I was at the doctor today. While sitting in the waiting room I picked up the Maclean’s magazine. I flipped it open and there was Kevin.  The first thought into my head was that he wasn’t wearing his friggen helmet. Fat lot of good it will do him on his back. Ugh. 

I know he is infantry and that his job is to actually go out and find and fight the Taliban. I have known this all along.  He doesn’t stay on base and prepare meals or work in supply or fix vehicles. Not that the people on the base in Kandahar are all that safe either with all the rocket attacks there have been lately. Yet somehow seeing this picture and reading the report drilled it into my head he is in real, very real danger every day.  Call it head in the sand syndrome I guess but even with all the recent deaths of our boys I had this denial going on.  Refusal to face facts.

He has been in other press, with equally honest reporting of what they do each day.  I read a whole section, a special report in the Toronto Star earlier this month. And yet, I was somehow protected from the harsh reality. I suppose I was protecting myself.

That all changed when I opened up this magazine. I’m scared shitless now. I can no longer deny he is in danger. Anyone have a Valium?

Before

After

So today I’m listening to the radio, when along comes a song that had me actually LOL’ing.  It sounded like Aerosmith at first, but then I heard the words “Cheny’s Got a Gun”!  Cracked me the hell up!

Divy too had me rolling today. He was outside playing tetherball with Scott. I was sort of listening to them, as Scott was getting him to spell words. Div loves spelling and seems to have a talent for it. Anyhow, Scott had him spell Mississippi, then asked him if he knew what it meant. Div said sure, it is a woman who isn’t married. Scott said what??! Div says it’s a woman who’s name is Miss Si Sippi!

I have booked us onto another cruise for the beginning of Jan. 2007. Seems weird to already be planning that far ahead. I have told the boys that since Annie couldn’t come with us on our last cruise, that just her and I are going. Really we all are! They will find out at Christmas that they too need to pack their bags.

Speaking of Annie, she got a promotion of Friday. She has been working for a publishing company.  Her new position is as an author rep. Pretty cool. She says that the reps are always going out to “do lunch”. Now she’ll be doing it too! Pretty good for a kid who started out as a receptionist.

We normally have very mild winters. This year has been anything but normal! We have had storm after storm after storm. After spending most of today without electricity, we do have power again.

These storms have had winds up to 100 kms an hour and heavy heavy rains. Many ferry sailings have been cancelled over the past few weeks, trees have crashed into houses and onto cars. We have a pump that stops the water from entering the house as our driveway floods and the water comes in through the garage door then into the rest of the ground level. Well an electric pump doesn’t do dick when the power goes out! UGH.

Since I still haven’t downloaded my cruise pics, I’ll post this one I thought was pretty cool.

I just received an email from Kevin.  All it said is that he has arrived in Kandahar. What a long, arduous and exhausting trip. They had stops in Scotland,  Croatia and Dubai. Then it was onto a Hurc for the journey into Kandahar.

I can’t wait till I have  a chance to talk to him, but as I’m headed out now for the day it won’t be for a while. 

Tomorrow is supposed to be the day our  little guy moves.  I haven’t heard anything from the SW in the past few weeks, but I ASSume it is still going ahead.

Off to a workshop tonight about crystal meth.  Apparently the dealers are now lacing pot with it. Scary scary.

Man I so do love you guys! You haven’t forgotten me, you really haven’t! Not that I’ve ever forgotten any of you, it’s just that I am such a rotten person I never make it around to other Xangas.  

Ok, so let’s clear up the confusion I’ve caused!! Jillian already had a son, born when she was seventeen. He is six now, and Divy’s best friend. Kevin was there for her during the pregnancy, and after. Those of you who’ve known me since back in ’99 may remember me talking about it. She spent a lot of time at our house with the baby and Kevin looked after him whenever she had a course or something that she needed to attend to. So really, it has been like Kevin was the daddy all along, even though they didn’t “officially” get together until just about two years ago.  So he calls me Grandma and I think of him as my Grandson, although now he really is!

My dishwasher has passed on over to the other side. Or to where it is dead dishwashers go to. We were trying to remember when we bought it, and it was in our first house, which we sold back in 1988. It wasn’t a top of the line model or anything but we sure did get our moneys worth from it. Now I have to go shop for a new one. Anybody got any tips on what to look for, as obviously it’s been a while since I’ve looked for one.

