Trip to Montréal : Ewan's First Flight

Today we traveled to Montréal to attend our friends Adrian and Katia's wedding on Saturday. This was our first big trip with Ewan and we caught the "red-eye" out of LAX at 12:10 am this morning to Detroit and then from Detroit onto Montréal. The first leg of the trip was officially Ewan’s first flight. We managed to get all his paraphernalia together and he traveled very well, sleeping most of the flight to Detroit (which was actually our plan) and he was only fussy on the take-of and landing as the air pressure changed. Ewan was awarded with a certificate to commemorate his first flight.

Adrian picked us up from the airport in Montréal at about 11 am and drove us to our other friends, Brad and Stephanie's house where we were going to be staying. Stephanie was there to greet us with their new son Charlie, who is a month younger than Ewan. It was great to see Stephanie again (it had been over 2 years since they left Pasadena) and meet Charlie who was a very cool little chap.

It was not long before Adrian was back to whisk Fraser off to the store to check the Tuxedo measurements for his groomsman role. Adrian, Fraser, Richard Lyne (Best Man) and Adrian's Dad all went off to the Mile-end region of Montreal to the store that was also providing Katia's dress. When we got there, there was a bit of a panic as Katia was there too collecting her dress. We hurriedly shuffled Adrain out of sight so he did not see the dress while Katia went to get her car. However there was some confusion because Richard thought he was supposed to take the dress 2 blocks (long blocks by the way) up the street to her car. So when she arrived at the shop her dress was up the street where her car used to be, she was rather bemused to find the dress was not there. Oh did I mention it was raining? Fraser then had to sprint up the road to intercept Richard and bring the dress back to the car, which was double parked outside the store. He found Richard sheltering in a carpet store trying to call a friend in the UK on his cell phone to get Katia's phone number (he didn't have any of the local Montréal numbers on him). The dress was safely delivered without water damage back to the store and Katia's car and having had our outfits checked (which was a good job because Fraser's trousers were somewhat half-mast) it time to go back home for a while. But the mini-dramas did not end there. Just before we arrived back a Brad & Stephanie's house we got rear ended by the car behind. No great damage done as it was a very low speed, but load enough for quite a bang. The amazing thing was that it was the 3rd time in 36 hours that Adrian had been hit or had hit something. This time it was a little embarrassing for him though because we were in his flat-mate's car which he had borrowed just for this errand to the tux shop. Fortunately '87 Plymouth Triumphs appear to be built like tanks (crumple zones? what crumple zones?) and the rear bumper had just been popped out a bit. This was an amusing topic of conversation later that evening when the boys all gathered in downtown Montréal for Adrian's bachelor party, and the car's owner Dave, was planning exactly what he could claim for on insurance because the car looked so bashed up in the first place.

Later that evening, after dinner at a local café with Brad, Stephanie Henry and Charlie, as previously mentioned Fraser went to the bachelor party (sorry no details here....man law!). Jen and Ewan went home for bath time and stories with the other boys. It had been a long, but not uneventful day.