Canada

Scott had an ABCT conference in Toronto, Canada 2 weeks ago and I got to come with him! Natalie came with us, and we had some great alone time with her. Traveling there was difficult with the different curve balls that came our way. We had to park in the international terminal, which meant we had a long walk to check in. Our bag was over the weight limit, which would have cost us $100 to check, so we pulled things out and added them to our carry-on bags. When we arrived in Chicago we were 10 minutes too late to our next gate because of the hour-long wait in San Francisco because the windshield wipers were being fixed. After temporarily losing our vouchers for food, transportation, and hotel over-night, we found them and got to our hotel on our own dime since we were too late for the shuttle. Seriously!
The food was dull, the pool was closed for remodeling, and the weather was...Canadian! How about that!
Well, I guess it shows what a great husband Scott is, because we just had a good time anyway! He made some good connections and felt rejuvenated regarding some research ideas.
Natalie drew a lot of oohs and aahs from fellow travelers and people attending the conference. She was so cute. It was fun to have people sigh and look at us and ask, "Is this your first?" Their dreamy mood was shaken when we told them we had seven, actually. :) They literally had to take a minute to register that. It was actually pretty funny to be so shocking so regularly on the trip. Scott's book, "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids," an amusing title and a recommended book from the podcast "Freakonomics," says that in 1970 20% of women had 5 or more kids. I thought that was interesting. The book discusses why we don't enjoy parenting and how we can enjoy it more. It's refreshing to hear good reasons why not to stress over so much in child rearing.