Sunday - October 19, 2008

It has been a while since I've blogged but we have had a busy time with lots going on. My brother and Ian arrived from Australia, via 4 days in Los Angeles, and we had a great visit and a very busy week. We picked them up on Sept. 30th at Pearson Airport in Toronto and went to Kitchener where my sister-in-law Carol had prepared a wonderful turkey dinner for us, my sister Pat and niece Serita, as well as our son and daughter-in-law were also there for dinner so we had a great family reunion.

On Wednesday we brought them up to Kincardine and of course the weather was cool and wet, much to their disgust as they feel the cold - oh well, can't change the weather! On the way up we stopped at a farm market outside of Kitchener and Ian was amazed by all the pumpkins, he also wanted to buy apple jelly as when he was a kid he read books that talked about peanut butter and apple jelly sandwiches so he wanted a jar to take home and try a sandwich (he says they are soooooo gooooood!).

On Thursday we took them up to Lions Head in the Bruce Peninsula as my brother had never been there and we think the Peninsula is a beautiful place. The weather was wet and cold but fortunately by the time we got to Lions Head the sun came out and it was beautiful. From there we went back to Bryan & Carol's cottage at Sauble Beach and Carol had cooked another wonderful dinner for us.

Lions Head Bluff



On the Friday Carol & Bryan met us in Kincardine and we all headed to Sarnia for the interment of mom and dad's ashes. It was a beautiful day and we left early enough that we could give Art and Ian a bit of a tour around Sarnia before we had to be at the cemetery. Everyone enjoyed the tour and Bryan and Carol learned a lot about our family's life in Sarnia (there is 18 years between Art and Bryan and Bryan was quite young when my parents moved from Sarnia to Welland). On the Saturday we had a memorial service for Mom in Brantford and then my sister had all the family back to her house, including cousins who were at the service. We had a wonderful family get together and it is always fun to see cousins we haven't seen in a long time.

On Sunday Pat, Serita and Bryan went to Niagara Falls with us as that was the one place Ian wanted to go. Our first destination was Niagara on the Lake but it was a total zoo so we just did a drive through. We stopped at all the major attractions between Niagara on the Lake and Niagara Falls then when we got to the falls Bryan, Art, Ian and John went on the Maid of the Mist as none of them had done it before. I didn't want to do it as I was afraid of slipping and doing something to my hip so Pat and Serita stayed with me just enjoying the falls as they have been on the Maid of the Mist many times. The guys really enjoyed it and probably got lots of good pictures.

Looking Back Towards Niagara on the Lake



Looking Across the Niagara River



Floral Clock



Whirlpool & Cable Car



Maid of the Mist



Falls and a Beautiful Rainbow



American Falls



After the falls we stopped at the Botanical Gardens but didn't have a lot of time there as they were just getting ready to close but as usual we did enjoy the gardens and beautiful flowers. Here are a couple of pictures I took in there:







On the Monday we did nothing but enjoyed the lovely weather then Tuesday it was time to take them to the airport for their longggggg flight home. We had a great visit and it is always so hard to say goodbye as we don't know when we will see them again.

Now it is time to start getting ready to close up the cottage and move back into the Airstream, so that was our chore for the next week. On Thanksgiving weekend our daughter Kel, her husband Tim and granddaughter Cara came on Saturday for the weekend but they had their tent trailer so weren't staying with us. Kel helped me move all the canned goods etc. up to the trailer as I am not able yet to lift heavy stuff or bend over to get into bottom cupboards so I sure appreciated her help as it was one less thing for John to have to do.

On Saturday night I cooked dinner and friends of ours, Mike & Margie, were also at the park for the weekend so we invited them for dinner so there were 7 of us. On Sunday Kel and Tim cooked dinner and invited Mike & Margie for dinner again and John's brother and sister-in-law stopped by about 5 so we asked them to stay for dinner so there was 9 of us Sunday night, thank goodness for the "cottage". It was a fun weekend and we really enjoyed it.

On Monday John moved the Airstream onto a site in the park and we moved in so we could turn off the furnace in the cottage and get it cooled down and ready for winterizing. We did one last load of laundry in our washing machine in the cottage and got it hung out and dried - now I am back to laundromats - sure will miss my washer and clothes line!!

On Wednesday we said goodbye to Green Acres, Kincardine and moved to Green Acres in Waterloo where we will stay until Nov. 12th at which time we are planning on heading south. We have come to Waterloo for the last couple of years so I could spend some time with my mom before heading south, so it is sad not to be able to go and visit her now but there is lots to do here so we won't be bored. Guess next year we will have to rethink our fall plans.

