Leaping for Your Dreams

Geno and I were reclined on the grass watching Anna run around behind the CEC, I was unwilling to leave and go back to work. I’d been asked to assist with the ‘translation’ of with the League needed us to do for The Draft. I had been asked because I had begun writing the requirements up before taking my current position. Fortunately I had done what I could to make it easy to do. The Pens Organization was much more ready than they though, I’d been helping that along since I got here.

“What we gonna do between end of Finals and the Awards?” Geno asked as he played with my hair.

I had no idea. “I don’t know. I’m officially on break once someone lifts The Cup. What do you want to do?” I was watching Anna run around.

He chuckled. “I ask you, you know what you like. I want to see more of Canada outside NHL towns.” He leaned over and picked up his drink.

“You mean like a road trip? That might be fun. We don’t have a lot of time, maybe a week. Where do you want to go?” I took a sip of my water.

“Don’t know. Maybe ask Anna?” He finger combed my hair gently. “Where you suggest?”

I was leaning into his fingers. “Mmmm, I wouldn’t mind seeing some friends in T.O. myself. Anna was born in Montreal, could be fun to see there without the pressure.” Then I had an idea. “Oh, we could start in Montreal, hit up Toronto and drop Anna with my folks so we can go to Vegas without worrying about her. It’ll also give you a chance to meet some of my dearest friends.”

“I’d like meet them.” He said as Anna threw herself down at our feet. “Happy Annushka?” She nodded vigoursly. “Good. How you feel about taking a trip and staying with babička and dědeček (Grandma and Grandpa) while we go to boring Awards show?”

I did my part by _not_ laughing as he described the NHL Awards as boring. Anna grinned. “I get to stay with them? Really?”

I picked up my phone and dialed a number I knew by heart. As it was picked up I heard my dad. “Hi Daddy!” I said brightly.

“Motýlek (Butterfly)! What are you doing calling in the middle of the day? Let me get your mother.” I heard him call for her.

I had to laugh. You’d think I didn’t call every week, but I did. Once mom was on the phone, I continued. “Hey! We’re thinking of what we might want to do before we leave for Vegas for the Awards Show. We’re thinking a road trip ending with dropping Sunshine off for a few days with you guys. I thought before we did anything we should double check with you.”

I heard mom laugh. “Well thank you for checking first. When would this be?” I heard her rustling paper and knew she was looking at a calendar.

I put them on speaker and looked at my own in phone calendar. “Let’s see, depending on how soon The Cup gets raised, we’ll probably be in Windsor on the evening of the 16th. We’d leave from Detroit on the 18th in the afternoon and come back on the 21st or 22nd.”

Dad chuckled. “In other words you want us to spend a week with Anna while you two go and play?” I heard mom smack him.

“Jakub! You know they will all be going to Russia as soon as they can after Aleks’ wedding. Don’t bitch about spending time with our vnučka (granddaughter).” Mom was upset at his assumption.

“Můj milovaný (My beloved), I am teasing. There is nothing I would like more than to spend time with her. Go ahead and take the week in Vegas children, you didn’t get a honeymoon after all.” Dad was seriously giving us a week without Anna? Then it hit me that they wanted to get to know her too.

“You’re sure that’s ok? Anna’s a _lot_ like I was as a kid.” She hadn’t had a temper tantrum like the meltdown since she got her room finished but there were times she reminded me of me and not in good ways always.

Mom calmed my fears. “Mari, we handled you, we can handle Anna. Oh my, that will be confusing. What _do you two called her, her nickname that is.”

Geno and I both laughed. We had this conversation a few weeks ago. “I call her Annushka, Misa call her Sunshine.” He said happily into my phone. He then looked at me. “We make two trips, one before Awards with Annushka to Toronto and Windsor and another after to Montreal.”

“We’ll miss Jordy’s and Brooksie’s weddings if we do that.” I didn’t _want_ to do that if I could help it. I saw the look in his eyes as I said that. Seeing his teammates get married was less important to him than spending time as a family. I couldn’t fault him there. “Tell you what mom, when we have an idea of when we’re going to be getting to town we’ll call ok?”

“Of course dear. Have a great rest of the day. We have a full afternoon.” She and dad hung up quickly after that.

Geno looked at me. “More important to spend time with friends and family. Jordy and Brooksie understand. You already send card back saying we can not make them anyway.”

I could have smacked myself. Saying that jogged my memory of doing exactly that, sending back both RSVP cards with ‘will not be attending’ checked off. “You’re right, I did do that. Tell you what; you two make the plans for our road trips. I’m swamped with other stuff right now. If you don’t know where is good, you can ask. Think of family friendly activities as well. The Hall of Fame would probably be a good idea, so Sunshine can see how far the game has come.”

By this time Stefan was coming towards us. I knew I had to get back to work. Geno waved at him. “Fine we plan trip, you go work. We have beginning ideas when you get home.” He gave me a sweet and loving kiss after we stood up. “Go, before Ferret drag you away.”

I hugged Anna and then went back to work. What have I done? I’ve _never_ taken myself out of planning a road trip before. I chalked it up to being stressed over everything else going on and went back inside.

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Annushka and I went home and began looking up fun things to do in Toronto. The first thing we looked for was a good family place to stay during our trip. I got out my laptop and Googled family friendly hotels in Toronto. We started going through each one that came up on the list one by one. It seemingly took forever but we eventually narrowed it down to only 1 real candidate, The Delta Chelsea.

Once we had a good place to stay we had to figure out what we might want to do, aside from meeting friends of Misa’s. The Hockey Hall of Fame was the first thing on the list. I hadn’t ever been there, Anna either. I then punched in family friendly restaurants; we needed places we would all enjoy. I was more concerned with places we could have a nice dinner. I found two that Anna was interested in as well, Medieval Times and Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto.

“Papa, can we go to a museum or a zoo when we’re there?” I looked both up on the computer. They had a zoo all right, so I bookmarked it and began going through the various museums with Anna. She found the Science Center or the Royal Ontario Museum the most fun looking.

For fun I looked at the hotel a bit closer. They had a water slide, which gave me an idea. While Anna was in the bathroom I looked up water parks near by. I found a few but just in case it was raining, I bookmarked the indoor one.

Once our basic needs were met, I shut down the computer and we went outside to play. Misa would not be home for several hours, I had time to play with Anna before we had to decide on what to make for dinner. I found both of us were excited for the trip we were planning. It was something that we all could enjoy. I’m sure even Misa’s friends could enjoy it with us too. I couldn’t wait until she got home so she could go through what the basics were so far. Maybe she could help us narrow down what we could realistically do in the 2 days we had. Come on time; move faster so that this trip could begin!