O i love Canada

i almost contemplated giving up my Canadian citizenship a few weeks ago when my passport application got rejected for the second time. by  a few weeks ago- i mean last week. yup. i traveled to Canada sans passport. craziness. fortunately we bought our plane tickets to buffalo, new york, and then drove across the border. so i was able to get in to Canada with my citizenship card. awesomeness. and HOPEFULLY i will be able to cross back into America with my permanent resident card, but we'll see for sure next sunday...

anyway, for those of you who prayed for our travels on Saturday- the Lord heard, and processed all of your prayers! we almost missed our flight- we were at the wrong terminal ;( almost an epic failure. almost. but God managed to get us to our gate 5 minutes before they closed the doors, and he also managed to delay our flight an additional hour so that we could go to the bathroom, get some water, and really get ready for our 3 and a half hour flight. us being kinda late ended up saving me a LOT of strife because they had already boarded half of the plane and then ended up taking everyone off and getting us a different plane. if i had been on that plane with my kids and all of our stuff, i would have been really really annoyed. instead i was on the outside and i was elated. yay blessings!

and when i had looked at my itinerary earlier in the week, i was irked by the fact that i had a 3 hour layover in Chicago, but because we left phoenix late, our layover in Chicago did not feel too long, and it also allowed me to not feel even remotely anxious about the possibility of missing our connection had our stopover been shorter. more blessings!!

and even though mia is my little miss independent, she was SO GOOD on the plane and i didn't even have to drug her. all three of the kids were exceptionally awesome, even though i didn't have a single movie or tv playing. that's all the grace of God and YOUR prayers folks!!!!!!

I've been in Toronto for three days and have already seen three of my bffs. i met my future sister-in-law- and she is a GEM. my kids LOVE her already, and topher thinks she is very pretty :) she already loves my kids too, so i would say things are off to a great start for all of us already!
tonight i went out for ice cream with my four siblings and her, and it was simple wonderful bliss. it's been at least two years since we have all been together in one place.

lily, topher, and sungu go to science camp at the science center from 9-4 every day this week, so we have been having a relaxing and wonderful vacation filled with good food, good friends, good learning, and great family. the weather is a bit hot for my liking, but it's still better than being in Arizona right now :)

i do miss my christobear (but not Maurice) though, but he has been hanging out with his friends and living it up- even while hanging out with other people's kids. he will be joining us on sunday morning and we are all excited about that. please pray for him cause he will have a one hour layover in Philadelphia, and hopefully he will make that!