Friday, June 24, 2011

The weekend....

Good Morning Company Girls!!

Well, you've probably all heard that phrase...'the best laid plans of mice and men....', this morning we were suppose to 'get on the road', bright and early..take hubby's car to the shop for a minor tire glitch...(minor to me but not to him) and then we were suppose to head up north to take Maya to the camp that she's working at for the next two months...then we were going to come back down via the camp where our trailer is sitting and get it opened up for the season. Opening the trailer entails flushing the antifreeze out of all the water lines, emptying the trailer of all the stuff that was stored for the winter in there, cleaning up, cutting the grass and raking everything...and so on and so on.....

Well, yesterday when I was driving my van I looked up at the oil change sticker on my windshield and down at the odometer and realized that I was 26 kms past oil change time...I'm usually quite a stickler about this because we had one engine on our very first van burn out because this wasn't attended to...ever since then I'm rather paranoid about it all. Since I knew we'd be going up north today...I got it in to the oil change place....the very nice man there informed me that I had a leak in a drive shaft seal...thankfully it's still under warranty..unfortunately it needed to be attended to as early as possible...the car dealership where it is under warranty needed or could take it first thing this morning....so....hubby is on his way with it to hopefully get that fixed.....this means that we wont get away til probably noon and we wont get to stop at the trailer to get it opened up...which means when we all troop up there next Friday for our holiday...well, lets just say...it will be a very long day..doing all the work required to 'open' it and then unpacking and setting up.

This also impacts tomorrow which was going to entail taking the dogs to the vet in the morning to get their required inoculations so they can stay at the kennel next week while we are gone. You see, we have two large dogs...my hubby has to be here to take them to the vet but he had to change the time of taking his car into the shop to tomorrow morning. Yes, there's more....son Ben is going to a theme park near Toronto with the church youth group tomorrow morning...he has to be at the church for 8 a.m.,...(hubby wasn't impressed with that news) ...so now...hubby will take Ben, drop him off at the church, go to the auto repair place, leave his car, get a drive home so he can be here by 10 a.m. to take the dogs for a 10:30 a.m. appointment to get their needles. In the afternoon we have plans to visit friends that we haven't seen for awhile...we're looking forward to that but I'm starting to question whether we will be able to carry on an interesting conversation with our friends when we'll be likely to be nodding off!

On the home front Emma has been up to her normal tricks and of course we're still the worst parents ever....c'est la vie....one of these days she'll grow up and hopefully all will be well.

School is done...Megan and Ben finished yesterday and in a few moments I have to go and pick up Emma from her last exam.....
......and the summer begins....good grief.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Grandkids are coming!!!.....

The Grandkids Are Coming! The Grandkids Are Coming!!


Good Morning Company Girls! How are you doin'?

Many moons ago when eldest daughter became engaged she said...'do you mind if we use the same wedding date that you and dad have...June 16th?' we said 'no'...I mean we didn't have any copyright on that date or anything....but, unfortunately when the calendar was checked we found that the following year was a leap year and instead of the Saturday being the 16th, it was actually the 15th...eldest daughter was slightly disappointed but went with the 15th.....now, fast forward to when we both needed kids to be babysat just so we could go and have an anniversary dinner...and we would end up reciprocating for each other so we didn't have to pay a babysitter as well as expensive eating out costs....sort of a mutual babysitting club....now, my kids have outgrown the need for a babysitter (well, unless Emma gets herself in trouble and we have to have someone watch (guard) her).....but fortunately our little grandkids still need nana and papa to step in when mom and dad go away ...overnite...like they're doing today.....so....in a couple of hours Jairus,10...Honour 7-3/4,.....Verity 6,....and Afton 3....are coming to nana and papa's for a sleepover!!!

This has been an interesting week, since we returned from Hawaii, to say the least.....two days after we returned, I had a meeting with Emma's therapist......and with Emma present she told us that Emma acted the way she did because of the way Don and I parented her...um....We've parented approximately 25 kids in the last 36 years...so now they tell us we've done it all wrong...well, for goodness sake...please don't tell the rest of the kids...we could have a mutiny on our hands....in fact....people seem to be jumping ship....a phone message left while we were gone indicated that the social worker I meet with to pour out my troubles to and have used as a personal sounding board has gone on sick leave and will be gone indefinitely (no I didn't make her sick...the poor woman was recently diagnosed with MS...have you noticed that that seems to be happening a lot lately...a little scary).....then there was a lovely card in the mail that explained how the lady that has groomed my dogs....for over 20 years is moving 3 hours north of here and she really doesn't have anyone she could refer me to...ya...does the phrase 'being thrown under the bus' come to mind??

