San Diego

Tomorrow, Graham and I are off to San Diego. There are 4 of us going together - we are flying out of Detroit and landing at LAX where we have a Jeep reserved. We are making the drive from LA to San Diego mid-afternoon and are driving along the coast. We hope to get some spectacular pictures. We have become involved in a telecommunications company. This company is endorsed (for free) by Donald Trump and will be featured on an upcoming episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

We will have The remainder of the day Thurs and Friday morning to do what we would like to do. On Saturday the convention only lasts until 6:00 - giving us time to investigate San Diego's night life. The convention ends on Sunday at 2:00 and our flight out of LAX doesn't leave until early Tuesday evening.

Keep your eyes on the blog for (hopefully) some awesome pictures in the very near future.

The end of Trucking!!

I didn't realize just exectly how long it has been since I posted here until Ryna asked me yesterday id I'd given up on the blog. The answer was a resounding "NO" so, I thought I should bring everyone up to date on our lives.

Since Graham went back to work at Taylor as a company driver, he had been doing 2 loads a week with backhauls - work that would have been great as an owner-operator. The reality is that the company makes more money from the company drivers and therefore make sure that they get the majority of the loads.

In three of the past 4 weeks, however, he has only been getting one load a week. This past Thursday, he headed off to Windsor to pick up the very last load that Taylor Transportation would be shipping - the company has closed it's doors and the remaining drivers are now without work. For the second time this year already, Graham has had to clear out his truck.

Fortunately, in the past 3 weeks we have started to become involved with a telecommunications company named ACN. This company sells a video phone - you can actually see the person that you are talking to. This is great for grandparents/ grandchildren as we tried to convince Ryan and Deb yesterday. The phones are digital and have a screen the size of the screens on the portable DVD players (7"). The picture clarity is amazing. We have decided that, if Ryan & Deb get one, then naturally Deb's parents will also need to have one as will all of the aunts and uncles..... etc., etc., etc.
This phone is endorsed by Donald Trump and will be featured on the upcoming Apprentice series.

So, we are truly hoping that this business takes off so that we can be a 2 income family again - will keep you informed!!

Camera Club

So........................... this morning, in the frigid, arctic-like temperature, I ventured forth on my first "photo shoot" with the Camera Club.

I spent 1/2 hour getting ready to brave the cold - 3 layers everywhere, 3 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of pants, 3 tops (plus my coat) - I felt like the Michelen Man. I was NOT going to be bending any time soon.

Two of us went out together from the camera club. Diane and I work together at the CCAC and she is the one who introduced me to the Camera Club. We went to a wonderful park within the city- a friend of Diane's lives near the park and was our tour guide for the day. Our mission was to get five specific pictures - an evergreen, a fence, parallel lines, moving water and a favourite photo.

It was actually a lot of fun. Despite the -14 degree temperature, we all managed to stay relatively warm for the 2 1/2 hours that we were out for. The best part - Tim Horton's afterwards.

Instead of adding the pictures to this post, I've added a slide show of some of my better shots. They are unedited and I haven't converted them to black and white yet.

The New Year

Well..........................................so far so bad. Because of the tanking economy, the trucking business has been slowing down to a crawl. Since mid-October, Graham has only been getting 1 load a week (usually). Frequently there is no backhaul. With truck payments, insurance, fuel and tolls we finally figured it out and it was actually costing him money to drive as an owner-operator. Last week he quit driving as an owner-operator and turned the truck back to Taylor Transportation. Out came the resumes and the applications to other trucking companies. Despite several calls of interest, when Taylor's offered him a company driver position, he immmediately accepted. So, he gets to continue driving the same truck with no out of pocket expenses. Obviously, the pay isn't as good as it can be as an owner-operator, but, it is better than nothing and it's way better than a deficit. The major benefit is that if the business starts to pick up again, he can return to being an owner-operator.

As for me, the first week back to work after 2 weeks off for Christmas has been extremely hectic. January - February is usually "outbreak season". That's when the LTC Homes have many residents with respiratory and/or gastro-intestinal symptoms and it means that I can't admit anyone to the homes in outbreak, nor can I transfer anyone from a home in outbreak. The season is just getting started, but, I do have one home in complete outbreak (totally closed) and one more with one wing in outbreak. To top everything off, I started the week with 15, count them.............15!!!! empty beds. Most weeks I have maybe 7 or 8 beds to fill. On Monday when I returned, my phone was full of messages and it never stopped ringing all day - I'm still trying to return calls from Monday. Oh how I hope next week is better!!!

