The week he visited was supposed to be his "reading week," but Ontario's teacher union (for post-secondary education) has been on strike since October 16th, so Brendan has had no classes to attend and has just been finishing his assignments. We were really hoping that the strike would be short-lived, but it seems that's not the case. He brought some work to do while he was here, but he was done with it rather quickly and ended up spending his days walking through town or playing games, either on my computer or on my wii u.
SATURDAY
He arrived!!! In the morning, his brother kindly offered to drive him to the train station so he didn't have to take the bus. It saved both of us a lot of time and worry about making it to the station on time, since missing the train would absolutely mean missing his flight. In return, Brendan treated his brother to breakfast. He had a pleasant morning and made his train with ease. His flight ended up being delayed about 25 minutes, but that's pretty good considering the delays we've faced in the past.
I ended up leaving way too late and it took twice as long as I anticipated to get to the airport. Poor Brendan was stuck waiting at the terminal for nearly an hour. I felt so, so bad, but it was also pretty late and I was so happy to see him. He was in a good mood and completely understanding.
We got home and got settled; neither of us were really hungry, so we just skipped dinner. As he was unpacking, we discovered that not only had Brendan forgotten to bring my birthday present, but he also forgot to pack his dress pants. How? No idea. His room is tiny and he doesn't have that much stuff, but he must have put them under something and forgotten about them. For the rest of the evening, we decided to watch a movie and cuddled on the couch, then snuggled up in bed and just talked for a bit until we fell asleep.
SUNDAY
I packed literally as many activities as I possibly could into Sunday since it was the only full day we were both home and not working or traveling. Brendan made breakfast and burned the bacon to oblivion, but the eggs were fine! Then we got dressed in our nice clothes and headed out to CT to go to church. We stopped at Target on the way there to find a pair of dress slacks for him to wear, and the pants we got ended up being really comfortable and looked great on him, so hopefully he'll wear them again.
My family decided to skip this week at church since they'd be in the area later to celebrate my birthday with me at my grandmother's house. Brendan was very quiet and respectful at church and just took things in. We have a lot of icons and images all over the place, so it was really different for him to see. We also have a choir that does all our hymns and responses during service, and he was surprised by that.
After the service, I took him downstairs to the community hall where there were some refreshments so we could nibble on something before heading out for the rest of the afternoon. I ran into my stepdad's sponsor/godmother(he recently converted), who is also head of the choir. I introduced Brendan to her and we talked for a little bit about how nice the church is and how the service really uses all of your senses.
After we left, I took Brendan to the Essex steam train and river boat in Essex, CT. I had booked this weeks ago to make sure we had a space-- it was the VERY last day that they were running and we got a slot on the very last boat of the season. The trains are really beautiful vintage steam trains, and very comfortable. Brendan and I both really enjoyed the trip, but what he liked the most was the river boat ride. It was a long, leisurely, lovely ride along the Connecticut River, and we really enjoyed the commentary and seeing all the foliage as we progressed. Brendan also happened to be seated right next to where the boat docked, so he got "roped" into helping a bit.
Afterwards we headed back to my grandmother's house for a late dinner with my entire family-- my aunts, my cousin, and my grandmother all got to meet Brendan for the very first time. He wasn't nervous at all and everyone absolutely adored him. My aunt couldn't stop telling me how CUTE he was, haha. I was like, I know!! I'm so lucky.
We had a really great dinner that everyone brought something for, followed by a birthday dark chocolate cake and ice cream. Then we just chatted for a bit and everyone asked their questions of Brendan. My aunts picked up their antics and kind of disappeared before we could really say goodbye, but all in all we had a great visit and my family loves him. He always does so well and I'm so pleased to be his partner.
MONDAY-SATURDAY
The rest of the week wasn't as eventful, so I'm just going to condense them into one block. Monday I went back to work, and Brendan had some chicken prepared for when I got home. Then we drove back into CT and picked up my sister to go to Greek dance. Initially, Brendan had said he really didn't want to dance, and I respected that even though I was disappointed, but my sister is a better leader and teacher than I am and kind of forced him to learn a step, and from there he learned all the simple dances that we did that night. Afterwards he said he actually really enjoyed it and thought it was really fun. Success!
Tuesday night was taco night and we had great fun making keto taco shells. Unfortunately, Brendan seemed to have picked up a cold, so he was feeling a little bit under the weather. We still spent a quality evening together.
Wednesday was my birthday! Brendan insisted on taking me out for dinner, and I chose to go to the diner because we'd talked about it many times before and he'd always wanted to try it, but we'd never been. On our walk there, we passed a church with a yard full of pumpkins! Apparently the church on the corner a couple blocks away from me sells pumpkins during October and gets permission from the town to put a sign for "Pumpkin Lane" above the normal street sign. I thought it was adorable.
The restaurant was a little crowded since we showed up during prime dinner time, but it wasn't too bad because it was a Wednesday. I had a bacon cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and Brendan had this giant bunless burger salad thing that looked amazing (if only I liked avocado). We also had some mozzarella sticks to start. Although we've been eating keto recently, we made an exception for the birthday cake on Sunday and for my birthday dinner. Even then, we didn't go that far over carbs for the day, so it was still a pretty successful day!
After dinner, I suggested we stop at the convenience store to get some cold meds for Brendan to help him feel better. We had a nice walk through town and ended up settling on some alka-seltzer, which apparently he had never had. I figured that would be best for him since he just had a general cold, and everything else in the store was either pain relievers (which I have) or SUPER PHLEGM BLOCKER 9000, which was not the problem. He said it did make him feel better, so score 1 for me.
Thursday was another peaceful night in, and we really enjoyed having another night to just stay home and spend time with one another. This was also good because on Friday we ended up going to my friend's place an hour away for a Halloween party! Brendan didn't have a costume since he couldn't really bring anything, so he just put on his flannel shirt, his jeans, borrowed one of my winter hats, stuck his passport in his shirt pocket and went as a Canadian.
I wore my shiny umbreon kigurumi and was super cozy all evening. Unfortunately we couldn't stay very long because I had to leave at like 7:15 the next morning to drop Brendan off at the airport, but we still had a great time and I was really happy that Brendan got to meet one of my best friends. It was our mutual friend's party (he's the guy who introduced us), and it was mostly people my friend and I knew from high school, but there was also a friend there who we play Overwatch with on the Discord server, and we finally got to meet him in person, too! A bunch of people asked if Brendan was really Canadian, and he showed them all his passport (with the picture of him with a giant moustache... omg...). It was so fun!
Alas, Saturday came too quickly and I had to deliver him to the flying machines to take him away. I cried a lot when I got home and stayed in bed for a while. Some of my work friends had invited me to go out with them in the city that evening, but I declined because I just wanted to stay in for the day. Brendan's flight was only delayed by like 20 minutes this time, and he was back in Canada by noon, where his brother was kind enough to pick him up and take him back to school.
----
Looking back, we both feel like it was a great experience, and he's been kicking himself for not extending his stay. If we'd known the strike would have gone on this long, we would absolutely have booked a later return ticket. It's frustrating, but we can't do much now I guess. My family was so disappointed that he couldn't stay longer, and my aunts can't stop telling me how cute he is every time they see me now.
Brendan said that he feels like we learned a lot about each other and our habits, and that this visit has really brought us closer. I've noticed that he tells me he misses me a lot more than he used to since he left, but I think this might be because he's super bored because of the strike. Even so, it's nice to hear that-- I've never had someone return my feelings as strongly and equally. It feels nice.