Yesterday, was our anniversary...please go back and read the last post to read about it....the day didn't exactly go as hubby and I had planned.....for one thing..he was teaching in the evening...which means he doesn't even come home here for supper on those days never mind us going out for supper.....so...we decided to meet for lunch.....I left home a little bit early so I could stop at a card store...to get him a card....which I did...and continued on my way....hubby works a distance away so I had to drive for a bit to meet him for lunch.....on the way, the high school called...(I almost didn't answer my cell phone...I just looked at the number and thought...'oh no, do I really want to answer this?)...but...I did...yes, indeed it was Emma...not well...in fact, lying on the floor of the cooking class room..unable to get up because of dizziness.....would I come and get her or they'd call an ambulance......well, my mother instincts thought that was a bit overkill ,..but....I thought that maybe I wasn't seeing the whole picture here...so, I turned around after calling hubby to cancel and went to the school. When I arrived they indeed had got her off the floor...the vice principal accusingly said to me...'she's not had any breakfast you know!'...what a shocker..really?.....like I'm suppose to do something about this....the girl will be 18 in November and is bigger than me...I'm suppose to spoon feed her? So, my diagnosis of the situation was this...she was dehydrated...hadn't eaten or drunk anything since 6 p.m. the night before...which she always does...(yes, I know..there goes my mother of the year award)......started feeling light headed and dizzy....started to hyperventilate and panic over it all which resulted in tingling in her finger tips and toes....so the teacher starts to panic....they think they have to call an ambulance when really after they found out that she hadn't eaten anything if they would just have had her drink some juice and eat a muffin (which they were shoving at her when I arrived)...we could have avoided all of this.....yes, I did get after Emma as we drove home..explaining to her that this was the problem when she didn't eat breakfast and didn't take a lunch.....I did reinforce to her that she had to at least drink more so this didn't happen again.....

....so, needless to say..there went lunch.....not anybodies fault mind you...but disappointing none the less.....hubby did send me an email later on that afternoon to tell me to be prepared..he was taking me out to supper on Saturday evening..after the grandkids leave...well,....they'll still be here for about an hour after we leave but we'll prevail upon Maya to keep an eye on them til their mom and dad return.....so...all is not lost but when hubby didn't come home last night til after 10:30pm..I said that I couldn't remember an anniversary that we had actually spent such little time together!

Well, I best go...the school just called...again...(do you think they have us on speed dial?) it would seem that Megan forgot her locker key...the teacher gave her the spare to use....which she promptly locked into her locker where here gym clothes and lunch are that she needs this morning.....good grief...

Have a great weekend ladies!!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Testing


Trying out a post from my iPad....see if this works......today is a gloomy day, Ben's gone off to Wild Waterworks and I'm not sure if they'll get rained out!

Location:Ontario

Friday, June 10, 2011

Amazing!!!!!

Good Morning Company Girls! At Last....able to do a blogger post....

The picture above is the first view from the lobby of the Silver Cloud Inn in Mukilteo, Washington....a little further down is a pic (I got them out of order, sorry) of a little bit of the lobby...very quaint and nautical....of course the picture above is of one of the many ferries that go back and forth from the mainland to the various islands nearby. Hubby and I actually took one the next day to go over to Port Gamble. We had tea at this cute little tea shop....they have hats there...fancy ladies hats that you can wear while having your tea...we declined but there were two young girls...about 12 years old...who were there,....all by themselves, having tea and wearing these fancy hats....very cute. Then we drove around some more and found a quilt shop!!!! I was so excited.....of course I would have loved to buy out the store but since it was the beginning of our trip I restrained myself....I was thrilled to find some things that I've been looking at online...some things to use in appliqueing ....some special glue and some heat resistant plastic called Templar that you make templates with.....so exciting...it's the little things ladies really!

