Listener Loyalty

We're not really what you would call "Loyal Listeners" to any one particular radio station. We've had the tendency to flip between stations during commercial breaks or to find a better song. This has been slowly changing over the past year and half, so slowly that we didn't really notice it happening until this past week.

We were driving by another radio station's "on-location" set-up when Amanda felt this sudden urge to yell out the window, "You suck!" She told Dan of this, and he couldn't help but agree. He actually said he wished he had a sticker for 100.5 The Peak so that he could run up and put it on their booth.

It was then that we realized, we are loyal listeners of 100.5 The Peak. We could listen to them all day without even feeling the urge to change stations. In fact, for the last year and a half its been the only station we've tuned into. Even itunes doesn't get this much of a workout. We can almost tell the time of day by certain commercials they have on (at 4:20pm they have the moment of serenity previewed by the apple i-minute). Okay, so we listen to this station far too much, but it is by far the best station out there! Check them out! (just like the "Check this out tune of the day" that they have playing 4 times a day). Yep, its true. We do love this station!

We're Goin' Squirrely!!!

Squirrel tendencies have started..or rather have run their course. Amanda has been busy this past week making meals to freeze for the fall, along with all the canning we've done throughout the summer.

So far this summer we have canned (or jarred):
20lbs cherries
20lbs peaches
40 lbs tomatoes
20lbs pears
20lbs apple sauce
10lbs green beans
2 large batches of salsa
4 batches of jam (strawberry, raspberry and cherry)

We've also dehydrated:
3 lbs of cherries
1 lbs of blueberries
The skins from the 20lbs of apples (into a nice fruit leather)
5 lbs of apple slices

We've frozen these meals (of course in large quantities):
4 pizzas
1 large lasagna
1 large ham pot pie
1 large spaghetti casserole
1 batch of country chicken stew
2 trays of cabbage rolls
1 very large batch of dutch meatball soup
A batch of mexi-wraps, refried beans and chili are still in the works.

Plus, this doesn't include the 24 loaves of bread we've made and stored in the deep freeze. And on Sunday, we'll add to these quantities with baked goods.
On the agenda for the bake-a-thon is:
peanut butter balls
scones
cookies
bagels
peanut butter granola
a batch of granola bars (already made and ready to freeze)
and whatever strikes our fancy!

Needless to say, the freezer is full and we are well prepared for the winter. Anybody wanna come for dinner and dessert?

Customer Service: a good experience!

"And I spent half of my life
In the customer service line
Flaws in the design
A sign of the times..."
(excerpt from Dan Mangan's song Robots)

Normally, when I have to call customer service, I prepare myself for a long wait followed by a fight. Today was no different. Except, I didn't need to fight for what I knew was right...nor did I have to argue my case. Today I was treated like a real human being with feelings and frustrations. I'd like to thank Tim from Fido for a GREAT customer service experience (my first one!!!!). He worked with me to get me what I was supposed to have gotten 2 phone calls ago. He changed my bill to reflect what calls I actually made and should have been billed for. Good-bye over $250 in unnecessary charges! (Imagine my surprise when I opened that bill!) He finally got my plan sorted out to be what it should have been 2 calls ago (third times a charm?). I have to admit, I didn't expect this to happen but I am utterly surprised by Tim.

An Ode to Tim
Oh Tim, You came and you found me my plan back.
You fixed all those charges on my bill
You made me smile and be still.....

Okay. That's enough. I really appreciated Tim's efforts and what he did to get my plan all sorted out. Hopefully, this is the last time I have to "fix" this problem.