I will try to do one more post between now and heading south, just hope the weather doesn't get too cold between now and then.

Thursday - September 25, 2008

It has been ages since I've done a post but most of the time there is nothing exciting to write about, every day is just a normal day in a normal life. The last little while has been a bit different but I just haven't had time to do a post but here goes.

In August we went to my brother's cottage near Sauble Beach and had a delicious dinner on the deck overlooking Lake Huron and were very fortunate to have a beautiful sunset to enjoy. Here are a couple of pictures of the sunset over Lake Huron









On August 26th I had surgery to replace my right hip and it went very well, I was supposed to be in the hospital 5 days but because I was doing so well they sent me home a day early - I sure didn't argue with that as hospital is the last place I want to be!! And, oh how wonderful it is to be without pain!!! I had an epidural for the surgery then they just put you out enough that you don't really know what is happening - I remember hearing the surgeon hammering in the spike but didn't care, but what a wonderful way to have it done, there is no having to recover from the anaesthetic and I feel my recovery has been much easier this time than 4 years ago when I had the left hip replaced.

My mother lived in a retirement home in Kitchener, so I decided that I would go there to start my rehab until I got my staples out , we figured it would be easier to me to get around there at first, plus I wouldn't have to do a 2 hour drive home and then back to get my staples out and I would be able to spend time with my mom. It worked out very well, I was there 11 days and was able to spend lots of time with mom in her environment, it was heart warming to see how much the staff loved her and they were always so good and kind to her. They kept telling me what a sweetheart she was (she really was) and one day on the way out of the dining room I said to that the staff all thought she was so sweet - she stopped walking, looked at me and said "you mean they don't know what an old bitch I am", I laughed and said no mom, you have them completely fooled.

I got my staples out on September 11th and we came back to Kincardine, then on the 15th John had to go to Kitchener for a doctor's appointment so I decided to go with him and see my mom - again we had a good visit and played double solitaire which she really enjoyed - we actually won our last game. On Wednesday, the 17th we got a phone call in the morning that she was not well and we should go down, John and I managed to get there and be with her for about 1-1/2 hours before she passed away surrounded by her family, fortunately my brother & sister-in-law were with her all day and my sister and niece had arrived an hour or so before we did. We will miss her terribly, but she was ready to go (91 years old) and went very peacefully - what more could we ask for her. One day when I was there, during lunch she had said to one of the women at our table that she prayed every night that she would not wake up in the morning, then when she did wake up she said she figured God didn't want her last night but maybe tonight - how can we be sad when it is what she wanted.

Now we are in the process of cleaning out her room etc. My older brother lives in Australia and he is coming home next Tuesday for a week to attend the interment service (both mom & dad were cremated), so we are having them interred together in Sarnia next Friday, then a memorial service for Mom will be held next Saturday at my sister's church in Brantford.

So, although most of the summer has been very quiet the last few weeks have been a bit busier. I am doing well, 4 weeks after surgery I am walking without a cane except when I go out and yesterday I drove the truck for the first time. The physiotherapist was here on Monday and thought I was doing exceptionally well so I was glad to hear that - have to be ready to head south in mid November!! And I am looking forward to being able to play golf this winter.

The next couple of weeks will be busy and then it will be time to close up our park model and move to Waterloo for a month before heading south. I will try to get a couple of posts in during the next couple of weeks, but for sure will start on a regular basis when we head south.

Sunday - August 3, 2008

Here it is with another couple of weeks gone by since I last posted my blog, where on earth does the time go!!

Last Saturday our daughter Nancy and her husband Carl came and stayed overnight and we had a great visit with them. Late Sunday afternoon after they left John and I went to Kitchener to our sons for dinner and to stay overnight as I had an early appointment on Monday morning with the surgeon re my hip - the good news is that I am having my right hip replaced on August 26th so the good lord be willing I will be good to head south in mid November.

I had my left hip replaced four years ago so know what to look forward to and it is amazing how fast you recover, I just hope that this surgery is as successful as the last one was. Between now and then there will be lots of running back and forth between doctors, pre op etc. so it will be a busy few weeks. I will be in hospital for 5 days then I am going to the nursing home where my mom is for between 10 days and two weeks. They have rooms set aside for people recovering from surgery so it will work out good for me for the short term so that by the time I get back here I should be reasonably mobile.

