Hilton Head, South Carolina #2

Our ten days in Hilton Head is soon coming to an end.  The time has gone by so quickly but we have done some exploring and now know our way around, so when we come back in February, we will already know how to get around.  Our condo has been great and suits our needs and is perfect for having Timmie with us.  When we go out and have to leave him, he is happy just to sit at window that faces the parking lot and wait for us to return.  We haven’t done a lot on this trip but we have done a lot of relaxing and walking the beach.  My VivoFit is registering at least 12,000 steps a day – some days up to 15,000!  Here are some pictures we have taken and we are looking forward to heading home to celebrate Selena (4 years) and Levi (1 year) on Thursday – as you may remember Levi and Selena share the same birth date of November 19.  

Brian wanted to take this picture for Roy.  The Disney resort is across the highway from Palmetto Dunes (where we are staying) but they have a beach house where people are shuttled back and forth to the beach area.  This is exactly 1 kilometer from our condo and where we go for our beach access as well.

Christmas decorations are going up now and Brian has found a radio station that is now playing Christmas music!

This picture is taken from our condo balcony.  We have a very beautiful view to look at every day.

I know we cater to our dog……but since we walk quite a way on the beach, Timmie will only go so far and then he just plops down on the sand and won’t go any further, so this is the best solution so that we don’t have to pick him up.  Timmie will walk miles in snow but any kind of heat he just doesn’t like it and all he looks for is shade.  We certainly put a lot of smiles on people’s faces though………most will say well that is walking the dog literally!

I am absolutely amazed at how far the tide goes out.  This is about 4:30 p.m. and as you can see, lots of sandy beach.  When we walk in the morning, you can see by the color of the sand where the tide is where the people are walking in the distance.  The lighter shade of the sand is the part we walk on in the morning.

Taking a selfie with my phone!  We did this without Timmie and then he was whining at us so we picked him up so he could be in the picture too!

We will be on our way home either Tuesday or Wednesday.  There is quite a lot of rain coming across the mid states over to the east coast and if it is going to rain all day Tuesday here, we though we might as well start heading home then.  If we don’t get the rain, then we will leave Wednesday and arrive home on Thursday to celebrate our grandchildren’s birthdays!

November 2015–Travelling to Hilton Head, S. C.

Here we are in November already!  We decided to take a 10 day road trip and travel down to Hilton Head, South Carolina.  We had rented a condo here for next winter for four weeks (mid Feb through to mid March) and thought it might be nice to come down a bit earlier and get to know the area before we head down again in the winter.  We rented the same condo we are renting for Feb/March.  We left 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning in wet weather and it rained the whole way here.  First time ever we have driven down south with constant rain.  We travelled about 10 hours on Friday and then stopped for the night in Whytheville, Virginia, then had another 6 hours to drive on Saturday.  We woke up Saturday morning to more rain and it pretty well rained the entire drive.  It seemed to clear up as we got closer to Hilton Head and by the time we arrived the temperature was around 28-29 degrees and humid!  Poor Brian, we have a second storey level condo and he had to carry all our belongings up those stairs.  We are very very impressed with our condo, very nice location in Palmetto Dunes, the Disney Pavilion is just across the street from this one.  The condo is very nicely decorated and is very clean.   We settled in Saturday and then woke up this morning to a forecast of more rain and a drop in temperature of 15 degrees!!  We must have brought the Canadian weather with us!  It has been cloudy and cool most of the day and is suppose to start raining this afternoon but that actually works out as Brian wanted to watch his football games and I am more than happy just doing my own thing – I have more than enough to keep me busy – reading, knitting, colouring (I have got into the adult colouring books – love it – it is so relaxing) and taking time to do my blog.  Timmie is just chilling out sleeping.  Timmie is not sure what is going on yet, he was super good in the car – never knew he was even there, he was happing in his doggy car seat sleeping or looking out the window.  When we brought him into the condo, he sniffed every crook and cranny and since it is mostly carpeted, he thought that was great and has done a few of his crazy running around and he doesn’t slip on the floor like he does at home. 

This morning we walked around the resort to find our way around and we found the beach but it was so windy, we couldn’t stay on the beach for long.  Once we get this wet weather over with, then we will have more time to take long walks on the beach and dogs are allowed on the beach here, one thing I really liked about coming here. 

