Babyface was staying with us on Wednesday night and Rilla came over so we tried Cheruby's new Marvel game. We were learning so it took us a long time, but it took us an hour to get through less than a round of the game. I'm not sure, but I think it'll take too long for my liking. It was great to see him.

Thursday Cheruby and I rented a van and drove to Calgary with the rest of Ferlak's stuff that was being stored in my house. Babyface stayed at the house with the kittenses for company and food until Friday when he went back to P.A. to his family for the weekend.

The drive to Calgary was quite nice, actually. The day was clear and sunny and the roads were clear. As we moved west, we saw less and less snow and then we saw some new green growth in some of the fields! You hear that those from Far Away? It's almost safe to come back! We got in at the almost perfect hour for Ferlak to be almost done cooking us supper. What a sweetie! Baby potatoes from farmer's market, chicken baked with black olives and other yummy spices, and a Sante Fe salad which was ... interesting and not necessarily in a bad way. Ferlak really likes it so he shared.

Then he shared something else with Cheruby - Shadow of the Colossus. Very, very, very pretty. Cheruby now owns this game.

After Cheruby played around with that for a while, we listened to my iPod on shuffle and played a little Dracula where Cheruby kicked our butts handily. He has now agreed that if he's playing Dracula, there has to be some extra advantages for the hunters. It was a really good night.

Ferlak left for work early the next morning and Cheruby and I had a lazy day. We walked to Phil's for breakfast around 11. He played a little more Colossus killing while I wrapped presents for my niece and nephew and the Very Tall One and Ferlak. Ferlak can't open his until his birthday in July. Heh.

Then we went to the Sentry Box and Cheruby was overwhelmed with the selection. Sensory overload. We found this fantastic game that made us think of a few of our friends. Heh. It supports 2 to 12 players. I bought a few more decks for my Blue Moon game, but Cheruby shockingly left empty-handed after an hour. Then we went to a mall and left fairly quickly as we didn't find anything we wanted.

The next part was also fantastic. Spending time with my niece and nephew. My niece turned 9 last week. This was probably the most fantastic evening I can remember spending with her in the last few years. She was fun and listened and it was good. I gave her a birthday present or two. My mom got her the second book in a series of which I got her the first book. It's about 12 year olds so I was hoping the age thing would appeal to her. The books are called The City of Ember and The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau. I also got her the Blueman Group Keyboard. The drum parts and other play elements are set about by motion sensors. Very cool. We taught her how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb. Then we had some fun making our voices go really high and then really low. The Glad garbage bag song (Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. Hefty, hefty, hefty.) is really good for that. My dad and I used to have a lot of fun with it and my niece thought it was hilarious. After supper we went to the park and played tag. There were some teenagers there and it was really interesting to watch my niece observing them. It was getting dark so we headed home and read with her for a bit. I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

Cheruby and I left early in the morning. I had to wake up my niece to say good bye. Her only point of protest was to say it wasn't 8 yet. Usually she doesn't want to hug me because she's so upset that I'm leaving. I was very happy with her very sleepy goodbye hugs. She wouldn't hug Cheruby, but she did offer to shake his hand. I was very proud of her.

The drive home to Saskatoon was excellent as well. Great sunshine and good roads although I didn't particularly enjoy heading back into the snow covered lands of Saskatchewan. Cheruby and I sang and talked and read on the journey. And it was really good.

Cheruby played at Lydia's on St. Patrick's Day and then had a gig while I dined with Drang, Mrs. Drang, His Nibs, Kaz, and Rilla. We went to The Ivy and it was really yummy. I haven't had a delicious meal like that one in a really long time. I'll have to convince Cheruby to go out more often. It was a really good time and I haven't seen the boys together in a long time. They ditched us girls for a few games of pool which was no big deal because it's happened a few times over the years. They got back fairly late and we girls been served cocktails by Cheruby so we were all tired so folks just went home.

We got to play a little Low Life the next day which was very much fun as usual. Although the bigger monkey was quite sick, she held up well throughout the festivities. Cheruby headed out to his uncle's right from there. I got a phone call at home later from him as his car had broken down. We collectively witnessed three rollovers and one vehicle just in the ditch with no rolling action. The roads were completely horrible around Hague. I was driving as slow as 30 km/hr because they were so bad. And now it looks like Cheruby is looking for a new car.

Babyface and family came up to stay late on Sunday night as well. Baby Babyface is very cute indeed and I enjoyed talking with Mrs. Babyface.

I was supposed to have lunch with Rilla yesterday and lunch was had, but it wasn't as good as it was supposed to be. She missed her bus and I had a very small lunch time window with meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. Of course, today, I spent 95% of my time on the phone as well. Hopefully, I'm pretty much done with my massive meetings schedule and I think I am for a while. I hope I get to spend some time with her real soon. I've taken tomorrow off to play video games all day with Cheruby.