Road trip!  Yesterday was road trip day, they can be few and far between for us, but we love to hit the road whenever the opportunity comes up and because Jamie needed to look at a loader for one of our tractors and to pick up some parts, and the girls needed a few new clothes, we made it a family affair and struck out on a loose trail for Charlottetown, about 1.5 hours away.  Before we can leave the farm there is always the usual run of chores to be done, so first Jamie set out to do the condensed version while I got the girls ready for the day.  This typically involves all the preparation and packing that an average person might require for a  two week vacation to Hawaii.  So after both girls were run through the bath and endured all the Medieval style torture involved in having their hair done, we packed up extra clothes (because kids will get dirty in even the most sterile environment), diapers, wipes, formula, Jammies (so they could be all ready for bed when we get home), snow clothes (just in case we happen to stop at someone Else's farm), videos to entertain Grace on the trip and, after a quick frozen pizza for lunch, we hit the road.

Our first stop for tractor parts landed us about 20 minutes off the highway (which wound up being 30 because we took a shortcut) only to find the guy that knew we were coming, decided not to be home.  Then we stopped to look at the loader which was worth appx. 1/4 of the asking price and continued onto to Town.  Jamie dropped us girls off at a store while he continued his quest for parts, the goal there being that I would start the my own quest for the girl's clothes and possibly find some Throw Pillows for the couch, as our prehistoric pillows disintegrated awhile back.  After mixing a bottle for Bethany, and making two trips to find a bathroom, we had some success in the search for clothes and turned our attention to the pillows. Pillows which proved themselves elusive due to the fact that I was looking for cheap old "Throw" pillows and all this store had was their distant, and more costly cousin, cleverly disguising themselves as Throw Pillows but really named "Pillows of Gold That Will Make Your Couch Look Like A Bejewelled Throne So Keep Your Oily Fingers Off Them".  The very name "Throw" Pillow denotes something inexpensive, it will be "thrown" onto our couch and picked up a hundred times a day after being "thrown" on the floor.  It will be drug around by kids and puppy, and drooled on by the same, and a few others.  OK, so this is not something that I shop for often and quite frankly had no clue that the two I picked in the clearance bin for $6.99 a piece, and then put back to find something cheaper (and a better match for our living room), was really a steal.  The Girls and I walked to the next store while we waited for Jamie, a home decorating store, I was sure I would find what I was looking for.  Heading straight to their clearance bins I found beautiful, and matching pillows of all shapes, sizes and designs and quickly wished I'd bought the $6.99 ones as I looked at the discounted price tags of $49.99 on my perfect pillow. Our couch remains naked and will for a while yet.

Our next search was for a Beanbag Chair.  After a marathon Goose Chase for tractor parts which lead Jamie over half of Charlottetown, but finally yielded what he was looking for, he picked the rather bedraggled girls and I up and we continued on.  Now, a farmer doesn't get to socialise off the farm very often, so when he does and if by chance he meets another farmer, whom also doesn't "get out much", it can yield an unlimited amount of time standing in the unusual places for a visit.  Needless to say there were several acquaintances out that Jamie recognised, which then produced (for me and the girls) marathon waits in both the Men's Underwear section at Wal Mart and at the Gas Pumps on the way home.

Grace has wanted a Beanbag Chair for sometime and we've looked at many, last night we finally found what we were looking for and made the purchase.  Beanbag Chairs, a seemingly genius invention that can bring nothing but endless hours of entertaining and comfortable sitting convenience.  As we would later find out, while this may be somewhat accurate, it seems as though the plastic bag that the beans come in should in fact be made of titanium, because when even the tiniest rip occurs, oh say, in the car's trunk as a not so hypothetical example, it creates a blizzard of tiny Styrofoam balls that spread like feathers and continue doing so from the trunk, down the hill, and all over the entry floor. These said balls, being Styrofoam, and having spent who knows how long in a plastic bag are also so electrically charged that, like swarming bees, attach themselves by the thousands to anything they can stick to. This immediately rendered a "May as well laugh as cry" response from both me and Jamie as we struggled to wipe ourselves clear of the sticky mess.

And so our evening in the city came to an end amongst a throng of happy texters, with their twitchy fingers  chatting away to the characters inside their various communication devices, blissfully unaware of our family's passing as we narrowly escaped collisions with the oblivious and frenzied typists.  We made our way to the MacDonald's Fun House where Grace met who she affectionately named "Mean Girl" and also who, when Grace socially introduced herself, stuck out her tongue and spit at her, which immediately caused Grace to ask whom her mother was so she could report the incident.  She spent the rest of her time trying to win Mean Girl over and when she got any response that could be deciphered as favourable from the little girl, she rejoiced by yelling from the top of the playground "Hey, Guys, Mean Girl smiled at me!", or Hey, Guys, Mean Girl is being nice and stopped spitting at me!"