New Year…New Monia!

With each new year comes new opportunities, challenges and memories to make.  I know that 2026 will have all of those rolling in with it.

To reflect on 2025…Ron and I started the year with a southern Caribbean cruise and we finished the year with a Bahamas Christmas cruise with Sarah.  

Between our sandwich of cruises, Sarah moved in with us and brought us so much joy.  It is amazing watching her excel in school and have dreams for the future.  The church has welcomed her in such a great way and she has found herself in the hearts of many.

We went to Stephen and Kylie’s in April and enjoyed three weeks there.  Sarah even received an award from the school for working so hard while away during a cyber attack on the school.

In August, Sarah turned the big 16 and got her license.  We celebrated her!  She was also recovering from a serious bout of poison ivy!

Sarah started Grade 11 in September and shortly after I took on a temporary job as the church secretary…wondering when the temporary ends…

Ron and I spent our New Year’s Eve in the most quiet of ways.  We did have plans but they changed once I had a visit to my doctor’s office.  For the past month, I have been struggling with a cold.  The last few days it turned into a cough which kept me from sleeping.  I then noticed the wheezing, whistling and cracking in my lungs..  I knew that things weren’t right.  So yesterday morning, I called my doctor’s office at 8:30 a.m. and I received the final miracle of 2025 when they told me that I could see a doc at 9:30!  After checking my oxygen, blood pressure and listening to my lungs I was diagnosed with what I suspected….double pneumonia.

Ron was off to Napanee to get my meds and meals for us to eat.  I told our Clark chat room and Sarah said this…

Stephen asked me how I was feeling and I told him that I had taken a double dose of the meds as prescribed and had a little nap.  His response was very insightful…

We know that 2026 has its challenges ahead but we will work to make memories and let the good times exceed the hard ones.  Goodbye 2025…hello 2026!

Happy Birthday to our Miracle Baby!

It was 35 years ago close to this time of day (9:25 p.m) when our family was completed.  After many, many hours of on and off labour and a trip to the hospital in an ice storm, Stephen finally decided to make his presence known.  I was so tired but I knew that something wasn’t right when they whisked him away.  They took our brand new baby to the neonatal because his breathing wasn’t quite right.  I was settled into a room already missing my baby boy.  The next day Ron came first thing to the hospital.  We walked towards where our new addition was sleeping.  A doctor stopped us and told us that they had done a spinal tap and the results were that he had meningitis.  They were very concerned about his outcome and we felt devastated.  I could hardly stand.  We shuffled into an empty room and called a few people to have prayer chains started.  We needed a miracle.

For the next seven days I remained in the hospital.  We had to gown up every time we went to see him.  If we wanted to hold Stephen we were put into a private room.  At day seven, they sent me home.  Our hearts were heavy and our arms were empty as we left the hospital without our baby.  We spent as much time as we could back there.  At day ten, a second spinal tap was done and there was no sign of the meningitis.  They couldn’t explain it but we felt we were taking our miracle baby home.  We had to continue to take Stephen back to the hospital for regular visits.  They said that there could be many complications due to this disease.  Each month he exceeded their testing and when he was saying words at ten months they said that we didn’t have to bring him anymore.

Stephen brought us a lot of joy.  He would say he was “Daddy’s big boy” and “Mommy's baby.”  

Now that he is 35, he isn’t saying those things any more but he will always be my baby and a man that I’m very proud of.

We are thankful that he is enjoying life and has a wonderful wife to share all the experiences with.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!  Love you!

Grand Bahamas

Today we are in the Grand Bahamas soaking in the sun.

It’s hard to believe it is Christmas Eve.  They play Christmas music but it’s definitely a blue and green Christmas!

Nassau

We went to a private beach today by a shuttle boat.  It was pretty windy but a nice ride past the Atlantis Hotel and many other expensive homes.

Once there we walked and checked out the dolphins and sea lions.  There are so smart.

We then took our time to swim with the dolphins…pictures to follow in the coming days.

The princess was at her beach enjoying coconut water.

What a beautiful day!

Getting Ready to Board

This morning the weather was beautiful in Fort Lauderdale.  We took a very relaxing start.  We enjoyed our breakfast at the hotel and coffee by the pool.  We had mentioned to Sarah about seeing a coconut and so she wanted to go on a walking tour.  It turned into a bird exploration with Sarah picking up many new songs.  As we rounded the corner to see the coconut, we saw a bird feeder with beautiful green birds.  It turned out that they were Monk Parakeets. It was a good start to our warm Christmas holiday.

We arrived at the port and got through the initial steps and than there was some issue with the next step so we sat and waited with some patient and not so patient travellers.

And we made it!

The food on the first day was great.

Just Getting There…

Today was the day of just getting to Florida.  We drove to the Park and Fly from the hotel in Toronto and parked our car.  It was a little snowy and felt cold as we waited for the bus to take us to the airport.  I threw my coat into the suitcase before we checked it.  We walked through security.  The line wasn’t too bad.  We then got to Customs and it was pretty good too.  I think we may be just ahead of the holiday rush of travellers.

We boarded the plane and a few rows behind us a disturbance was brewing.  Apparently a child was kicking the back of a seat.  The mother was trying to get them to stop but the “big child” in front was wanting the flight attendants to take care of the child.  The volume got a little louder until the flight attendant asked the complainer to move to the seat in the middle and then he asked him if we could continue with the flight without any other incidents.  All was quiet for the rest of the flight.

We landed in Fort Lauderdale and the weather was rainy and warm.  We took a shuttle to the hotel.  Ron and I went for a walk and saw a “snowman” in Florida.  

There were other things that seem to be make more sense…palm trees.  

You should be careful when you walk under them….

We saw a house with beautiful poinsettias at the front door.  Mine are doing well in the house but here they flourish in the humid weather.

I asked Sarah how her Christmas vacation was going so far…

Made it to Toronto

We started our morning in Tamworth and went to the “Big Breakfast” at the Legion.  Sarah stayed tucked in her bed.  Once we were able to drag her from under her warm blankets, we headed to Napanee.  Sarah visited with Nana and Papa while Ron and I went to a funeral.  A good friend’s mom had passed away.  Even though it was a sad occasion for Al, it was very nice to see Al and Donna’s kids.  They all had spent a lot of time at our house when our kids were young.

We picked up Sarah and got on the 401.  As we approached Brighton Sarah asked for a stop and so we pulled off at the Big Apple.  It had been years since we had stopped here and so we spent some time looking around and Sarah just had to get a Beavertail, which she shared with grandpa.

The Big Apple specializes in apple products (of course) and so an apple cider was a must for Ron.  The production line of pie making interested me.

As we walked out I took a picture of the sign of the many locations.

Nassau, here we come!