Road Trip with Leesa and the Boys

Reminiscing about the many laughs we had on the many trips we used to take with my sister Leesa and nephews Alek and Felix.

When the boys were little, my sister and I worked at the same pub, The Dam Inn. She was the chef and manager, and I was a bartender and waitress. Occasionally, when we had a live band perform on the weekend, Leesa would fill in as the second bartender (if it got too busy) and we made a great team.

Her Ford F-150 was always on the road; boys buckled in car seats in the back seat, and TS (short for Auntie Steffie in Russian) in the co-pilot seat. We’d take regular trips to town to pick up grocery and liquor orders for work, or visit our grandma Marie and grandpa Sam, who were living in extended care facilities.

It was always an adventure! Although Leesa and I are nine years apart and very different in so many ways, our brains still carry the same wacky genes so its not difficult to set us off laughing at the slightest and silliest of things.

When the boys started school and playing hockey, we started heading out of town for school supplies and hockey tournaments.

Well, Alek is now 21 and Felix 19, and they take their own road trips with friends.

One trip that I fondly remember was a September long weekend in Kelowna shopping for school stuff. We decided to make a bit of a holiday out of it (go-karts and dinners), knowing that it may be the last time they’d want to go anywhere with their mom and aunt. We booked a room at the Dilworth, like we always did, and coincidentally ran into our friends and neighbours, Dan and his son Ethan, there as well.

Kelowna was crawling with back-to-school shoppers. It was hot and hectic. It felt like we’d spent hours at Walmart alone (you know what it’s like to shop with teenagers).

We decided to go out to the White Spot for dinner, which was walking distance from the room, that way Leesa and I could have a couple of cocktails (boy did we need them). Dan and Ethan joined us. I think we were a little delirious, from exhaustion and hunger, because we started giggling before we got into the restaurant. By the time we were seated, Leesa and I were laughing uncontrollably. The more we tried to stop the worse it got. It continued for at least a half an hour. Dan and the boys were quite used to us, so paid us no mind. Everyone else got dinner and a show.

We crashed as soon as we got back to the room but awoke in the middle of the night because it was so darn hot. Leesa wanted to open a window, and I discouraged her because we were on the ground floor, saying sleepily, “If someone breaks in and steals all our stuff, there is NO WAY I am going back to Walmart!” Well, that set us off on another laughing fit, that woke the boys from a dead sleep wondering what was going on.

That seems like such a long time ago; I am way overdue for one of our good, soul-stirring belly laughs.