She went on a trip... and bought bad fake tan

It's really nice after something big happens to get a change of scenery and space. Aurora, my 6-year-old, and I got the chance to have a girl’s weekend in Calgary. After my ectopic pregnancy experience I have really had to take it easy to heal up. That meant a lot of lying in bed! Getting out and doing something was much needed for my soul. It really got me moving more, I have two VERY active nephews and we went to a 6-year-old B-day party, I feel like it prepped me to start exercising again! Don't you love it when life makes you move instead of moving at the gym? Despite having a few set-backs here and there, my body is actually feeling quite healed up. I have booked in to get some physiotherapy next week so that I don't injure myself by pushing it, but overall feeling quite good.

                  Before                                     After                          

Before my surgery, I secretly had this fantasy that maybe one day I would have a real excuse to not workout so that I could sit on the couch guilt free. It's funny that I had the opposite feelings. I just wanted to work out! This whole non-active life style has prompted me to create coping mechanisms that make me feel better the same way that working out did. So of course, my way of coping was buying none other than a big bottle of fake tanner! Of course, who doesn't need that! For everyone who has not used the stuff, the way it smells when it comes out of the bottle, and the way it smells when its working on your skin is very different. One is a coconut and one is raw shrimp in the sun. yuck. Despite this I talked myself into thinking "maybe it's not that bad", so I did a treatment in the morning. Mid-day my boss walked into my office and asked, "Why the F*** does it smell like someone is growing a bean fart in here?" Okay - point taken! Thankfully my co-worker also just ate lunch in my office, so I could use that as the excuse for the smell. Needless to say, if I wear a tanner, I'm going to apply at night (My lucky partner!). Better yet, maybe I should just go to the beach.

Aurora and I's trip was originally supposed to be a couple days longer, but as I had just taken time off from work recovering from my surgery, I didn't think it was fair to take anymore. Adam (my partner) was going to join us too but he has started his own new and amazing journey into the world of personal training, so it was just us girls. 

Because of the timing, we had to change our flights. I was dreading changing and cancelling our flights because I am so bad at these little logistical things. Logistics are a key driver of procrastination in my books. I finally ended up calling WestJet and I have to tell you they were so amazing. The person on the phone listened to my whole story about why I had to change our flights, waived our change fee, refunded Adams flight and applied the credit to the increased cost of our new flights. I think I ended up paying under $100 dollars for everything.

Note to self: We really do have an impact in the lives of people we interact with. 

Being an amazing human really matters!

Parent Tip! If you are travelling with a child, most flight companies have a system where you can call (it’s not an online option) and they will reserve seats early free of charge. No more pre-flight planning or worrying about your seats. How awesome is that.

This is Aurora at 9 months around the time she stole that mans 
 finger and my heart.. (Haha... what this is when she started
 sleeping through the night!)

So, there we were knee’s deep in Jugo Juice bliss, bad pretzels and in-flight entertainment. Aurora is such a great flyer. We have been on flights since she was 7 weeks old. It’s very interesting to me, she views flights in the same way that I would have viewed a road trip when I was younger. I remember when she was about 9 months old I was flying to go and visit my family in Calgary. Despite all my calming efforts, Aurora cried for the first 20 mins of the flight. The sweet man beside me decided that he would try and help us out. He offered her the middle finger of his left hand to hold. We were sitting on his right-hand side - that must not have been that comfortable for him. Aurora immediately stopped crying. After a min or two, the man pulled his finger away. Aurora started crying again.... he offered his finger again... aurora stopped crying. This cycle repeated about 3 times until the man just held her finger for the rest of the flight, it was around an hour! Poor guy! (But I’m so grateful!)

Aurora and I have actually travelled a lot together - Mexico, Hawaii, Calgary (multiple times) and other places in Canada and the US. I only have one rule that I follow when travelling with kids:

"Don't EVER focus on what has gone wrong or off track, just focus on what is going right!"


And... we made it to Calgary!

The actual trip was a wild but great whirlwind! We arrived in Calgary and went to my Dad’s for dinner and later than night we went to my Mom’s. The next day we had my nephew’s birthday party and before we knew it... back to VanCity! It felt so nice to be able to just sit and be with my family.

BTW guys... I am overwhelmed with the response from my last blog, and all the love and support that has poured through the internet and social media space has been incredible. The whole point of this blog was to share more and create community. It really has been so amazing to be a part of this social shift where (like it or not) self-expression has moved from in-person to online. It's such a great way to start this blogging journey and I am so happy to have such amazing and good people along for the ride.

Thanks for reading!

Steph XX