So that is about it for our first day here.  I have some pictures below of what we I took today.  I will update again in a couple of days. 

This is our condo – we are on the second floor.  The window you see is great for Timmie to look out as they have a big chair there for him to lay on and see out for the times we can’t bring Timmie with us. 

Brian in the living room on his computer and watching football at the same time.  We have a very nice balcony at the back to sit on (if it warms up!) and it overlooks a lagoon. 

This is actually the second bedroom in this condo – it has two queen size beds in it and the windows overlook the lagoon as well.  It would be a lovely condo to rent with another couple as the two bedrooms are at complete opposite ends of the condo and each have they own bathroom. 

This is the master bedroom and it also had a desk in it – a real bonus for me to set up my computer!  The window you see is where Timmie can look out when we go out without him. 

This is the other side of the master bedroom with a picture window to look out at the lagoon.  Of course, Timmie has his little area there to look out of or sleep when I’m at my computer. Do we cater to our dog, nah….not on your life! Hahaha!

 

Dining Room and kitchen.  Again, surrounded by the lagoon.  So pretty. 

Not sure exactly what this is but took a picture on our walk this morning.  The waterway is part of the lagoon that winds itself around the entire area in Palmetto Dunes.

We finally found a beach access!

It was really windy on the beach and quite a few white caps coming in.  The sand is packed down hard so very easy to walk on.  People were walking or riding bikes down the beach. 

Brian and Timmie waiting patiently for me to take a picture.  We didn’t stay long on the beach but hopefully we get some nicer days in the week to enjoy our walks.  I plan on doing a lot of walking while I’m here!

So that’s it for now.  Will update when we have done something interesting!

July 2015

Looking back on my blog, I realize I haven’t written anything since our vacation in May!  It has certainly been quite a busy time work-wise, not to mention stressful for me!  As some of you may or may not know, my business as I knew it has finally come to an end.  I have had a working relationship for 30 years with St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto and in March they had a meeting with me to say that due to purely “technology” reasons, they would be moving on to Nuance (Accentus) to provide them their dictation as well as transcription services.  I just cannot compete with the “big guys” in that I do not offer “dictation systems” and I am purely just straight transcription.  So they gave us three months notice that Nuance would be taking over both dictation and transcription services starting mid May.  The hardest thing I had to do was to tell all 15 of “my girls” that we were losing our contract with SJHC and if they wanted to continue working on SJHC work, they would have to apply to Nuance.  Out of the 15 girls, 8 of us applied to Nuance and the transition took place mid-May.  We all had to learn a new software program that Nuance provides called “E-Scription” and although I really do like the program; the biggest change for all of us was the pay.  Nuance pay structures for medical transcriptionists or as they call them now “medical language specialists” basically cut our income in half.  It just makes me sick to see how they pay only so they have “huge profits” as they would be charging the hospital a lot more than I did as a small company.  Anyway, it is what it is, and although I am happy to not have the responsibility of keeping good turnaround times of transcription and not worrying about having to find and hire more transcriptionists; I certainly do miss what I had with SJHC. 

Then to my surprise, my good friend and fellow co-worker, Karen Cocca, arranged a surprise party of all ‘my girls’ that could make it.  Karen and Breanne made up a story of me coming over to visit with Karen to see her new granddaughter and it didn’t even occur to me that this was just a ruse to get me over there.  I was absolutely shocked to walk in and see all the girls that worked for me – some of whom I have never met as when I hired them, we basically just talk on the phone and do the computer set-up through the internet. For them drove all the way to Guelph from Owen Sound!  It was absolutely a wonderful day and I was so grateful to all my girls for all their years of service and dedication to me.  It was a great ending but a sad time for all of us.  Here is a picture of the girls that were able to attend: 

From the left at the back, Karen Cocca (host), Jennifer Hodge, Kim Shaw, Gayle Bye, me, Breanne Loaring, Leah Mielhausen and at the counter, Karen Medeiros. 

Karen Medeiros and Karen Cocca had been with me the longest – when I first started working for SJHC, it was just me and the two Karen’s doing the work, and 30 years later, I slowly added on 15 girls!  We were a great team and I so enjoyed every minute of it!

