To My Son

My ex-husband and I were lucky enough to raise 3 amazing children. My children are all grown and have left the nest and started lives of their own. My son, Ryan has started his own family - I am a Nana to 2 wonderful grandchildren.

Today I want to talk about my amazing son. As I said yesterday, last Monday, I had to go to Florida, fast. Ryan (who lives and works in the east end of Toronto) dropped everything at work, raced home, packed a bag and headed for London, leaving his family behind and not sure whether or not he'd be home for Christmas with his family. This wonderful man has supported me, run errands for me, let me cry on his shoulder and just generally been the rock that I needed to get me through this past week. Ryan, Krista and Jamie - I love you all more than words can ever say. Ryan, you are a rock, you are one of my rocks and I don't know what I would have done without you this week. Thank you and Merry Christmas.

My Family

Like everyone else, I have a family. Also like everyone else, my family is dysfunctional. What I do have though are some amazing people in my family.

I have to start with one of the most amazing ladies that I have ever met - my daughter-in-law, Deb. Six days before Christmas, this awesome lady very kindly lent me my son back for a family emergency. On Monday, Graham was on the road and I had to go to Florida - fast. Not knowing whether or not he'd be home for Christmas with his 2 little ones, my son, with his wife's approval dropped everything to take me to Florida. Because I'm waiting for back surgery again, going anywhere is a challenge. Going to Florida was a mountain, however, a mountain that Ryan and Deb managed to help me get over.

Being home with your family for Christmas is one of the most important things in the world to most people and it was important to me to make sure that Ryan got home to his family for Christmas. Hence, the next amazing person in my family - my husband, Graham. This man spends at least 5 days a week on the road driving his big rig (a job that most of us wouldn't do if our lives depended on it). Having arranged for a much needed week off over Christmas and having arrived home late Wednesday night, Graham hopped in the car on Thursday and has driven down to Florida to help me get over the mountain so that Ryan could go home.  

Ryan is on his plane home and Graham is almost here, so Merry Christmas and Happy Yule to all - I hope that you are as blessed as I am.

Snail Mail

For those of you who follow my dgtr-in-law, Deb's blog, you will know that my grandson, Austin just found the joy of writing and mailing letters. He has written a letter to his Grandpa and was writing a second letter to a mystery family member. The very next day after I read that blog post, imagine my excitement when I reached into the mailbox and found an envelope addressed to Nana & Gramps. Yeah!!!!!! we were the mystery family members.

I eagerly opened the envelope and found inside 2 delightful pictures from our granddaughter Alex. Apparently she too has found the joy in surprising people with snail mail. The beautiful pictures are now proudly posted on our refrigerator and we are proudly sure that we are the first to receive such wonderful artwork from Alex.

We will be equally as delighted when and if we receive snail mail from Austin, but, in the meantime, what an amazing and delightful surprise!!

Long Time, No Hear

Bet you all thought that I had fallen off the earth - no such luck. I realize that I never finished the raccoon story - Jamie and I took him out to the Circle R Ranch and released way at the back of the property where there are only deer and raccoons. The hope was that another raccoon family would adopt him (apparently they do that).

Next on our family agenda since I last wrote - my baby, Jamie, is getting married next summer. Over the next months I will keep everyone up to date on the preparations. She is marrying a wonderful young man named Scott who treats her like a princess. They are currently living in Windsor while Scott finished his lastryear of university and Jamie works.

As for Graham and I, Graham is still driving, however he is now driving a roll-top -- NO TARPS!!!!! He is also now driving for a company out of London which is so much easier that Kitchener.

I finally saw my back surgeon, Dr. Bailey this week and I will be having back surgery in about 6 months.He will be fusing the next 2 vertebrae up - L3-L4.

I'll try not to be such a stranger in the future. In the meantime, here is a picture of the happy couple.

Our House Guest

Jamie tried most of yesterday to find a wildlife rehabilitator to take our house guest with no luck. She was calling as far away as Windsor to try and find someone. This morning, it was my job to call the Ministry of Natural Resources. We were made aware that this Ministry could be very difficult to get a hold of - luckily, through Crime Stoppers, I have a contact at the MNR and I called him. He gave me the name and number of the appropriate person and I was set, I talked to a wonderful lady, Janice who gave me some more names of rehabilitators and I called all of them. One lovely lady took the time to explain why we are having such a difficult time finding someone to take our friend. Wildlife rehabilitators are regulated and regularly inspected by the MNR. If they have more animals than they are licensed for, they are heavily fined. They start getting raccoons in March and since the average time that each animal is kept is 5 months, by the beginning of June, they are all full.

Having run out of people to call, I called Janice back to see if there is a vet that they use to euthanize these poor orphans. Apparently Janice is not willing to give up on this little guy either. I'm sitting here waiting for her to call me back and the typing drowns out the noise of our house guest who is lonely and wants company - he is VERY vocal about wanting someone to visit with him - he does not give up. He will rest for a short time, however them he's back at it. He is adorable - both in looks and is personality. It is very difficult not to give him/her a name.