This is a wee little lighthouse close to our hotel in Mukilteo....cute eh?
On to Hawaii...to the Queen's palace...you couldn't take pictures inside but it was very nice...a lot of beautiful wood...and a very old quilt, kept under glass that the queen and her companion worked on while she was imprisoned in one of the rooms there...(it's a long story).....I have to tell you about getting to Hawaii though....you'll be quite impressed with my hubby....you see hubby knows quite well that the extent of my flying, hours wise, is about four hours...maybe four and a half...well, flying to Hawaii from Washington is six... record for me...wasn't sure how I'd do it but I really wanted to go to Hawaii so I was willing to try.....ya, I know...overseas flights are much longer...maybe I wont get it there..but then again...maybe I'll just have to get my courage up to use the onboard washrooms......that's my greatest fear...flushing those toilets on a plane ...they scare the bejeebers out of me...so I'll do anything to avoid using them...including dehydrating myself...which I did...foolish yes, but these are desperate measures! Well when we arrived at Seatac airport for our flight, there were a lot of people standing around waiting to get their bags checked and hubby says...'I'm not waiting for this'...and proceeded to go down the aisle for first class...I'm following, protesting...'Don, Donald...we can't go here..this is first class...we're going to get in trouble'....but he kept going.....I was sure when he handed the baggage handler our tickets that the guy would say...'sorry,...wrong line'...but he didn't....I was surprised...then we were directed to the faster lane for first class to go through security....I was still quite dense and thought..'someone is going to stop us anytime now'.....as we were standing there I looked at my ticket to see where our seats were situated and it said 3C...that puzzled me because I always have the middle seat and Don has the aisle or window...well 'C' would not be the middle (??)...so I says to hubby...'what is your seat number...he said...3A....I said ..well, I'm C...does this mean we're not sitting together?...who's in between us....he just grinned and said 'ya, we're sitting together'....well, I stood there, waiting my turn to take my shoes and jacket off...empty all my stuff into those little bins....mulling this over.....and I looked at hubby...'Don, are we going first class?'...he grinned and said we were.....'How can we do that...we can't afford that...oh my goodness, what the pete are you doing?' I said...he just grinned...you see...we were flying on airmiles....he found out that by using more air miles and a little bit of money to make up the difference that we could go first class...he decided that he'd do that to surprise me, to make the 6 hour flight a little easier....insert 'aw' here....ya, he's a pretty good guy..think I'll keep him....First Class is soooooo cool...all the times I've flown and I've never realized just how the other quarter of the plane was living way up there at the front of the plane! My Goodness!
This is the view...sorry evening view so it's a little dark, from the balcony of our room on the 22nd floor .....of our hotel room in Honolulu, Hawaii....very nice...except I have a very strong fear of heights...I could force myself to go out about a foot on the balcony and that's it.....but a lovely view....
This is the pic that's out of order but it's part of the lobby in Mukilteo....
One day we went driving up the North shore in Oahu and saw these humongous sea turtles...this pic doesn't do it justice because it doesn't look as large as it really is.....
A view from a lookout where some battle with the king of Hawaii took place.....breathtaking view really....
This is a shot back in Washington....this is when we returned from Hawaii...we drove up the peninsula to the rain forest and stayed at a lodge in Lake Quinalt......very nice and peaceful after the busyness of Honolulu......
...before we left the area we went further up the coast to say we saw the Pacific Ocean...so there it is.....
Sorry...another pic out of order (I'm really not good at posting pics..)....this is hubby back in Hawaii trying to get a pic of the sea turtles in the water...when he gets the pics off his camera, which are much better than mine, I'll have to show you some.....

So, anyways...we had twelve glorious days of freedom...it was wonderful..we've never been away for that long and certainly not been away from the kids for that long...it went well at home...Emma stayed with eldest daughter Leslie...she wasn't happy but she cooked her goose and this was the consequence.....the other three stayed at home and Paul's girlfriend stayed with them...she survived, which was wonderful....it was the first vacation that I didn't have one bit of concern about what was going on at home....it was wonderful! Hubby planned our time away so very well...as he always does......Two days in Mukilteo, Washington, eight days in Hawaii, two days in the rain forest back in Washington and our final night in a lovely room overlooking Commencement Bay in Tacoma, Washington...the check in girl even upgraded us to a jacuzzi suite with no extra charge....a lovely treat situated right under the window looking out over the bay!

We had a long day of flying on Tuesday, (not first class :0) ).....from Washington to Chicago and then on a tiny little claustrophobic plane from Chicago to Buffalo and then the drive home...leaving our hotel, in Tacoma at 6:30am and arriving at home that evening at 9:30pm.....poor hubby had to get up the next morning and get off to work right away...which he wasn't looking forward to...after our holiday he was dreaming of retirement!....

It was a dream trip of a lifetime to be sure......we enjoyed every minute....I can safely say there wasn't one thing that went wrong...on our trip or at home.....it was worth the wait that we've been waiting for , for over a year....we were blessed...yes, we were blessed indeed and might thankful to the Lord for giving us this amazing opportunity.

Have a wonderful weekend!