Active Baby Syndrome

Today Dan and I went on a tour of the hospital. It was supposed to be a 10-15 minute tour...of course, with us, nothing ever goes according to plan. Ten minutes into the tour, Amanda began to feel a bit faint and queasy. We are not entirely sure what started this off, but perhaps all the talk about C-Sections got to be a bit much. The problem was, that no matter how long she sat, or lied down, she had trouble regaining full composure. She just kept feeling as though she was about to black out. Finally, the nurse made the call and sent us into triage to get my blood pressure checked and to check on the baby's well being.
All of Amanda's test checked out fine. Nothing wrong! To check the baby, they strapped on a heart monitor (and asked her to hold it in place since the baby kept moving) and also asked Amanda to press a button every time the baby moved. She immediately asked if this button had a press and hold feature. Needless to say, the printout was full of these little black dots indicating the baby's movement. When there was a break in the dots it was because Amanda got tired of pressing the button or had to itch her head and just wanted a break. About 10 minutes into this 20 minute long monitoring process, the baby decided to do a flip and move to the other side. Needless to say, we lost the heartbeat but the baby kept on moving. We had to coerce the baby into moving back into position by pressing hard on Amanda's stomach to move the baby back to the other side. The nurses said that everything was fine and I was cleared for discharge by my midwife.
At this point, Dan was already an hour late for work. So I drove him to work and went in for a few minutes to assure his colleagues that I was fine. This backfired. As I was talking with them, I went white as a ghost and felt faint again. I quickly sat down hoping it would go away. Another call to the midwife and she suggested I go to Emergency and get checked out again. We called Grandma to drive us there, since driving myself wouldn't be safe. After we got dropped off, we found out that Emergency wouldn't take care of anyone over 20 weeks gestation, so that meant we were herded up to Maternity again. The nurses were a bit surprised to see us again. This time, they ordered some blood work and we began the never-ending waiting period. Two and half hours later, we were told that the blood work came back okay. A bit low on hemoglobin and a bit high on other things...normal for pregnancy. But during their communication about me, they discovered that another nurse had the same sort of thing happen to her. She suggested that sometimes when the baby moves, it can twist onto my vena cava, the main artery supplying blood to my body. When the baby does this, it blocks my blood supply, causing me to have the feeling as though I am about to black out. Dan's aunt dubbed this "Active Baby Syndrome." More than appropriate as the baby hadn't really stopped moving for more than 12 hours (aren't they supposed to sleep???)
The end result is that I was told to go home and lie down. Get some rest and relax a bit. We'll see how I feel tomorrow and base that on if I will need further tests. For now, things are okay (when the baby isn't moving)!

Ultrasound #2

2 weeks ago, we went for our second ultrasound. It was amazing to see how much the baby has grown since our last ultrasound. It was also pretty neat to note that while the technician was checking the baby (with only Amanda in the room) that Amanda said, "Oh it must be 2pm. The baby is moving." The technician was surprised that she could pinpoint the time based on her baby's movement and that she could feel the movement at all. Then, she had a hard time keeping the baby still for measurements, since it likes to move so much! Once again, someone had to pin the baby down (causing Amanda great pain) just for measurements.

It was disappointing that no one was allowed in the room while 20 minutes of measurements were going on. Amanda was quite bored since she couldn't even see the screen and had to lie there with a full bladder for that long. But when all the procedures were over, Dan, Amanda's mom and Dan's grandma got to come in and see the baby. It was really cool to feel the baby kick and see it on the screen at the same time.

Great Big Sea

For Dan's birthday, I got us tickets to a Great Big Sea concert in Kamloops. The concert was absolutely incredible. We had early admission and got to choose our seats just four rows from the front! We could have sat front row, but chose to sit a few rows back so that Amanda could use the aisles created at row 4 to exit to the washroom. We ended up next to this amazing couple, the woman whom was in a wheelchair. This smart choice, saved us from getting trampled during the first few songs when people tried to rush the stage. Amanda elbows a man really hard and said to him, "Lady in a wheelchair(pointing to the lady), and Pregnant(pointing to self)! Move over!" This saved us from most (but not all) spillage of beer on legs and arms and heads. Thankfully, one lady who sat 2 rows behind us (since we were too tall to sit directly behind), complained to those who rushed the stage saying that the lady in a wheelchair doesn't really appreciate having beer spilt on her head and the pregnant lady could go into labour if you crowded her. That solved our problem and we had as much space as we needed. Even the security lady got to tease Amanda a little, asking her every time that she went to the washroom if she was in labour yet! The baby much enjoyed the concert, spending a full two hours dancing on Amanda's bladder. (although the warm up band got no such reaction, except a sharp kick at the beginning, indicating its disgust to the horrible music. We wholeheartedly agreed).

The day after the concert, Great Big Sea came on the CD player at random. The baby would be active for any song from them and then cease moving when the CD player switched to another artist. This happened numerous times. We guess that we have a Great Big Sea fan in training!

Our Trip 2010 Part 1

Our Big adventure this summer was to go on a road trip to Vancouver Island. We started in Parksville,went to Tofino and then headed up to Campbell River, Port Hardy (Winter Harbour and Zeballos), then down to Naniamo, Victoria and did a circle tour of the Juan de Fuca to Duncan and back to Victoria again. Yep, we saw the whole Island!

