Home Sweet Home (part 3)

As promised, i am finally getting around to posting about the last week that lil' B and i spent in VA.

My dear sweet hubby headed back to Red Lake w/out Bump and i so that we could spend some extra time w/ my family (he later on regretted this decision when Air Canada would not let us back into the country! more on that catastrophe later...)

That week Bump learned to sit up all by herself! Mummsy Dear taught her how :)

 She still prefers to stand though!

She did especially well sitting by herself in the grass. 

She enjoyed trying to eat it as well ;)

One of the highlights of that last week was getting together w/ my best childhood friends

We call ourselves "The Fearsome Foursome."

Though we are now a Sevensome :)

We met down by the river for an evening of fun and fellowship

As you can see from this picture, we were only a sixsome that evening...

but low and behold, while i was home, number seven came along!

welcome little Abigail Brenna!

i feel so blessed to have met you before coming back to Red Lake :)

 Munchy got in lots of Mummsy-time while we were home :)

as well as time w/ her aunties and uncles :)

She even got spoiled by Granddad who treated the family to Klines ice cream late one evening

a true Cline is always passionate about his/her ice cream ;)

 i was also so happy to get to spend part of an afternoon w/ my dear friend Wanda whom i worked w/ for several summers helping to take care of the flowers and parks of Bridgewater

 One afternoon Bump and i headed over to Singers Glen to see Grandpa and Grandma Sonifrank

 O how they love on her!!!!

And of course, a picture of my beautiful Shenandoah Valley: the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains :)

Now for my unfortunate story...

Let me first start of by saying, if you ever plan on flying w/ a baby, make sure you have his or her passport, even if the baby is only a day old!!!

Dave and i didn't know this little requirement for flying w a baby...apparently the person who let us fly from Thunder Bay to Toronto didn't know either because according to the customs people in Toronto, she should have never let us get on the plane. But praise the Lord, God sent us a kind young man who gave us a waiver (for free when he could have charged us nearly $800), and we were able to fly into the States. What they didn't tell us though, was that we would not be able to get back into Canada. We figured that since they let us into the States, they would let us come back home to Red Lake...not the case :(

Early Saturday morning, Rebecca dropped Brighton and i off at the airport and headed back home. I was so excited to be heading back home to my hubby! I got to the check in counter, and the lady asked for Brighton's passport. I told her that I didn't have one, but I had her birth certificate, and that Air Canada had let us fly w/ that two weeks earlier. She said she didn't know how that happened but that Brighton and i would not be flying. I broke down. She said that on Monday i could go to the Canadian embassy and they would give me a form that would let us fly then. I called Dave (who had already driven 6 hrs. to Thunder Bay to pick us up) and told him that they weren't letting us fly. Obviously there wasn't much he could do. He dropped off some scrap metal that he had taken down, and then turned around and drove 6 hrs. back to Red Lake. I then called Rebecca who turned around and came and picked Brighton and i back up. 

There wasn't much Bump and i could do until Monday, so we soaked up the time we had left w/ my family :) 

Monday morning my mom drove Munchy and i back to DC to the Canadian embassy. Air Canada had rebooked our flight for 6:00 Monday evening, so that we would have plenty of time to get the papers that we would need to fly back into Canada. We got to the Canadian embassy only to find that they wouldn't give us the papers because Dave was not present. Blow in the stomach number two! I can't even tell you how frustrating this was! They told us that our only option would be to drive across the border...no idea why you're allowed to drive across the border w/out a passport but you can't fly across the border w/out one. So once again i called Dave and told him that things weren't working out again :( We decided that our best option at this point in time was to "just" buy another plane ticket to International Falls, MN, which is 4 hrs. south of Red Lake, and Dave would come pick us up there. So we went to the airport to buy a ticket. We stood in line for close to an hour, only to learn that a ticket was going to cost us over $1000 if we purchased it directly from the airline. So i called Dave again and he left work to go see what he could find online. He found one for a little over $650, so that's what we went with...gag! As you can probably tell, this was not a cheap little venture: lots of time and gas lost driving, an unused plane ticket, and another ticket purchased! Moral of the story...get your baby a passport!

On the bright side, i was able to see one of my best friends/cousin, who drove all the way down from Delaware to have lunch w/ us while we waited for my flight :)

 love you Holly!!! thank you so much for taking the time to come see me and Bump :)

and thank you Mom and Bec for driving me to the airport BOTH times!

and thank you Dave for driving the 12 hrs. to Thunder Bay to pick me up the first time and 9 hrs. the second time when we flew into International Falls!

THE END