For many years John and I helped out our Airstream dealer at the big RV Shows in Toronto and London, we would talk to people about RVing and Airstreams and always enjoyed doing the shows. On Thursday friends of ours who we met through Can-Am, as George also helped out at the shows, arrived at the park and are here to partake in the Old Boys Reunion being held in Kincardine this weekend so when John saw them in the afternoon he invited them down for a drink. When they were ready to leave they said they were going into town to the Erie Belle for dinner and invited us to join them so we had a really good visit with them.

The couple we bought the "cottage" from are here for two weeks holidays so on Friday we did our annual trip to Tobermory and Lions Head with them. When we first met we found out that we all had spent summers in Lions Head, John and I had our trailer there in a little park out on Isthmus Bay for 20 years and Mike and Marg had rented a cottage there for many years so the four of us now do an annual day trip up there - always lots of fun.

Little Tub Harbour - Tobermory



John & Mike By the Docks



Looking Across Little Tub Harbour



A Different Use for Tums



Mike & Marg at Isthmus Bay in Front of Our Old Trailer Park



John and I at Isthmus Bay



A View of Isthmus Bay Looking Towards Whipporwill (This is a view we enjoyed for 20 Years But There Was No Long Grass Then!!)



Lions Head Lighthouse




Lions Head



John's Father's cousin owned this cottage and John, our girls and I stayed there 42 years ago



Lions Head Marina with Beach Park Campground in Background



Yesterday I did a load of laundry and that was about it as my hip was wiped after all the walking on Friday!

This week is a busy one, on Tuesday we are planning on going to the Keady Market, Wednesday we are going to my brother's cottage at Sauble Beach, Thursday we are going to Kitchener to visit my mom and bottle wine and then Friday we are having company for the weekend. Will have to try to find a bit of time each day for a nap!!

Till next time!

Thursday - July 17, 2008

Today is our grandson Brent's birthday, happy birthday Brent!

John has got the railing on the deck done and it looks really good, it's funny everyone says the deck looks a lot larger now (I thought it looked lots big before the railing went on!) and everyone compliments John on a job well done, which I agree with.

The deck with John's railing:





On Tuesday we took a drive down to Goderich (about 50 km south of here) as I thought there was a Home Depot there, wrong! Oh well, it was a nice day for a drive and we stopped at the Goderich Home Hardware, which is a huge store with a furniture section, Food Basics and Wal Mart so it wasn't a wasted trip.

Yesterday the park had people in spraying for gypsy moth caterpillars as some parts of the park have really been infested with them, fortunately they didn't make it down to our part but they sprayed anyways to be on the safe side. About the time they were ready to start on our section we headed out and went to Carmel's, in a little burg north of here called Tiverton, for breakfast which was very good. After eating we browsed through an antique shop then decided to drive on up to Port Elgin which is about 35 km north of Kincardine. There is a place there that does truck upgrades that John wanted to check out but the fellow who owns it is on holidays so no luck there.

This is the first time I have been up there this year and I couldn't believe the number of windmills that have been erected around the area of the Bruce Nuclear Plant, there are also a couple of large windmill farms south of us, wind power has really come to this area of Lake Huron! The windmills we saw today are not running yet, there appears to be a lot more to be installed before they start them up. These are windmills beside the hydro transmission lines:



We also passed this field of canola and the colour is so pretty!






We drove around town, checked out the municipal park - not our idea of a place to stay as it is very crowded and the sites are VERY close together, then down by the marina and beach. There is a little train that runs by the marina and through a park by the water and for the first time we saw the train go by yesterday, we weren't even sure if it still ran but now we know it does.

Port Elgin Marina (you can see the sailboat heading out!)



And another area of the marina



The train with lots of passengers



And the beach was very busy



We drove by this home and I just loved the walkway up to the house!



We saw this Argosy motorhome in the park in Port Elgin, I think this is the first time we have seen one.



And this is way too crowded for me!



Today is another gorgeous day, we have been having beautiful weather for the last couple of weeks (finally!!!) so I hopefully will be off to the pool again today to enjoy adult swim. Tomorrow I have an appointment for acupuncture at 4:30 so will miss my swim as adult time is 3:30 - 4:30 and Saturday we are having company for the day so best enjoy it today while I can.

Thursday - July 3, 2008

I didn't realize how long it has been since I put something on my blog - don't know where the time goes but also there isn't much to write about when you aren't on the road seeing and doing different things most days.

Here is a picture of our house in Beeton, we moved away 23 years ago and sold it for about $75,000 (we bought it for $43,000 in 1975) and it is now for sale again and I couldn't find the listing on the internet but I know from other listings I saw it would be listed for $300,000+, crazy!!!



My brother wanted me to post a picture of our new chairs so here they are!