Graham & Nancy & JAMIE's Adventure

Jamie & Scott were gone all day yesterday at a horse show - Jamie actually competed for the first time. It was about 10:30 when they finally got home (after leaving before 7:00 am). They brought home a visitor - a baby raccoon.

Apparently they watched a van stop at the side of the road and drop the baby raccoon off before driving away. As we all know, there was no way that Jamie could drive by that defenseless baby, so....... home it came, wrapped in a blanket that was in my Jeep and which I now have to throw out once Jamie's friend is done with it. He/she is currently resting comfortably in one of our dog crates in the garage (with the blanket of course). Jamie spent a lot of time this morning trying to find someone to take this little guy, but it appears that all of the rescue places have their fill of raccoons. This little guy will be with us until tomorrow when I can call the Minidtry of Natural Resources.

In the meantime, Salt Haven - a very well known rescue organization recommended that we give him as much pedialyte as he'll take every 2 hours.

Now, this morning, as usual, I was the first one up and the first one to check up on baby raccoon. He was all curled up with the blanket over top of him and I could not get him to stir, even poking him. Jamie and Scott were rudely awakened long before they would have gotten up, left to their own devices. Jamie was able to get a bit of a reaction from him. After trying to find a better home for him, it was off to the drug store for pedialyte and a syringe and boy, was that raccoon hungry!!!!! We've fed him twice now and both times he's taken about 9 cc which is what the fellow at Salt Haven said he should probably take.


These photos were tough to get - Jamie woke him up to get them and he wasn't very happy. I'll try to get some better ones when we feed him next.

My Goldfish, Part 2

After chasing the heron off 4 times yesterday and finally ending up sitting outside freezing for most of the afternoon, Graham kindly went out and bought us a heron to live in our pond and protect the fish.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I looked out the window to see Mr. Heron back in the pond!!!!

My Goldfish

This morning, I was sitting in the family room, minding my own business when i happened to look out the window - to see a gorgeous great blue heron standing in our pond............gulping down one of my beautiful 6 year old goldfish. I mean, these guys are 6 inches long. Not only have I become attached to them, so has our cocker spaniel, Emma. Emma loves to go swimming with the fish and they seem to enjoy having her company in the pond. immediately, I hobbled out the back door screaming at this devilish bird that he wasn't going to get any more of my fish.

Once I saw this "monster" eating my fish I knew that we were going to have to get a heron statue to keep this guy away, however, off I went into the internet to see if there was a short term measure that I could use to keep him away. As I'm reading an article (which says that once they find the fish, they will keep coming back to the same place for more) I happened to glance out the window - the heron was once again standing in our pond!!!

This time I hobbled out and stayed out, despite the 10 degree weather - both to keep the heron away and hoping to catch a glimpse of at least one fish so that I know we still have some. I froze, the heron did not show up again and Emma refused to look for her friends - not a good sign. Not a single fish made an appearance despite the food bribe. I finally gave up and came back in the house. I have been back in the house for about an hour and a half and the heron has returned twice more which leads me to believe that there must be something in that pond that he wants to eat!!

An Update on Our Lives

Since we've returned home from our cruise, I have been able to work for a single week - the walking and the sitting are just more than I am able to handle. The good news is that I finally had my MRI done last Wednesday and should get my results on Tuesday. I guess that you would call this one of those "good news - bad news" things. Good that the MRI is done and I will finally learn what is going on in my back. Bad that I will learn what is going on in my back. My family doctor has already told me that I'm going to need surgery - I guess that it is just a case of finding out what the surgery is.

As for Graham, he gas finally realized that he is getting too old to continue driving flatbeds - he's mostly getting too old to deal with the tarps, so, last week, he gave the company where he has been working his 2 weeks notice - one more week after this one and then he has to start looking for a job again. It's a good thing that AZ drivers are in high demand. Hopefully he won't have a lot of trouble finding a new job.

I will post after my doctor's appointment this week.

Home at Last

Since Savannah, yesterday, it has rained – sometimes lightly, mostly quite heavily. When we left Pittsburg this morning, the temperature was 5C. About half an hour before we crossed the border the rain stopped. As we crossed into Canada we could see some blue sky ahead and the temperature started to climb.

By the time we reached home, the sun was shining and the temperature was 12C – welcome home. Funnily enough, the customs agent at the border welcomed us home.

Tomorrow morning we get the dogs – have we ever missed them! Graham is also off until Monday, so, I’ll have some help with all of the things that need to be done before it is back to work time.

Lost in Pittsburg

On the road this morning heading for Pittsburg. We should have realized that the day was not going to go well when I was unable to find the address of our hotel in the GPS. Having had more experience with a GPS (right!!), Graham took the GPS and handed it back to me with an address programmed in and off we headed.

