Misc Ramblings – Page 47 – a hippie with a minivan

midway vacation…

Well… Simon left yesterday morning and I have to admit that being alone with the boys is already a bit of a challenge…

We are still at Annie’s house but we should be leaving this weekend to head back to Vancouver… there is a big part of me that is happy that we are staying longer because the trip would have been too short if we hadn’t but then again I feel a bit crazy for staying here with all three boys…

I have a feeling that my mom has lined up a few things for us to do over the next two weeks…

I have also made up my mind that I really need to move out here for the sake of our family… and Nelson is still were I dream of landing… This trip opened my eyes even further to what my family needs and the fact that this is the place to find it…

Our return tickets have been bought and we are heading home on the first of September… it will truly be bittersweet to go home…

I'm here!

I don’t have much internet access here at my mom’s so I haven’t been able to write much.. or upload pics… but I got a connection this morning so I am doing as much as I can…

here is something I wrote on the plane…

We left this morning at 5:30… getting up 45min before…

Got to the airport and checked in and then got a bagel and some water before we headed for the gate… Security was interesting… everything went great but Xavier had a lot of trouble letting his pet dragon go through the xray without him…

I scooped him up… went through to the other side and by the timewee got there Dragony was on the way out and we scooped him up as fast as we could… another little struggle with a toy a few minutes later and then a nice pep talk and everything was great after…

In the plane we got two rows… the boys next to the windows and us next to them… We got lucky and only one perrson sat next to us and then once we were up in the air he moved to another empty seat and we got both rows to ourselves… I moved Khéna to Colins carseat and Colin next to Simon… and Khena slept for about an hour and a half at the least…

—-

The rest of the flight as good except for going down… Khena didn’t want to be on me facing me and Colin had a lot of pain with his ears… but once we got down both were better…

We got out of the plane and went to the baggage claim where my mom was waiting and soon after we were loading the two cars that had come got us and we headed to my mom’s… a few trips to the park and seeing a great old friend and meeting some new people and then we got the kids to sleep and ate an amazing supper that my mom’s bf had made for us… finally, not being able to keep our eyes open any more we headed for bed…

It feels so great to be here!

pics to come

last day…

My dad arrived last night and we got him all set up… he has COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and is on oxygen so house-sitting means that he needed to bring his big machine and apnea machine and all of that…

Our bags are packed and pretty much ready to go… just a few last minute things left that I am going to do when I put Khéna down for his nap… I’m nursing him to sleep as I type…

Khéna is in a pretty bad mood at the moment… I think that the atmosphere in the house is really weird for him with my dad, the machines and all of the bags etc…

After lunch I am heading to my friend Gen’s house and Simon will meet me us there and we will sleep there and leave first thing in the morning since she lives minutes from the airport…

I went on the Westjet site this morning and chose our seats so we just have to show up and check the bags now…

I am bit nervous still but once everything is packed and we hit the road I think I will feel better…

BC here we come!!!

btw…. anyone out there who wants to meet up with me… just e-mail me 🙂 I’ll be in Vancouver for a few days… then off to Nelson… then back in Vancouver and I am going on the Island also…

my last few days…

Last week was like a blur…

All three boys had fevers and runny noses and were each miserable for a a day or two…On Friday I needed to get some things done in Montreal… I hesitated so much because the forcast was saying thundershowers for the whole day… but because the boys had been sick and I hadn’t done the things that I had planned so I didn’t really have much of a choice if I wanted to get those things done before we leave…

So… I got ready and I told the boys that we would go get some bagels at Timmies… Just as I was nearning the street to Timmies the serpentine belt that powers the power steering/alternator etc came off as it did a few weeks ago when we went through a puddle… so right away I felt the steering wheel get stiff and the battery light when on…

Knowing what had happened right away I went straight to my garage a few minutes away… they put the strap back on without charge and headed to Timmies and then the highway… scared to get another puddle…

A day of shopping… in and out of the car in the rain… First the MEC for a waterpac… then on Plaza St-Hubert to LL Lozeau for a Strap pad for my Camera bag, a cleaning pen and a UV filter and then I headed to the West Island to pick up my friend Gen to go to Fairview (a big mall)… First stop there was LensCrafters where I got a new pair of glasses that won’t take out my hair each time I take them off and that don’t transition… I also got a different style of glasses which is pretty cool… I will have to take a pic! then got some t-shirts for the boys, some new sandals for them also and some memory cards…

Simon met us there and then we headed out for supper…

I left Simon with the kids to go eat on their own… while Gen and I went for a quiet Sushi supper and great conversation across the street…

After that I left Gen at home and we headed home…

On the way back about 5 min from our place of the highway we caught a huge storm with the kind of rain that you can’t see within a foot in front of you and cars start going 30 km or stopping altogether ont he side of the road… and of course… the serpentine belt came off again…

I took a chance and drove home anyway hoping that the car wouldn’t stall…

Yesterday morning I did some research and found that there is a fix for the problem that my mechanic had said was unfixable and found out that the part was availible at NAPA…. so I called them and they had it in stock but I neeed to call around to see if there was a garage open and besides Canadian Tire… there wasn’t and with the way they talked to me on the phone (convinced that I had no idea what I was talking about) I wasn’t going there…But on Monday I will go to my garage…

But I hate knowing that the Car is there but I can’t use it if I need it… and I did need it… So I decided to tackle the problem myself….

I fought and cursed and got my hands dirty and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get the belt on the tensioner after I had put it around all of the other pulleys… So google was my friend and I found this post and the wise words of wisdom from the authors friend…

“Matt,” he replied, “take the belt off another pulley – something easy to get to – put it on the tensioner, and then use the wrench to pull the tension out of the line and place the belt over the remaining pulley.”

And that… worked like a charm…and I am pretty gosh darn pround of myself… lol

So I went and did some groceries… just enough to tide us over until Wednesday and some snacks and the fixings for Sandwiches that I am going to be making for the plane…

and now we are in the getting ready and packing stage… needing to prepare the house for my dad who will be cat/house sitting…

ahh… how time passes quickly when you have tons to do…

Book meme…

I got tagged by Kris? at Paradise Found

I would have done it before but I just noticed a few minutes ago….

so… here it goes…

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

In fact, it matters very little if your children stiffen when you walk in the room. In a purely practical sense, misbehaviour is easier to address-and problems are easier to solve-when children feel safe enough with us to explain the reasons they did something wrong. Kids are more likely to come to us when they are in trouble, to look to us for advice, and want to spend more time with us when they can trust us, they’re more likely to so what we ask if we tell them it’s really important.

-Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

I tag