot (I believe he sympathised and was trying to be easy on me), and Rob was gone almost the entire day doing a variety of errands. Ian wasn't being bad, just...hmmmm, well just being a toddler I guess. He spent a fairly good portion of the day, in fact almost the whole day, running through the main floor of the house and screaming. Running on hardwood floors (thump thump thump), and screaming (screeching, high pitched squeeling). But he was obviously doing it in an exhuberant happily joyful way. But a person can only take so much joy, especially if it's really really loud joy. Ian did nap, despite losing his soother (which trying frantically to find before nap time only added to my frustration), but for less than two hours which translated into about an hour nap for me. Normally that would have been great, but I had so been hoping for more. In the afternoon we even went outside, I was hoping Ian could burn some energy running and screaming in the backyard. Ian has endless energy, he just keeps going, and I swear I did not feed him any sugar at all. Rob got back around six, in time for baths and bedtime, and my sanity had time to recover. Ian went down great and had a really good night sleep. Jayden was done nursing and asleep by 11 and so was I. Rob went out to Langley to play hockey and I woke breifly when he got back around 1:30. Jayden woke to feed at 5am, and then Ian woke us up at 8. Soooo much better.
We went to Cove Community Church on Sunday and it was really nice to see the folks there again. I do have to say that I miss it. I was really beginning to put down some soul roots in that church, but driving all that way from Langley really is very impractical.
All in all it was a nice weekend. My parents have a beautiful, large, comfortable house. Ian had a blast playing with the dog. And visiting the Cove again was nice. Even though I really miss living in North Van I would not trade it for my house. And coming home is always so nice.