We had decided that we were going to find a Friendly’s restaurant for luch – at least for a sundae. The first Friendly’s that the GPS found no longer existed – we found the building, but Friendly’s was gone. The second one, took us about 6 miles off the Interstate, which was fine with us – we wanted ice cream – Friendly’s Family Restaurant, no ice cream!! We ended up eating at a little restaurant called The Copper Pot where lunch cost us a whole $10.00, but no ice cream. One of the owners came up while we were finishing up and drinking our coffee – he pulled up a chair and started to talk with us. Small towns are fascinating!

We continued on to Pittsburg. At about 9:30 we left the Interstate for our hotel as programmed in to the GPS by Graham. After about an hour, we ended up in the middle of no where close to a village called Valencia – no hotel anywhere to be seen! So, Graham called the hotel to get directions – the poor young lady had never heard of Valencia and had no idea where it was. Interestinly, when Graham called information for the phone number, information informed him that the hotel was in Uniontown, not Unionville. With that information, I was able to program the GPS with the correct address and away we went – through rural Pennsylvania for 1 ½ hours. It was almost 12:30 when we finally found the hotel.

While I was responsible for misnaming the town Unionville instead of Uniontown, I also suggested, before we left the street where our hotel was in Savannah that we should go back and recheck the address before we headed off when I couldn’t find it. Hopefully lesson learned by all!!!

On Our Way Home

This morning was a comedy of errors. Graham had been down to the Purser’s Desk a couple of times to find out what the plans were for disembarking wheelchair clients today and was reassured both times that there would be an announcement made. Usually, the clients in wheelchairs disembark from the casino, however, the casino has been closed for 3 days and is unavailable.

When Graham attempted to call the Purser’s Desk this morning the phone would ring once and then quit??? So, down he went, again and was finally told that we needed to be in the Art Gallery. Now, the Art Gallery is right beside the Purser’s Desk and while we were waiting for assistance, I discovered why Graham wasn’t able to get through earlier – the phones have already been taken out. Advise to all cruisers – to NOT go on a cruise when the ship is going into dry-dock at the end of the cruise.

We did get off (boo hoo) and were able to find our way to our shuttle and back to the hotel where our car had been for the past 2 weeks – unfortunately, Graham parked it under a tree. We don’t know exactly what kind of tree, pu it is a very messy tree and part of it’s mess is extremely sticky!!! We couldn’t wait to find a car wash.

As we were getting ready to leave the hotel having loaded all of our luggage into the car, we both looked up a realized that we had a hitchhiker. A little lizard was staring at us from the hood of the car! A very kind gentleman gently removed our passenger and we were off to Savannah, Georgia.

It was about 9:00 by the time we reached our hotel in Savannah. Ordered some pizza and headed for bed – tomorrow will be a very long day!

Princess Cays

Although we have never been to Princess Cays before, we chose to remain on board today. Princess Cays is a tender port and the last time that we were here, the sea conditions were not appropriate for tendering in. Today there were two reasons for us choosing to remain on board. The first reason is that we really are not “beach” people and there really isn’t a lot else on this island. The second reason, of course is the difficulty of both tendering and being on a beach with a wheelchair.

After doing most of our packing, we lounged around reading for the early afternoon until my scheduled hot stone massage – pure delight!!!!

We made arrangements earlier in the day to have dinner with Karin and Bill again. On our way to dinner, in the elevator, I recognized some familiar people. Pat and John Looper (our friend Peter Valiquet’s sister and brother-in-law). Apparently we had been on a couple of shore excursions with Pat & John and Pat had recognized me, however was afraid to say anything in case she was wrong! I felt really badly that I hadn’t even noticed them until then.

After our dinned with Karin and Bill, we again finished the evening off in the Wheelhouse Bar. We had become friendly with the group that played in that bar – they were a lot of fun and we wanted the opportunity to say goodbye.

Graham particularly liked a song that the piano player sang (usually at Graham’s request) called The Cow Song. If you really want a laugh, check the song out on You Tube – it’s there.

Our Final Day at Sea

Our final day at sea was a quiet day. We spent the day just lounging around and enjoying the sun.

Tonight we went to the Sterling Steakhouse for dinner. This is one of the specialty restaurants on board. The specialty being steaks. We invited our new friends, Karin and Bill to join us and we had a wonderful meal with excellent company.

When we were finished dinner (actually when we decided that the staff at the restaurant really wanted us to leave so that they could close down for the night), we went to the Wheelhouse Bar to finish the evening. This is a friendship that we hope we can maintain. Karin and Bill are a wonderful couple with whom we seem to have a lot in common, including a love of cruising!

When we returned to our cabin this evening there was mail in our mailbox and Graham quickly told me not to open it – he thought that it was our onboard bill. To me, it did not look like our previous bills and it also seemed a little early, so despite Graham’s protests, I opened it. It was our Princess platinum package – we are now Captain’s Circle Platinum members – a lot of perks for our next Princess cruise.