For those of you who aren't aware, our St. Thomas office was closed down while we were on our honeymoon for health & safety reasons. (The building has a flat roof and has always leaked, however during this summer there were 2 catastrophic downpours inside the building.) The landlord replaced the roof and.................................it still leaked, so the decision was made that we would not return to that building and the hunt was on for new office space. In the meantime we ended up scattered all over the place. I ended up working out of the London office and initially was quite adamant that I couldn't wait to move back to St. Thomas. During an office reorganization in the London office, I ended up in the same work-space as the London Placement team. I so love being part of a team that does the same work as I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Being a one-person team was very isolated and I didn't realize just how isolated. To make a long story short, a position came up in the Placement department in London and I applied for it. Not because I really wanted to leave my job, but because I didn't want to go back to the isolation of St. Thomas. Apparently they really like my work in St. Thomas and while the London job was mine if I wanted it I was offered a perfect compromise. I will continue to do my St. Thomas work, BUT, I will be doing it out of the London office permanently - the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned.

How's that for an eventful start to 2009. Happy New Year everyone.

Christmas is Over

The Christmas season is finally over and life is slowly returning to "normal" - whatever that is! The kids have all gone home, we've celebrated New Year's.

We managed to survive our 2 1/2 days with the grandchildren - thank goodness for Krista and Jamie - I'm not sure that I would have survived without them as Alexandra does not appear to like sleeping in her bed at night.

Our 2 week vacation is over - it flew by so very, very fast.

We went to Toronto this year to celebrate New Year's Eve at a place called the Dance Cafe. A beautiful dance floor with lots of room for dancing. It also gave us an excuse to see Ryan, Deb and the "kids" again. It warmed my heart when Alexandra willingly came to me as soon as we walked in the door. When I was finished greeting her, she willingly went to Gramps for some more kisses and cuddling. On our way home to London we met Graham's daughter Jeannie and our granddaughter Isabella for "linner" - it was 3:00 in the afternoon - too late for lunch, too early for dinner.

We shall now see what 2009 has in store for us. Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is here and all of my family have arrived safe and sound. Poor Abby and Emma are in culture shock I think.
Alexandra labours under the mistaken impression that her mother is THE only person in the world who is capable of caring for her - if mom is in the room, or within eyeshot, Alex screams until mom finally takes her. She is not even happy with her father's undivided attention.

Austin, on the other hand is simply excited about Christmas. He hung his stocking by the fireplace tonight and left milk, cookies and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer.
Tomorrow morning should be exciting for all of us as this will be the first Christmas where Austin understands what is going on and it is Alexandra's first Christmas.

Nana, as you can see is just thrilled to have everyone home, safe and sound.

Christmas

Can you believe that Christmas is only 12 Days away!!!! While I don't really celebrate Christmas (I celebrate Yule or the Winter Solstice on 21 Dec ), the rest of my family does. This is good for me because my children come home. For the first time ever, ALL of my children and grandchildren will be home on Christmas day. Until they were married, Ryan & Deb always spent Christmas Day apart - Ryan with us and Deb with her family. Since they've been married they've spent Christmas at home or with Deb's parents so this is very exciting. They do have an unterior motive - they are travelling to North Carolina (or South) on Dec 26 or 27 to attend a family celebration and, again, for the first time ever, I get to babysit my grandchildren!!!!! They will only be gone for a couple of days but, that's probably as much as I will be able to take for my first time babysitting. Hopefully I will have more opportunities in the future. So, for Christmas Day there will be 8 of us. Jamie actually returns home today after writing her final exams yesterday. Krista and Ryan's gang will be home later on Christmas Eve - both Krista and Ryan have to work on Dec 24.
As Ryan and Deb are leaving for North (South) Carolina, Graham's daughter Jeannie and her youngest, Isabella will be arriving for a couple of days. This is also a first and a very exciting one. Unfortunately, Jeannie's oldest daughter, Carissa has to work and isn't able to join us.
So, the Christmas season is a very exciting one for us this year - we intend to enjoy every minute with our children and grandchildren.