So since then, it has been a big learning curve working for Nuance and not always the best experience but I have started to come full-circle with it all and settle into a routine and I think I can say that I have come to terms with the lack of pay but thankful that I still can work on SJHC and have something to do.  In order to bring in the money I want to, I do have to work a lot more hours than I have been over the last few years but I have even come to terms with that now and have set up a somewhat good routine of when I work. 

Poor Brian, he has had to listen to not only me, but also Breanne when we are together, complaining or going on and on about Nuance and how bad the communication is within the company and of course the pay.  Breanne is already looking for another job elsewhere as she feels she can’t survive working for this company with the amount of hours she has to put in in order to bring in a good income.  She has a few leads and if something comes of it, I will let you all know although she will probably talk about it on her blog as well. 

So enough about my “work life”; otherwise, things are going well.  We have enjoyed watching our granddaughters in their dance production; we have watched Levi just blossom in the last few months.  He is now 16 pounds and loves to smile and laugh and he uses his hands so well.  He is even starting to develop fine finger movements.  He is sitting up on his own now and plays with anything you put in front of him.  The picture below tells it all…..

 

Selena and Annika in one of their dance outfits!

Annika and Levi – Annika absolutely adores Levi.  She is going to be a great babysitter one day!

Happy Father’s Day to Brian!!!

We had a nice visit with my niece, Cathy, this week when she came for a visit from the States and she got to spend some time with both Jenn and Breanne and the kids.  It was nice for all of them to catch up on their lives and Cathy finally getting to know Jenn and to finally meet Levi! 

Brian just recently had his 6 month oncology visit and all is well.  Blood work perfectly normal and he is still in remission! His next follow-up is in January 2016 when they will do further testing with ultrasounds and x-rays and more blood work.  So we are truly blessed.  Just going to Brian’s appointment and being relieved he is still in remission was enough for me to put things in perspective.  Brian’s health is far more important to me than my work issues and I think it was from that time on that I started to settle down in my new routines and feel good that life is very good to me and I shouldn’t take it for granted. 

We are off on Tuesday to visit with Eric and Dana at their cottage in Bayfield and it will be nice to have a couple of days away. 

I hope this finds all who read my blog, happy and healthy and enjoying our summer weather!  Take care all!

Keukenhof Gardens

Today, we made it to Keukenhof Gardens, the highlight of this week’s vacation.  The weather wasn’t the best today, predicting rain all day but we managed to get to Keukenhof early and able to walk around for a couple of hours before it started to rain.  So it worked out well!  Keukenhof is the biggest Garden in the world with absolutely beautiful gardens of flowers.   It is only open for 8 weeks every spring and completely closed down the rest of the year.  They completely dig up the entire gardens, treat all the bulbs and then get the gardens ready again for the following year.  It was beautiful as you will see from the pictures I post below.

So our week’s vacation has now come to an end.  As I write, Brian is packing his bags itching to get home to see our grandchildren and of course Timmie!  We have come to realize that shorter vacations are more our style.  It’s nice to get a way for a few days but it still is nice to get home.

This has been our second trip with Scenic Riverboat Cruises, and we were definitely not as impressed with this one as we were the first one we took from Budapest to Amsterdam in 2012.  Although they have improved some things on the ship itself, like retractable windows on the balcony and no charge for alcoholic beverages; we didn’t find the food was as good.  We also did not have a very good cruise director and it makes all the difference when you have an enthusiastic director like we did on the other Scenic Cruise.  Some of the crew were very attentive to people but there were others that didn’t give you the time of day.  We also had a couple of tour guides that were not the best and at some points, we walked away from them and did our own thing.  We did meet some very nice people though on this trip, especially Jane and Doug, whom we have been sharing our experiences with and dining together at lunch and dinner.

Our plane takes off early Monday morning and we will be home on Monday around noon.  It has been good to get away and we did enjoy ourselves! 

Here are some of the beautiful pictures we took at Keukenhof Gardens today:

This is not as clear as  I would have liked but this was taken through the bus window as we on our way to the the gardens. 

Brian always finds the ladies to take a picture with!

We stopped for a “Koffee” and apple pie!

Will see everyone soon as we now head home!

