That's One Jam-Packed Weekend Of Fun!!

Happy Monday Morning to one and all! To keep things "organized", I'm gonna break tonight's blog down into three sections, and we'll start with:

GREY'S ANATOMY

I promised a re-cap, and I'm gonna deliver! Thursday night's episode had Meredith coming down with her own medical emergency - she couldn't stop barfing. What they all initially thought was pregnancy turned out to be appendicitis. I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes where Meredith was drugged up and babbling away about whatever crossed her mind. Especially entertaining was when she had McDreamy, Finn, and George all in her room, and she declared to Dr. Bailey, "All my boyfriends are here!" Fortunately, George scrubbed in on the surgery and managed not to kill her (as he almost did with the last apendectomy he performed). But that all came secondary to the main story line, because this week Meredith made her choice between Derek and Finn. And she chose....

...drum roll please...

Derek. McDreamy. Sheppard. Of course. Was there ever any doubt? Did anyone actually think she'd eventually pick Finn? Not that I would be opposed to that idea, because I love Chris O'Donnell and always have, and adding him permanently to the cast would be a dream come true for me, but for Meredith...well, Derek's her McDreamy. You don't just pass up a chance at happiness with your McDreamy. Ever.

This week was also the first episode for new Seattle Grace Attending Surgeon Dr. Mark Sloan, aka McSteamy. Wowzers, the dude is smokin'. I can't wait to see him every week on my TV screen. Naturally, his presence at the hospital was throwing everyone, particularly Addison, for a loop. If I were her, I'd be getting over it pretty quickly. The boy flew across country for her. For a booty call. And now he's staying and he wants to be with her. And Derek doesn't. So what's the problem here? If ya can't have McDreamy, there's no shame in gettin' it on with McSteamy! She's so flippin' lucky!

I know I say it every week, but I love this show. Really, really love it. And I really, really mean that. Seriously. But I'm sure you're already catching on to that one, huh?

CAR RALLY

Saturday was one of my most favourite days of the year: Quyon Lionettes Car Rally. My team consisted of Sara, Graham, Ricky and Stacy. We gathered Friday evening to get some of our car decorations ready, and then after meeting Saturday morning at Mohr's for breakfast, we returned to my place to get the Rav and ourselves all decked out. The theme this year was "Sports Around the World". After bouncing around a few ideas over the past few weeks - including one complicated scenario that had us turning Lady Linda into a Zamboni - we finally decided to go as the Canadian Winter Olympic Team on its way to Vancouver for the 2010 Games. With Sara as a figure skater, Graham as a skiier, Ricky as the curler, myself as the hockey player, and Stacy leading the way carrying the torch (because apparently there's no event for expectant moms!), we set out to win this thing.

And while on the rally route, I thought we had a darned good chance of doing just that. I had a hissy fit before we even left the parking lot when my kilometer counter thingy wouldn't re-set, but I calmed myself down, re-grouped, then we headed to my place where we collected most of the items for our scavenger hunt. We proceeded on, following the directions and finding the answers to the questions. The biggest challenges seemed to be hunting for the six clues we periodically came across. We finally abandoned the first one (as did most teams), and it took forever to find the second one. It ended up being the Original 6 NHL Teams, and we didn't even need the stupid little pieces of paper we made sure to collect and protect...arghhhh!

Aside from that, we didn't spend a whole lot of time at any particular question, and in most cases the answer was quite obvious...or so we thought. In retrospect, I think I underestimated the guys who coordinated the rally route, and I didn't believe they'd be into any trickery. As it turns out, they did many little things to throw our answers off, so in the end, we were actually one of the middle-of-the-pack teams, much to our chagrin. And of course, to rub salt in the wound, my mom, Luke, Kara, Chris and Kristen, who claimed to have done poorly in their answers, wound up in second place. Overall, though, we kept our arguing in the Rav to a minimum, and I think we could all agree that we had a blast! Graham was the rookie of our team, and he proved to be a strong member - we'll definitely do better next year!

Following dinner and the revealing of the answers, we went to Stacy and Ricky's to watch the hockey game. Which game, do you ask? Well, that's a tough one, as Ricky's Penguins, Graham's Leafs, and my Sens were all playing on different channels. With Pittsburgh down and out early in their game, Ricky basically flipped back and forth between the Toronto game and the Ottawa game for Graham and I. I had to sit through listening to the two boys running my Sens into the ground and making fun of me, and I almost cried a few times because I don't have a thick skin, and no, I can't take it. I'm a big baby about this kind of stuff. I know it, and I don't like it, but that's just the way I'm made. But I did manage to keep it together. Okay, so maybe I had one scuffle with Ricky over the remote when I thought I wasn't going to get to see the shoot-out, and Stacy and Sara were probably afraid that I was going to claw both of the boys' eyes out or something, but we emerged all friends at the end. (I think. I hope.) The Penguins lost, naturally, but the Leafs won in OT (who cares?) and the Sens defeated Montreal in a shoot-out (YAY, Antoine Vermette and Mike Fisher!)

As the late Ada Daley would have written in the Equity's Quyon Notes, a good time was had by all!

CADEN'S 1ST BIRTHDAY

My baby boy is growing up!

I still can't believe that it's been a year since Kara and Chris brought my little nephew into the world. Gosh, it's gone by fast. Saturday, October 14th, was officially one year for Caden Christopher Provost, and today Kara and Chris had both sides of the family to their place at noon for Caden's first birthday party.

Before I get into that, though, I must tell you this - yesterday, while out on Car Rally, I missed two big "firsts". In one afternoon. Unbelievable! Caden, who is turning into a real little parrot, actually uttered his first phrase: "Oh dear!" Now how cute is that?? And then he took his first real steps! (Last weekend, he was saying "yuck" and walking two or three steps between people, but somehow "Oh dear" and the fact that he was literally racing across the living room seem so much more important!) Of course, I got to hear him saying "Oh dear" and watch him do his speedwalk today, but I was disappointed I missed out the first time.

In any case, the party was a huge hit, and Caden was on his best behaviour. All of his aunts, uncles, grandparents, Great-Grandma, and even a few great-aunts and -uncles were there to celebrate with him. He smiled and clapped when we sang happy birthday to him, and he loved smashing his teddy bear cake all over his face. (He even ate some of it too, but apparently he's not a fan of icing, as those bites were spit back out all over the place). He was also pretty good at opening presents, considering the attention span of a one-year-old is not usually that strong. He opened almost all of them himself, with some help from Mommy and cousin Madison, and he even learned pretty quick to chuck the cards at Mommy to open. (Cards - and even the money inside the odd one - don't mean much until your well past age 10!!) In most cases, the tissue paper in the bags proved to be more entertaining than the gift inside, but he did spend a lot of time playing with his new tractor and farm animals from his Grandma Provost, and we all had fun sitting around and watching him.

I still can't believe he's already one. Where has the past year gone? I can't wait to see all that he's going to learn in the year to come. If one afternoon brought "Oh Dear" and walking, who knows what could come next??

So that about puts a wrap on the weekend re-cap. I hope everyone had a great weekend, and be sure to tune tune in Tuesday for my thoughts on tonight's episode of the Amazing Race!