Why yes Chris, I do believe you owe me an email!! Hop to it!

Well it has been awhile, hasn’t it?? That little wee babe is not nearly so wee! Carson is sitting up and starting to crawl and soon to be eight months old. He is the most sweet natured baby and such a joy. Here is a picture of Kevin and him at Christmas.

They live in Edmonton so I don’t get to see them as often as I would like. They were here for almost a month at Christmas, so I got my Grandbaby fix. 

Steve and I just got home from a Mexican cruise. It was our third one, and this time we took two of the boys. It was a blast!! Steve and I both said about halfway through that it was our best vacation ever. We usually go away once or twice a year by ourselves, but since Steve won this cruise on our last one, we figured what the heck. Well it turns out the boys made it even more fun. Who would have thought?!!

We flew to Los Angeles the night before our departure. At one thirty in the morning, my cell phone rang. It was Annie. She was at the animal hospital with one of our cats. She had suddenly lost the use of her hind legs. Just over $600. later, the cat is walking again and the cause is unkown. We did find out her thyroid is enlarged.

Shortly after boarding the ship, my cell rang again. It was Kevin, my oldest son and daddy to Carson. I started telling him all about what we’d done so far, thinking he was calling to say bon voyage. After a bit, he told me it wasn’t really why he was calling, he had some news. Now he is due to leave for Kandahar on Jan. 27th, which sickens me. I got hopeful that for some reason he couldn’t go!  Turns out, he and Jillian are having another baby! Can you believe it, I’m going to be Grandma again!! I am so excited and really hope after two boys, this is a pink one!

One of our little boys, who is almost two and has been with us for over a year, is leaving us on Feb. 1st. He is a doll, and we will miss him very much. Other than him, we’ve had kind of a revolving door with placements, none lasting more than a few months.

Oh, how could I forget to mention this….the second to last night on the cruise, Steve went to the Casino. He was only gone maybe fifteen minutes when he was back. The lucky buggar had put a twenty into a slot machine, played three turns and hit the jackpot! He has the best luck of anybody I know.

I haven’t downloaded any of our trip pictures yet, but will post some when I do. I am going to try my bestest to start posting here again.

Thank you to all my daaaahlink lovies for the congrats.  It is wonderful, lovely and all that to be a Grandma!  I thought it might not be such a huge thrill to hold a new baby seeing as we have regularly been bringing newborns home from the hospital for the past twenty three years. Somehow it is very different when it is my own grandchild. Now that isn’t saying that I don’t thrill to the experience each time I’m given a baby to care for, cause I do!

Evie, no worries, she was indeed in the shower at the hospital.  

I went for a long spell with no updates here. As you who read me know, Kevin went over to Afghanistan last summer. In Sept. he was shot, thankfully  in the foot. After several surgeries, he came home to recover. That took much longer than we thought because he picked up a NASTY bug and was deathly ill for over three months. We seriously thought he was apt to die during this. Obviously he has gotten better as he is still with us. He isn’t cured but with several different drugs he is better.

It turns out that Jillian thinks she got pregnant on the day he got home from Afghanistan. I gave her a hard time about making my boy do ‘that’ when he was in such rough shape!

Kevin and Jillian have bought a house. It was supposed to be completed by the beginning of June, so they had planned to be moving soon. They found out a while back that the date has changed to July 15th. So I get to have my Grand baby here for a while longer before they move away. I can see myself taking lots of trips to Alberta.

Canadian Idol starts tonight. I watched American Idol for the first time this year, and it was a bad bad experience. (Meeting my new husband there is the exception.) Canadian fans tell me that the CI version is much easier to watch as the judges don’t try to shove the contestants into a box. They love rockers and have had them on in previous years. I hate myself for it, but I’m gonna watch. Hopefully I don’t live to regret it.  

P.S. Here is a picture of the hubby mentioned earlier. Isn’t he a cutie?!

It’s A Boy!!!!

Carson Anthony S arrived today at 5:28 a.m.

Jill had just gotten into the shower. Suddenly she started grunting loudly. Kevin was able to get her back to the bed in time to give three pushes and out he flew!

All 7 lbs, 8 oz of him.

I’m a GRANDMA!!!!!