A good holiday

It's Saturday and my week's holiday is almost finished. We got done what we wanted for the most part and took a few day trips that were very enjoyable.

Saturday started with us going and getting Al a good crochet game. Josh came over and we played extreme crochet all over the back yard. At times I was laughing so hard I couldn't see to shoot the ball. The neighbours I'm sure think we are insane.

Sunday started with a mini-crisis for my mom. We were planning on a quiet weekend with a trip to the flea market on Sunday morning. We were getting all set when the phone rings and it's my mother with a burst hot water tank. She lives in a 5 level co-op townhouse in Richmond. When she got up and went downstairs to let the cats out, her floor mats were floating around the bottom level.

She phoned me in a panic and also my brother. He lives in New Westminster which is about 10 minutes away and we live an hour and a half away but we got there within 20 minutes from each other. He phoned me while we were both on the road and chatted for a sec and I told him not to let mom do anything til we all got there and figured out what needed to be done. Does he listen to me??? NO!!!! I had talked to mom on the phone while on the way there and she told me that the co-op president had been around and told her to do whatever was necessary such as bringing in a reclamation company and a plumber. So much easier.

We get there and my brother is gone. Mom says, "Oh he phoned the reclamation company back and told them not to come. He said it would be easy to clean up and he went to rent a shop vac and a big blower heater fan." My poor brother arrives back with said equipment to be met by a sister with a face on her like a meat axe (as my grandma always used to say) and I'm going "WHY!??!" "Why would you do that?" The water had covered her whole bottom floor and seeped under the walls on both sides to leak into the units on either side of her. The washer and dryer were sitting in all the water and needed to be moved, her crawl space was down there and she uses it as a storage area, the washer and dryer needed to be moved out and both my brother and my husband have really bad backs.

He took one look at me and says "What? No problem I can take it back and call them back." So he did. He comes back and we asked him if they charged him to take the stuff back and he said it was only $10. We asked what he told them and he said he told them his crazy sister had decendend on him like the hounds of hell and berated and bullied him into taking it back! They felt so sorry for him they did with a small restocking fee. LOL It pays to be the older sister on occasion. As it turned out the reclamation guy was a flood and water damage specialist and he had some meter thingy that he checked all the walls with and he said the wall was wet for 6 inches up all the way around and if they had not dried it properly it would have been moldy with that black mold in six months. So they cleaned it all up and got her a new hot water tank and got it installed for her. All was good again.

Seeing as how we were in Richmond anyway we decided to make a day of it and head into Steveston. The seagull at the top of the page was sitting on a piling waiting for a fish handout. Steveston is a small community right on the water of the Fraser River and the fishing boats come in there. On the weekend you can walk down to the docks and buy fish right out of the boats. Lots to see and always something going on down there in the Summer time. We had a really nice day and it seemed we walked for miles.

Monday was a rest day and then on Tuesday we went and picked up our granddaughter and took her for the day. Took her to see my Mom and had some lunch and she was very good. She didn't play shy at all and even gave Great Grandma a kiss and a big hug. Then we headed to Stanley Park. The park is beautiful and has a wide variety of attractions. We were going to take her to the aquarium but when we got there she heard the train whistle and wanted to ride the train, which we did.

She loved that! From there we headed to the Farm animal Petting Zoo. She liked all the animals but really was not much interested in touching them. They had a good selection of goats, sheep, pigs, ducks, chickens, ponies and guinea pigs along with some snakes in cages and some turtles. This little rooster was crowing and had her crowing with him at one point. Very pretty and silky looking little guy. She looked at everthing and commented on most of it.

From there it was the playground with Grandpa following her around like a shadow. You just can't be too safe these days. We don't take our eyes off her for a second while she is in our care. Then we wandered down the park towards the water park. She suddenly realized where she was and starts stripping off her clothes as she's walking and she's talking a mile a minute at the same time. "Oh look! It's the water park!! Well I have to have a shower because..........well just look at me..................I have sand on me" and she's handing me her t-shirt. She cracks me up and I love listening to what she has to say. She sings and points things out in the car as we travel along too. Grandpa and I took turns following her around the water park for an hour. She loves other kids and tries to join any group of kids she comes across. No shyness at all. She just goes right up and joins in the conversation and whatever it is they are doing. At one point she was running away from me and I was talking her picture and I got such a jolt of deja vu. She looked exactly like David (her dad) at that age. Her blonde curls falling down her back. Man o man, that was over 30 years ago.

She was getting tired so we put her in the car and headed to White Rock. It gave her time to have a nice nap in the car on the way and when we got there it was getting on to dinner time. We let her play on the beach for awhile and then we went to a beach side restaurant for fish and chips. Then home to her parents and we headed home to collapse in a heap of well earned tiredness. She is like a little perpetual motion machine and never stops moving. I am so worried about anything happening to her that I can't relax and am moving constantly myself. She exhausts me totally but she is so beautiful and fun to be with. Grandchildren are the best!

Wednesday was a quiet, around the house, type day. We needed to rest or at least I did. It rained overnight finally and was a bit cooler and I went and had a nice nap on the porch swing in the afternoon. There is just something decadent about napping on a swing in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

Thursday and Josh has been bugging us all week to go geocaching with him. He is our Mr. Technology. Any kind of electronic gadgetry and he is right there and knows what it's about. He has a gps system in his lap top computer and he went out and bought a hand held little thing to use for Geocaching. It is like a treasure hunt with these global positioning things. We found one that was short and nice and close to home to try it out. The idea is you follow the route they have layed out and it takes you to a treasure cache. You take the treasure and leave a new one for the next group to find or you take nothing and leave it intact for the next group. The one we took was here http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=beabeea7-7cb2-443a-9d3e-b21345008491 and the instructions said

If you are approaching the first location from the west on the freeway, be sure you take the exit that is about 700 metres from the location. If you are coming from the east, you will have to exit a couple kilometres down the road and backtrack on the parallel road. You will find a large parking lot. Look for a sign at the north end. On the sign you will see 2 dates (years). The next clue is found by filling in the coordinates as follows:N49 03._ _ _ (the first date minus 1540) W122 10._ _ _ (the second date minus 1160)Travel (walk) to this location and go underneath that object. You will find a total of six numbers that are 3 inches tall (in a group of 4 and a group of 2)... The cache is located by filling in the coordinates as follows:N49 03._ _ _ (the first 3 numbers plus 125) W 122 10._ _ _ (the last 3 numbers minus 39)Go to the cache from there. Even though the cache seems very close, you should travel carefully to it..... (Crossing freeways on foot is very dangerous.. be safe and drive it please)Please be sure to cover the cache well when you are done.

We had fun but we didn't find the cache. But next time we will be better prepared and know what to expect. It could be a fun hobby and Al and I can borrow the hand held device and do it ourselves if we are so inclined. You never know.........

Well that takes us to Thursday. This whole week I kept thinking about how being home from work and resting lots I should not be feeling tired so much but of course I am just as tired as always. I have also realized that I don't do stress well. I had noticed that stress seems to affect me badly but then something that Ron Metcalf said in his blog suddenly made me really think about it. Both times that Dr. Chan has sent me off to see Dr. Erb and get an opinion on what's going on, I have been under a lot of stress and my liver has shown bad enough symptoms to send me off to the doctor again. I know I don't do stress well and have always felt like a big woosy. But if I can just mentally put it down to a Hep C symptom I don't feel so bad. :) Overall I have been doing well except for the hot flashes both during the day and at night. I also have no stamina on walks but have found if I can just sit and rest for a few minutes and then continue on it works for me.

Well this has dragged on into a book and I'm not finished yet! More later. :)