MOOOOOM DAAAYYYYY!!!

Once a month, a wonderful, beautiful, glorious day comes. It's called "Mom Day". No, not a monthly revisit of mothers day, or even breakfast in bed, or even wine in the afternoon (although that sometimes happens this holiest of days). It's a day, a WHOLE day, where the partner and I leave the all kidlets with dad and make the trek to the big city of Prince George to go shopping, all day, kid FREE!!

A 2.5 hour drive there full of adult conversation and adult radio stations, or simply the best thing ever, pure silence. Followed by leisurely meandering down racks of clothes with no little people pulling them off their hangers, or maybe a stroll through the mall, just to see whats new without someone proclaiming that they MUST HAVE! this shiny thing that makes lots of racket. No one to load in and out of the mini van except our own butts, no car seats, no snacks or diaper bag, no bathroom stops. Oh! and sweet, glorious S-t-a-r-b-u-c-k-s, droooool.

Today just happened to be one of these marvelous days. Actually it was a complete surprise! Normally we plan out mom day up to weeks in advance, figuring out exactly what we need and where to go, and picking out a new ethnic restaurant to try out because no one but us in our family appreciates food with flavour. But today just so happened to work out. The stars aligned. In our excitement we forgot pretty much everything that we typically take with us, including all our club cards. We even have a "Mom Binder" containing our itinerary, shopping lists, club cards, receipts etc. Nor did we empty out the van in order to fold down the seats to make room for all our loot! Such was the excitement we were in.

This mom day was actually rather low key compared to days past. We managed to even keep to a "reasonable" dollar figure, (in a family of 7, "reasonable" has a different definition). It's a Sunday, and  Prince George is a big town but really... its not that big. We had a really hard time finding a flippin' restaurant that was open! The whole city, it seems, shuts down on Sunday! Except for the big box stores, apparently, and fast food places. We ended up settling for a food-court-esque Japanese place in what I'm pretty sure was PG's version of a "ghetto".

As soon as we got to the restaurant, I realized it had been hours since I pee'd, so I decided to go find the ladies room. Little did I know it was in freaking Narnia. There's a door proclaiming the washrooms are behind it, its locked, I turn the dead bolt and there's a hallway with an arrow pointing down it, followed by more arrows around several other corners. I'm pretty sure this whole block was just a series of buildings all connected by this hallway, because it was huge, and there were doors with labels for other stores that we had passed by on the street. So I use the potty, finally, by now I'm all sweaty from my trek, and hopelessly turned around without even the sun or stars to navigate by (yeah right!). I eventually make it back trough the maze of hallways to find that the original dead bolted door is dead bolted again! Aaaannd I'm stuck.

Remember all those doors to other stores along the way? Remember the fact that its Sunday and everything is closed? Yeah I'm stuck stuck. Eventually I find an exit door that I'm terrified will let out this screeching "SHE"S A THIEF!" alarm as soon as I open it. It doesn't. I emerge from the alley back on the street to find that I'm down the block and around the corner from the restaurant.... Narnia,. I'm telling you.

Also I drove the wrong way down a one-way street and had a burly man in a truck yell at me.... I've obviously been living in the bush about 7 months too long.

Aside from that, it was a pretty typical Mom Day. After we unloaded all our booty at home, we settled into watch 19 Kids and Counting. Don't laugh! They honestly have some good ideas for managing large households! I watch it for educational purposes..... That led to an argument about whether the early months of our dating could technically be considered a "courtship"... Again, it was educational.

Next Mom Day we are planning on taking the whole fan-damn-ly with us the night before and getting a hotel with a pool and just having fun. Then Dad can take all the kids home with him in the morning and we can commence bliss time.

The lovely children we get to escape from :)

More things I've learned since moving to the ranch:
6) When sheep get in the garage, its only funny 'til you realized that sheep have no concept of "potty training".
7) If you're afraid of mice and you're moving to a ranch, you're going to have a bad time.