Remember that horrible stomach bug that kept us from going to Montreal? Well, this past Friday night Ruby spiked a huge fever and barely slept. We turned the heat off because she was our own little furnace in the bedroom. So an hour before leaving for the airport we were on the phone with her doc. Thankfully she was in a good mood and seemed unperturbed by whatever her body was busy fighting. So Ruby and I went anyways.

And we're so glad we did! We took over Karine, Jose and Matias' house for the whole weekend. Ruby followed Matias around everywhere and played with all his toys: especially his crayons, which she would chew, put in her stroller, throw down the stairs and hide all over the place. She even said something like "bye Matis" when he closed the door to the bathroom behind him. And how could she not fall in love with the amazingly sweet and patient Matias?! In the meantime I got to have those good old long conversations with Karine.

We also saw other old friends from York U. On Saturday night we had a big reunion dinner. Marie-Josee, David and kids Laura (6) and Renaud (2) drove in from Ottawa. Julie-Anne and Lucas (3) and Manuel (we missed you Claudio!) were there too. The kids happily created chaos. Ruby sat down at the kids table with all the other kids and ate and ate and then ate some more. I think she ate more than all the other kids. It took me over an hour to get her to sleep that night!

On Sunday we had brunch with Manuel in his gorgeous apartment. Ruby thought the goat (cow?) skin on the floor was a cat and rolled all over it (Marie told me this morning she likes lying down on carpet and rolling around; which explains why she was doing that at the airport too, while we were waiting for our flight). She loved his orange/melon juice and ate a lot of mango. After her afternoon nap we went shopping for some french-language books and dvd's.

Our flight back home was delayed for over an hour and Ruby's long postponed nap was postponed even longer. But she was a trooper and just rolled around on the floor, ran up and down some ramps, played with a toy plane I bought her and snacked on some Starbucks pastries. As soon as the plane took off she was out like a light and I was able to watch almost an entire episode of Grey's Anatomy uninterrupted.

I was afraid it would be really intense traveling on my own with Ruby for three days. It was. But it was also so important to reconnect with my old friends and for me to know that Ruby is now in their lives too. And Ruby and I had some great quality time together and I know she really loved that too. Thanks all!