Horne, Northern Holland

We had quite the busy day yesterday with a walking tour of Edam and Volendam in the morning and then a cycling tour of Horne in the afternoon.  All the small cities are now all starting to run into together and although very quaint and lovely to see, it is hard to keep in your mind which one is which!!  Last night they walked us to a church where we had a typical Dutch dinner with the locals.  We sat at tables of eight and at each table was a local resident who answered questions or told us what it was like to live here. It was a nice ending to the day and then we boarded the ship and through the night the ship was on its way to Amsterdam.  Today we finally get to see Keukenhof Gardens – the highlight of the trip for us!  I am going to post a few pictures here and hopefully get this sent off before we leave this morning. 

This is the local church in Edam.  It really is only half a church as they couldn’t afford the upkeep, so they demolished the back half of the church!

Interesting little home with gable frontages.

Eating a Belgium waffle with cheeries and cream!!  Could not resist!

These were the choices of waffles!!  Very hard to make a decision!

I had to take a picture of this fish store – I know my brother, Roy, would have been eating all the mussels and cockles and eel!  Not our thing for sure but amazing the amount of people eating this!

On our bike ride, we finally came across a Tulip field!!  Beautiful!

At our dinner tonight the waiter dropped a whole tray of drinks on Brian and the local resident sitting with us!!  I felt sorry for the waiter, he felt so bad.  They moved us to another table. We all had a good laugh though!

Our table of eight after being moved to a new table! 

Cheers Roy!!  Brian tried the local beer!

Well, we are off to Keukenhof soon, I hope I can get this posted before we leave!

Kinderdijk and Delft–May 1, 2015

Today we arrived in Kinderdijk which is the only place in the Netherlands where they actually have working windmills.  Kinderdijk is 10 feet below sea level and in order to keep the land dry and safe for people to live on they have to pump the water into reservoirs which then eventually empties into the Rhine River where the river is at a lower level than their dikes (dijk). 

This is a map of the area and all the area on the right hand side of the map will drain water from rain right down to Kinderdijk in the area where the guide’s hand is pointing out.  They built 19 windmills in order to pump the water into the reservoir to keep land dry and safe for people to live on. Nowadays, they have big turbines which of course pumps more cubic meters of water in a minute than the windmills do but in the early 1500-1600’s, it all drained by the windmills who had millers living in the windmills with their families. 

This shows the windmills with the canal of water in the dikes and the reservoir is on the other side of this canal.  It really fascinates me how they figured all of this out so many years ago.

This is the modern version of the windmills today!!!  Big turbines pump the water at 100 times the rate of the windmills!

This is a picture of a miller and his family of 13 children.   Unfortunately the mother had a terrible accident when she was trying to save one of her children from being too close to the windmill arm and she ended up being hit by it which killed her at the age of 42; so the miller was left without his wife raising 13 children on his own.  It is amazing how they lived in a windmill with that many children!

This was a living room kitchen of the windmill which was the only warm room in the entire house.  The master bedroom is the back of this room. Can you imagine crowding 13 children into this room every day!

This was the master bed and there was a place for the baby to sleep just above the bottom of the bed and the potty (bathroom) for them was at the foot of the bed. 

This is the wheel that that turns to move the water.  See the staircase in the distance.  You had to walk up these narrow stairs for every level of the windmill.  I wonder how many times their children would fall down the many steps!

This shows the back of the windmill and this is how the miller would turn the top part of the windmill so that it could catch the direction of the wind.  I didn’t even know they could actually turn it at all!

Yes, leave it up to me find someone walking their dog!

From Kinderdjik, we were bussed to Delft and visited the Delft pottery factory where they make the blue and white pottery, all hand-painted. 

This is one of the master painters.  You see the vases in the front part of the picture; they start with the one on the left and after going through the different processes of being in the ovens to the end product after painting.

After visiting the factory, we were then taken on a walking tour of the city of Delft. This piece cost 13,000 Euros.

The market square of Delft.

It was certainly a pretty little town.

Of course, another “Cheese” store!!

We then had the Captain’s Farewell dinner last night having Chateaubrand for supper.  We met another couple over the last few days from the Toronto area and we had supper together last night. It was quite a nice evening.  Today we have another full day of adventures, a walking tour of Edam and Volendam in the morning, a cycling tour of Hoorn this afternoon.  Tonight for supper they are taking us into Oosterkerk for a typical Dutch Dinner with the locals.  As our cruise director would say “chow for now”!