MM Blog 4/6: Hello from Whistler, Canada
Greetings from (in my opinion) one of the most beautiful places in the world, British Columbia, Canada. We are on our spring break vacation with the kids in Whistler, Canada. We first visited Whistler 2 years ago and decided to come back again this year (and if you know me, that means I really like it, as I don't like going back to the same place over and over again...with so many other things to see in the world).
Getting here had the normal craziness before a vacation. Where should I start??? Let's start at work. I could not have had a more nuts 24 hours before I left. One of my key projects has a big update at the end of the month with our Group President. Let's just say it is crunch time, move forward and take some big risks, or just shut it down. On Friday I was preparing a presentation to do the latter all day long. I felt bad, even my team didn't know the final decision, but I had to get it out before I left. Unfortunately I have a pre-call tomorrow with some key business leaders to get them aligned before the 21st. Even when I left I was waiting for one last slide. That last slide made my morning this morning crazy, as dealing with wireless in a hotel, not being able to get on my work server and so on led to me sending the presentation to my finance counterpart via my yahoo email account and him sending the email out....all before 7am Whistler time.
The other "work" related nightmare was my passport. Saturday afternoon Arnie asked me where my passport was, I very casually said in my briefcase, where it always is (dughh). Then at 10 pm when I went to get it, it wasn't there. Panic set in. We were flying into Seattle but would need it to cross the border. I tried so hard to remember when I last had it. Did I bring it to NY with me last month? No, didn't think so. Where could it be. Finally it dawned on my that my admin had taken it to get a Visa to go to China in February. Then we cancelled our trip, but I wasn't sure I had gotten it back. Thank god I had her cell phone. She was 99% sure she had never given it back to me and it was in her files at work. She also hides a key so I could get into her desk. So at 10:45 pm I set out to drive the 25 minutes to the office, entered and got my passport. That meant I went to bed at midnight and had to get up at 6:15...ughhh, the day of lots of travel.
Arnie and I were pretty on top of the packing. No real nightmares on that front. We didn't bring car seat, which was a miss. We should have just brought them onto the plane, but we forgot and had thought they would charge us the extra luggage huge fee. In hindsight we could have had them sit in them on the plane. Extra money out the door with the rental car company, but no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The other big news is my son lost his first teeth. He had a couple of loose ones in the front bottom. But then he got hit pretty hard at hockey on Saturday and that really made them loose. He ended up losing them both on the plane ride out. The flight attendants couldn't believe it, nor could he. He was smart enough to ask me to bring a sandwich bag in case he did lose them on vacation, so they were in a safe place...always thinking that kid.
Yesterday was a long day, up at 6:15, leave for airport at 7am, get to Seattle at 10:30 am their time, get rental car then drive 6 hours north to Whistler. Hit traffic in Seattle, at the border and in Vancouver, on a Sunday! Needless to say it took longer than we expected but the kids were troopers. We had them in bed by 8pm, and Ben was up at 3:30 am (of course his normal time up at home...6:30) and tonight they all fell asleep before 7pm with a long day of skiing in them. I guess it is the normal debate do you keep them on 'their" time or make them adjust to the time difference. So far they are sticking to Cincinnati time and we will make due I guess. Tomorrow we will try to have them nap when we get home at 4pm from the mountain, and before going swimming...that make help us get a little more in sync with local time.
Well, I am tired (yes it is 8:15pm out here) and need to shower. Think about Whistler for a future vacation, you will get a first hand look when the Olympics are here next February.
Getting here had the normal craziness before a vacation. Where should I start??? Let's start at work. I could not have had a more nuts 24 hours before I left. One of my key projects has a big update at the end of the month with our Group President. Let's just say it is crunch time, move forward and take some big risks, or just shut it down. On Friday I was preparing a presentation to do the latter all day long. I felt bad, even my team didn't know the final decision, but I had to get it out before I left. Unfortunately I have a pre-call tomorrow with some key business leaders to get them aligned before the 21st. Even when I left I was waiting for one last slide. That last slide made my morning this morning crazy, as dealing with wireless in a hotel, not being able to get on my work server and so on led to me sending the presentation to my finance counterpart via my yahoo email account and him sending the email out....all before 7am Whistler time.
The other "work" related nightmare was my passport. Saturday afternoon Arnie asked me where my passport was, I very casually said in my briefcase, where it always is (dughh). Then at 10 pm when I went to get it, it wasn't there. Panic set in. We were flying into Seattle but would need it to cross the border. I tried so hard to remember when I last had it. Did I bring it to NY with me last month? No, didn't think so. Where could it be. Finally it dawned on my that my admin had taken it to get a Visa to go to China in February. Then we cancelled our trip, but I wasn't sure I had gotten it back. Thank god I had her cell phone. She was 99% sure she had never given it back to me and it was in her files at work. She also hides a key so I could get into her desk. So at 10:45 pm I set out to drive the 25 minutes to the office, entered and got my passport. That meant I went to bed at midnight and had to get up at 6:15...ughhh, the day of lots of travel.
Arnie and I were pretty on top of the packing. No real nightmares on that front. We didn't bring car seat, which was a miss. We should have just brought them onto the plane, but we forgot and had thought they would charge us the extra luggage huge fee. In hindsight we could have had them sit in them on the plane. Extra money out the door with the rental car company, but no big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The other big news is my son lost his first teeth. He had a couple of loose ones in the front bottom. But then he got hit pretty hard at hockey on Saturday and that really made them loose. He ended up losing them both on the plane ride out. The flight attendants couldn't believe it, nor could he. He was smart enough to ask me to bring a sandwich bag in case he did lose them on vacation, so they were in a safe place...always thinking that kid.
Yesterday was a long day, up at 6:15, leave for airport at 7am, get to Seattle at 10:30 am their time, get rental car then drive 6 hours north to Whistler. Hit traffic in Seattle, at the border and in Vancouver, on a Sunday! Needless to say it took longer than we expected but the kids were troopers. We had them in bed by 8pm, and Ben was up at 3:30 am (of course his normal time up at home...6:30) and tonight they all fell asleep before 7pm with a long day of skiing in them. I guess it is the normal debate do you keep them on 'their" time or make them adjust to the time difference. So far they are sticking to Cincinnati time and we will make due I guess. Tomorrow we will try to have them nap when we get home at 4pm from the mountain, and before going swimming...that make help us get a little more in sync with local time.
Well, I am tired (yes it is 8:15pm out here) and need to shower. Think about Whistler for a future vacation, you will get a first hand look when the Olympics are here next February.
posted by Millennium Mom at
8:01 PM
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