I'm baa-aackkk!

Well, I have been back for almost a week now, but am just NOW getting a chance to sit down and blog! 

I've got a lot of ground to cover so I'll split it up over a few days, to spare you the boredom... :)

I arrived back in Windsor at around 1:30pm on  Tuesday.  And then proceeded to sleep for the rest of the afternoon til about 7:30 pm, waking up briefly to see the kids after they got home from school!  I also slept through most of Wednesday and Thursday too!  I was exhausted, having had to get up at 3:30 am to make it to the airport for my 6:00 am flight home, in addition to all of the late nights in SK.

Okay, I hear all of you Westerners giggling...What could you possibly be doing in Saskatchewan til the wee hours of the morning??

You'd be surprised. :)

No, no, no... nothing like that!  I think it started with the sleep deprivation when I went to bed at 11:00 pm last Wednesday and got up at 3:00 am for my 6:10 am flight to SK. 

I woke right up though, when I saw, er, rather HEARD, the plane for the first leg of my journey from Windsor to Toronto!  It was a tiny propeller plane that made so much noise that I constantly checked out the window for the 50 minute flight to make sure that it wasn't on fire!

I'm glad to report that I arrived safely at Pearson International Airport without incident and proceded to the other end of Terminal One (from Gate 3 to Gate 141) with time to spare.  I spied a Starbucks cafe right next to my gate and decided that my stomach couldn't stand the additional six or seven hours until I landed in SK.

I probably could have convinced it to wait by just showing them my Starbucks receipt:

$12.35

Yep.  TWELVE dollars and thirty-five cents.  For a grande (whatever that is - medium?) Peppermint Mocha coffee, a vanilla almond biscotti and a pack of Starbucks gum.

Yep.  Starbucks gum.


photo via www.gumalert.com

Now before you label me as one of those hoity-toity brand-name dropping girlies, let me just say, in my defense, that I had forgotten to pick up my regular non-assuming Trident gum for the plane ride.  AND my ears popped like crazy on the short flight from Windsor to TO.

But enough of the $2.95 gum... *rolls eyes*

I boarded the plane and was seated next to a gentleman who could have easily been mistaken for a linebacker for the Roughriders (my new favourite CFL team!).  It's a good thing he was so charming and easy on the eyes or I might have resented being squarshed up next to the window like that...

I managed to sleep most of the way (mainly due to the fact that my laptop AND iPod were in the overhead bin so there wasn't much else to do) and arrived in SK where it was a balmy -2*C. 

(That's about 28*F, for my American - and border-city Canadian - friends...)

Not as cold as I had expected.  In fact, I didn't even zip up my coat or dig out my touque and mitts before venturing out of the airport!

Once I arrived in the airport, I knew that my crazy friend Amanda would do something to surprise me so I thought I'd better get my camera out.  There was a mad dash of people getting off behind me and I forgot that once I traveled through the doors at the bottom of the escalator, I was in the waiting area...

Which was entirely a shame because right there, when I burst out of the doors, I was greeted with a cacophony of cheers and whistles.  I stopped in my tracks and laughed right out loud.  The other people waiting for their dear loved ones looked at me like I was crazy or something.

There before me, were my dear friends:  Amanda with her mom, Janet, and sweet kids, Renee and Curtis; Kate, with her adorable boys, Will and Wyatt; and Corinne.  Not only were they making that crazy racket, but they were also holding up signs that said, "Looking for 'the' Sue Sykes" and "Crazy Scrapbookers Report HERE!"

What a bunch of nuts - I love you guys!!

I'll stop here for now (is it possible that I've only covered the TRAVELING part??)... SK Scraps photos and stories to follow tomorrow!