Long Beach by Tofino! The waves were 2 meters high (6-7 feet). The pictures don't even begin to show how tall the waves really were.

The top picture is on the side of the road on the way to Tofino. A beautiful set of waterfalls and rock formations. The second picture is Little Qualicum Falls.

The Tartan Pie Shoppe. We were driving by on our way to Englishman River Falls when we saw a sign for Tartan Pie. We wanted to know what it was, so we stopped by to ask. Its basically turkey dinner in a pie. We wanted to try it, but since Amanda is allergic to Turkey, it was out. As a consolation prize, the man who owned the shop, Derik, offered us a sausage roll that was still warm from the oven. It was heavenly! Homemade sausage wrapped in a flaky pastry. It was enough to convince us to buy an apple raspberry pie to take home. That was soooo delicious. On our last day, while in Victoria (a 2.5 hour drive one way away), our sailing trip got cancelled due to fog. Since it was Dan's birthday, mom asked, "Well, what do you want to do." Dan replied immediately that he wanted to go for pie. So, we drove 5 hours to get some pie!!! We ended up with a delicious apple blackberry pie, a beef pie with gravy, more sausage rolls and 3 free turnovers. Mom ended up with another apple raspberry pie and a tartan pie, which she describes as SOOOO GOOD!

While in Campbell River, we went on a sunset kayak with Great Wolf Expeditions. Jesse, our guide and his wife Sandra (and cute baby Anna) were absolutely amazing. We had a great time kayaking, getting to try the kelp and sea asparagus. Both were a bit salty, but tasty. Jesse was very informative talking about the sea, the things that lived in it, the local geography and native legends of the area. It was wonderfully relaxing and they took good care of us.

Our trip 2010 part 2

On the road to Winter Harbour. A little town whose winter population reaches a high of 17. The summer is about 20. We drove down this dirt road for 1.5 hours (one way) just to reach this little town. Why? Because we can. And it was on the map. And it is supposedly the westernly most point of Vancouver Island. Was it worth it? Well, we go this nice photo of a harbour!!! And the pride of being able to say we were at the westernly most inhabited point of Vancouver Island.

That same day/evening, we also took another 45 minute jaunt (one way) to a little town called Zeballos. It was quite quaint and beautiful. Our total time in the town consisted of about 10 minutes due to the gravel road and the setting sun.

Dan's desire was to take a picture of us eating Nanaimo bars in Nanaimo. He got his wish. We also have a picture of him eating a Donut in front of the town of Duncan sign...you know...Dunkin Donuts!

Amanda was "thrilled" to visit numerous (aka almost all of the) public washrooms on Vancouver Island. Her observation...for some reason Victoria is the only town on the Island without low-flow toilets. Yep...she visited that many washrooms (and some of them twice!!)

Our Trip 2010 Part 3

Mom dragged us up Mount Douglas and here are the resulting pictures. Kind of looks like Italy would with the houses hanging off the side of the mountainside.

Fort Rodd Hill and the Fisgaard Lighthouse. On the way to the lighthouse we had to travel down a long dyke that had this horrible sewage type smell to it. We made it to the lighthouse without incident. But on the way back the sewage smell was overwhelming. We tried to breathe through our mouths but ended up tasting sewage. The result was that Amanda lost her breakfast on the side of the dyke. Dang pregnancy nose!

Little Niagara Falls. Doesn't exactly have the thunderous roar that the word Niagara conjures up...but it'll do. The highlight??? Mom accidentally dropped her camera into the waterfall pool and had to fish it back out again.

Dan's hippie bus count: 32. The best one was this pink one that Dan saw repeatedly in Victoria. Please note that westfalia's didn't count in the hippie bus count otherwise we would have been in the hundreds.

Grandma's House

We went to Penticton to visit G-ma and also to see Dan's family in Naramata. The lady may look innocent, but watch out! She is a feisty old lady. Her hearing may be bad, but her eyesight is good. She caught me trying to steal a jar of cherry jam from the fridge and pass it off as the baby. It didn't work, but she let us keep the jar of jam anyway! Yummy!

G-ma lives across the street from Skaha Lake in Penticton. Dan and I enjoyed a nice morning walk along the beach, before it got too hot, which didn't take long.