five days away

 

We all grew up a lot this month!  I spent five whole days away from D and Jack, when I went to Montreal for work.  The things I worried about didn’t happen and we all did fine with the separation, but I’m really glad work travel is rare for me.

It was fun to see colleagues from a few years ago and, of course I learned some important things (and some things I should learn more about).   The industry is pretty small, so there were representatives from my time in undergrad, grad school and previous jobs, all mingling together.

 

There wasn’t time for tourism, but I got to see one friend for dinner who gave D a great Montreal souvenir - a “Bonjour Hi” drool bib.

I found myself with a much greater appreciation of Montreal’s famous underground than I ever remember having during my years there.  Perhaps that was because my hotel connected to it directly, unlike the places I lived, so I could actually walk around a bit and buy some Smarties without a coat!

 

Two houses, dissimilar in size (and in dignity?)

Cari, D and I were able to go on Saturday to an open house of a project I'd done at work- a very large, expensive spec house with. Good views of lake Washington. This afforded us the opportunity to tromp up and down the stairs and lean on the railings, and imagine what the stairs may be like in our future house (since we will have so many). Also to show D off to some of the people I work with.

We were also excited to finally get an estimate back for our house this weekend (from the same GC that had built the open spec house). Inching slowly forward!

and they said it would rain…

 

Today D and I took in the St Patrick’s day parade.  Attendance was sparse, perhaps because of the wet weather forecast, but we had a great time.  A parade is the perfect place for a 10-month-old to practice his charming wave!

D agreeably wore his ear protection which I felt good about amid the drums, semi truck horns and marching bands.

The wind was fierce, making the fur on the Irish setters flow like the flags and banners of the various groups.  I always enjoy seeing the setters and the wolf hounds, but this year I was most impressed by a group of human performers, namely a group of about 40 kids on unicycles.  The youngest looked to be 8 or 9 and some were even on the tall kind of cycles!

On our walk home, this handsome gent agreed to be in a picture. 

Lastly, by having my camera in hand I was able to snap a picture of one of the elusive and elite downtown cat-walkers.  In case it’s hard to visually parse, this is a cat watching a parade, on the shoulders of his fur-hatted companion.