The weather here has been very cool, I don't know if or when summer will arrive although surprisingly Lake Huron is very warm and there have been lots of people in swimming for the last month - go figure. We have been fortunate and haven't had a lot of rain but it sure would be nice if it would warm up and seem like summer.

Last Saturday our son, daughter-in-law and another couple came up for the weekend and fortunately the sun came out in the afternoon and it turned into a beautiful day. The guys were lucky and got a tee time on Saturday afternoon so the girls and I went into town and wandered the stores for a bit, I had seen a store selling gellato (Italian ice cream that is to die for) so we stopped and had a dish that was absolutely yummy!! On the way home we stopped and walked down to the beach and the water was really warm, unfortunately the girls hadn't brought their bathing suits or we would have come back and changed and gone for a swim.

They left on Sunday then on Monday my sister and niece came for a couple of days so we had a good visit. We didn't do anything too exciting but on Tuesday night (Canada Day) my sister treated us to dinner at the Erie Belle then we went down and sat on the beach afterwards to wait for the fireworks. They set them off of the pier and out over the water and they were awesome. Guess who forgot their camera so no pictures!

Yesterday we went to a little town about 10 miles from here where a Mennonite family has a house full of anything and everything imagineable, plus they sell fruits and veggies so I thought my sister would get a kick out of looking around the place so it was a good time to go and pick up some veggies and give her a chance to browse through the house. Another friend went with us and I had an acupuncture appointment so they checked out the stores while I was having that then we went to Tim's for coffee and Sobey's for a couple of groceries.

John has been busy around here, our property is low so our parking spot was a mud hole and we couldn't park here in the spring or we would get stuck so he has built up the parking spot and it is now nice and dry as you can see.



I went for a walk a while ago and took a few pictures, here is a picture looking down the road towards our place, but we are around the bend



John has started a railing around the deck and the first priority was to do the piece across the back so he could put up a piece of plexiglass for a wind break for the barbecue. We get a lot of wind out of the south and it makes it very hard to barbecue at times but now with the railing and a wind break it is much better. He has just come back from purchasing the lumber to build the rest of the railing, guess that will keep him out of trouble for a while!!



We bought this banner at the market in Yuma and everyone stops and comments on it. I suspect I will have people wanting me to bring them one back next year.

Sunday -June 15, 2008

Again, I don't know where the time goes but it does seem to fly by. We are pretty well finished with things we wanted to do to the "cottage" and the yard is finally looking better thanks to all John's hard work. This past week he cleaned out all the eaves troughs, washed the cottage and shed and cleaned all the windows so we are sparkling clean!

On Thursday the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) brought their Musical Ride to Kincardine so we got tickets for the 11 a.m. show and it was great, it is amazing the precision drills they do with the horses. After the show the riders spread out around the field and talked to people and one of the riders was saying it takes 3 years to train a horse and they start training them at about three years so they would be about 6 when they start in the show and the oldest horse there was 19 years old. Here are a few pictures:













I had a real problem with my hip most of the week but Friday's acupuncture treatment really helped and I am able to move again, I even managed to do some shopping after my treatment on Friday and finally bought a patio set for the deck. I bought it at Tim-BR Mart and they delivered it for $5 - great deal. Our new Lazy Boy chairs were also delivered on Friday and boy are they comfortable.

Yesterday we went to Beeton to visit friends, this is where we lived for 10 years and where our son Mike spent his early years and he still goes back a couple of times a year to visit friends so yesterday he was there visiting one of the sons of the couple we were visiting so the guys had a father/son golf game, they had a great afternoon with warm, sunny weather and because today was Father's Day the sons treated the Dad's to the game. It was about 7:30 when they got home so we had a delicious barbecue - steak, baked potatoes, cesear salad, asparagus and garlic bread then Mike and Rick headed into town for a do at the arena and Julee, Terry, John and I settled into a game of euchre and for once we women cleaned the guys clocks - sure was fun - at least for Julee and I!

Today we went into the Muddy Water Hotel for wings and ran into a few people we knew, it's always fun to see old friends. On the way out of town we saw another couple we know sitting on their front porch so stopped and had a nice visit with them for a bit. We ran in and out of torrential rain on the way home and at one point it was even hailing, sure has been funny weather this spring!

We have another busy week coming up with something on every day and on Thursday we are going to Kitchener for dentist appointments then for a family barbecue at the retirement home where my mom lives. This is the end of our appointments in K/W but will go down about every 10 days to see my mom, I would like to go once a week but with the price of fuel we will cut back a bit as it is getting expensive going back and forth.