My Adventure with Brittany

Brittany and I enjoyed a special mother-daughter getaway these past couple of days. I let her sleep in until 10:00 on Thursday morning and then we got ready to go. I headed out to pack the van around 10:45 and noticed that I had a flat tire. Panick. Race inside and phone Mark. This is not part of the plan. Brittany and I were both very excited about our very first just-the-two-of-us getaway. Brittany had wanted to leave the house by 10:00, but I didn't wake her early enough. I have this thing about waking my children. If I can, I like letting them sleep until they wake up on their own. I've always been like that. Anyhow, now I am wishing that I had prepared her to leave earlier - obviously we were not going to get away as quickly as we would like. I called CAA, as per Mark's instructions. I was told that a tow truck driver would call me within 45 minutes. No call. But, within about 12 minutes he was in my driveway. Yes!! He loaded the van and by 11:30 Brittany and I were in the cab of the truck on our way to the mechanic's. Mark had called ahead and they were waiting for us when we got there. Ready to put on a new tire. A couple minutes after the tow truck pulled in to the mechanic's, Mark arrived. He spoke to the mechanic so that they immediately got to work on our van. Mark took Brittany & I around the corner to grab a bite of lunch. Within the time that we finished eating our subs and returned the van was sitting waiting to go. Mark kissed us, sent us on our way and went in to settle up the bill. As Brittany and I were pulling away I reaffirmed to her the necessity of marrying a prince.

Brittany and I had decided that this detour in plans was all part of our adventure. God had his hand on even the slightest details of our trip. We were not too thrilled about the delayed departure, however, we did see the good in it. First of all we realized that this flat tire could have happened the day before during our trip to Kingston. Or, even worse, on our way to Toronto. Yikes!! It happened safely at home in our driveway! Thank you Lord. The tow truck driver was just sitting ten minutes away waiting for our call. Because of this Brittany made a game of counting all of our little blessings throughout the two days.

As we ventured down the highway we saw a car way off in the ditch getting ready to be towed. Brittany said, "Mom, I'm glad that that was not part of our adventure."

Our first stop was to be to check in to our hotel, however, Brittany was very anxious to get to Build-A-Bear. Brittany saves all spending money for this favourite store of hers. Added to our list of blessings was the $50 she received the day before our trip. And the day before we left she received a $7 coupon in the mail for Build-A-Bear. God has great timing!

We checked into our hotel and were blessed with an upgrade. The room was beautiful with a king size bed for our mother-daughter pajama party. We quickly got changed into our swimsuits and headed down to the pool. We had the whole pool room to ourselves! The pool water was warm (necessary for me to get in) and the hot tub was very hot and big enough to swim in. I was worried that the hotel would be busy during March break. I guess we were at the right hotel for us. Thank you Lord.

We went swimming again after supper and for a couple of hours the next morning before checking out; each time enjoying a lot of time alone in the pool. It's wonderful having these bonding times with your children.

Brittany and I filled the rest of Friday afternoon with some more shopping at Build-A-Bear before heading downtown Toronto. The main reason the two of us had made the trip was to go see a play. We went to see Kayla's sister Mandy in High School Musical!! We met up with Kayla and her mom for supper first and then headed to the play. It was great and the young actors were very good.

I had decided that I wanted to drive home after the play. Well, Friday night was not the best night for driving on the highway. We had a bit of a snow storm. My speed varied from as low as 60 to as high as 90 km/h. It was not fun. Brittany was a trooper. I needed her to help me stay awake. Whenever the two of us get alone in the car we have our own road games that we play. At one point the two of us were laughing so hard I had to take a break from playing so that I could pay attention to the road. The reason that I wanted to drive home after the play was to catch the end of our service at church. I don't like to miss anything. But, that was not to happen. I didn't get home until 12:30am.

Our theme song that we kept 'singing' over and over throughout the two days was Take It All by Hillsong United. God allowed His name to be praised numerous times over our two-day trip. I thank Him for 'taking our praise'.

Rhonda Y