We would like to wish each and every one of you and Very Blessed Holiday season and a Prosperous New Year.

Family Tree

I have been working on my family tree and thought that some of you might be interested in having a peak. It can be found at:

www.downard.myheritage.com

I have been able to find the marriage licences for both of my sets of grandparents. I did try to attach them to this post, but they are too small to read.

I never realized that my dad's father's family originally came from Ireland, while his mother's family came from England (at least as far back as I've been able to trace so far).
Here are my ancestors as I have found them so far:
http://www.myheritageimages.com/M/storage/site42132681/files/ng/p2/17/ngp217_9218923b33b394dur0de17.pdf

Graham is also working on his family tree. He is much farther along than I am - makes sense since he's been working on his for about 3 years. His brother and sister have recently been sending him some old pictures. I am attaching a picture of Graham when he was a police officer with the Mississauga Police Force. He had badge # 94.(Don't laugh too hard.)


I have also joined the London Camera Club - hoping to be able to learn to take some really good pictures. I'll keep you up to date on that.

My Challenging Week

On Wednesday evening, I had to take Abby and Emma to the vets all by myself. Now, the girls are "only" Cocker Spaniels, but they are a handful and a half...........................each!
We all survived and the girls have now had their shots for the year and they were all set for the groomers today.
Thank goodness I had Graham's help this time around because it was pouring rain AND the girls get so excited in the pet store where we have them groomed. Between the two of us, we managed, and our girls look absolutely beautiful!!!!!

Dirty Dancing

For my birthday this year, Graham gave me tickets to Dirty Dancing at the Royal Alexandria Theatre in Toronto. What trip to Toronto would be complete without a stop at Ryan & Deb's and an opportunity to spend some time with our grandchildren. (We really do enjoy you guys as well, Ryan & Deb, but, the grandchildren do hold a special appeal).
Despite the cold weather, we spent time out on the front porch "blowing Bubbles" - an activity that I have not enjoyed since my own children were small.
Deb and Alexandra came out to watch.
Austin actually spent more time chasing Nana's buubles than he did making his own.


After a delicious
dinner of
cheeseburgers
(Gramps' favourite) and homemade pumpkin pie (Deb's very first attempt at making a pie and it was delicious), we headed for downtown Toronto and the Royal Alexandria Theatre. We had amazing seats for the performance - any closer and we would have ended up with sore necks from constantly looking up at the stage instead of straight ahead. We were almost exactly at the centre of the stage -

couldn't have asked for anything better! The show was amazing - full of energy and song - we had both forgotten how much we had enjoyed the movie - wecertainly enjoyed the stage production.
The only downside to our evening - we come form a city where after 6:00 on Saturdays you do not have to worry about parking meters - the parking is free. Unfortunately the laws a a little different in Toronto. We amanaged to find a wonderful parking spot, on the street between the Royal Alexandria Theatre and the Princess of Wales Theatre. Seeing no "No Parking" signs, we thought that we were safe - NOT!!!!! Apparently, the metres are centralized and up the street a ways where we couldn't see them. We came back to the car after the performance to find a $30.00 ticket neatly tucked under our windshield wiper for "fail to display receipt in windshield". Live and learn!

Day 25 - New York City

I've always wanted to visit New York. Graham has visited the city - in his truck. Apparently you don't stop in New York or you'll lose pieces of your truck. Apparently one of the Taylor drivers stopped at a red light and had both of his taillights stolen.
Unfortunately, we saw very little of the city. We disembarked from the ship and boarded a bus which immediately took us to the airport in Newark, New Jersey through the Lincoln Tunnel. A short, 2 hour flight to Detroit and then home. Back to work and the real world.
The dogs were delighted to see us!!

Day 24 - at Sea

Our final day aboard the Eurodam was spent at sea. We needed an opportunity to get ready to re-enter the real world. As usual, I spent time in the spa while Graham napped and we both spent time in the casino. I actually walked off the boat having won approximately $700.00. We won't talk about how Graham did. Here are some of our casino friends.
This picture is of Sean Bell & the Neptunes - they were our dance band in the Ocean Bar. Sean is actually from Winnipeg.