Fashion for a vacation...........

Never thought much about what clothes I did or did not need on a vacation to the Caribbean.  I just figured some shorts and t-shirts.  A bathing suit, a cover up and a couple of dresses.  However after being there and I learned such a lot.

First a two piece bathing suit is the way to go.  Bottoms and a tankini/long top.  Have you ever tried to wrestle taking off a wet bathing suit to go pee?  I thought I was going to do myself a mischief trying to get it off.  Then it wasn't much better trying to put it back on!!

As things seem to take forever to dry, despite the heat, a couple of bathing suit options is the way to go, so you don't have to put on a damp suit in the morning.  Same goes with cover ups.  I actually used a shorter t-shirt type dress as a cover up and it worked a charm.

I will say it obviously doesn't matter what size you are and I saw all sorts of shapes of people wearing the skimpiest of bathing suits.  The amount of old guys with HUGE beer bellies wearing speedo's was mind boggling.....LOL

The amount of young ladies wearing the skimpiest of bikini's taking 7,000 selfies of themselves by the pool while trying not to get wet was also mind boggling!!  Just between me and you; I may or may not have encouraged youngest grandson to splash as much as he wanted to with his toys while they were doing that!! 😜

I had a pair of croc sandals that I used for pool shoes, but wasn't keen on them.  I did end up using my birkenstocks but didn't like getting the footbed wet.  I have a couple more pairs of croc sandals so need to see if they will work.

I was told to pack light and I did and it worked a charm.  Daughter-in-law had some lovely vacation dresses, so I may have to invest in a couple more.  Overall though, other than some shorts I think I may just use what I have..........

Do you have clothes that you use exclusively for vacation?

The gift that keeps on giving part 2!

 Not sure if you remember, but when we came back from vacation, we brought an extra gift back with us; a stomach bug!  I posted about it here.  Son came down with it the worst and was pretty sick for well over a week.  Hubby also had a shorter second bout of it a few days after he finished with the first bout........basically he never got over it.

Fast forward to last Thursday (12th of February) and I felt like death warmed over with a terrible headache.  The next day the diarrhea started and the stomach cramps.  I pride myself on being a pretty clean person and keeping a clean house, so we were puzzled as to why I came down with this?

I am writing this on the 15th to post on the 16th.  Fingers crossed I am hoping to be over the worst, as in no more stomach cramps, but have no idea why this happened.  I don't think it would be from the vacation, I could have picked it up while out grocery shopping?

Suffice to say I have not left the house!!!  And will probably be staying put until further notice...LOL  I had bought a jigsaw puzzle the other day at Costco, so have been busy doing that and reading.  

I bought this one as I thought it would be difficult, it wasn't too bad it turned out.........

Back from vacation

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I needed a full day to decompress from the trip home.  It was more eventful than anticipated!  I will do a separate post on our adventures in Punta Cana airport at a later date.

We have just spent a week at the Lopesan Costa Bavaro Resort, Spa and Casino in the Dominican Republic.  As I said before we have never been to an all inclusive resort before; nor have we ever been to the Caribbean.  So I am no expert but these are my opinions/observations.  We went with our son, daughter-in-law and their two small boys ages, 7 and 4.  We booked a king garden view room and were upgraded to a pool view room.  Son and family were upgraded to an ocean view room, and their view was lovely.

This resort is around 30 minutes from the airport, however if you have a kamikaze driver it probably only takes 20 minutes......just saying 🤨

Here are some photos of the front of the resort and the lobby:

This was our room.  Pretty standard room and very comfortable.

It was an open plan bathroom.  Never had one before.  The frosted door to the right of the photo, that is where the shower is.

The frosted door to the left is where the toilet is.........yep not overly private.  With the sink in the middle, open to the rest of the room.

Below is a view from our balcony.  We were on the third floor. 

I put a link to the hotel in the second paragraph of this post, where you'll see more information about the resort.  We booked through Expedia, no idea if we got a good deal or not?

Pros of this resort:

Reasonably compact, everything easy to walk too.

Pools were great.  Multiple of them, you could be in the large pool with many people or go to one of the smaller lap pools.  Plus there were two water parks.  A smaller one for younger children and a larger one for all age groups.

Many restaurant options to choose from.  Also numerous bar options to choose from.

Well maintained and very clean.

Staff very friendly and polite.

The buffet options were good, with something for everyone.  Bottled water was served at every meal.

Plenty of bottled water supplied in the hotel rooms.  You cannot, nor should you drink the tap water!!

Great coffee shop, went nearly everyday.

Cons of this resort:

None of the shows started until at least 10pm at night.  

There was very little entertainment between 6pm and 10pm if you had children, just a guy playing the saxophone or another guy playing music.

The casino was very basic, only went the once.

We couldn't get reservations to any of the good restaurants for the first two days.  When we did eat at the nicer restaurants, the presentation was spot on for the food, but the taste didn't match.

The beach wasn't that well taken care of, lots of seaweed, and not a lot of swimming in the ocean, as it was cordoned off with buoy's.

This was as much our fault, as it was theirs but the language barrier was frustrating at times.  As I don't speak Spanish and some of the staff's English skills was lacking.  We had a couple of issues with our room, and we ended up just giving up with it, as we were not getting anywhere........again as much our fault as theirs.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  I loved the all inclusive idea, as I neither had to cook or clean for a week, my idea of a holiday.  I managed to read 3 1/2 books (I was half way through one that I also took on vacation) while away, and could have done with taking another couple with me.  Enjoyed having the family with us to show us the ropes, and enjoyed having extra time with the boys.

We spent very little all week, and what we did spend was mainly tipping the staff.  Even then it was only a couple of dollars (American) here and there.  We did give the lady who cleaned our room $20, as the poor woman spent all week trying to teach me Spanish!!!  Hola! 

The older of the two grandsons did come down food poisoning on the Monday night, which was unfortunate.  So took him to the doctors and get some meds, as there was a doctor on site.  He was well enough to travel on the Wednesday.  I had an iffy tummy one day, but other than a bit of sunburn we all faired well during the trip.

So all in all a success with a lot of great memories made.  I think we will be doing this sort of trip every year from now on.  We were booked to go to Jamaica but due the the weather damage they had last year we had to cancel, so maybe Jamaica will be our next place to visit?

Vacation

Depending on when you are reading this post, we will be heading home from a week away in the Dominican Republic.  In fact we will be home later in the day today.

I prepped posts for the week away, as I knew I wouldn't be posting while we were away.

This is the first time we have been on an all inclusive vacation since we went on our honeymoon to Tunisia back in June of 1983. 

Going on an all inclusive vacation is on my bucket list.  We are going/went with our son, daughter-in-law and the two boys.  We were going to go with them in 2025, but plans changed.

So I am giving you a heads up you're going to be truly sick of vacation posts before I am finished!!!!

I need a vacation from being on vacation..........

Not sure if that makes sense.  However, I am really tired now I am back home.  We were busier than normal when away, and you know when you're not sleeping in your own bed, you don't get as good a nights sleep.  Plus all homes/cabins/rooms/houses make different noises, so if you're a light sleeper, you can't quite settle.

Then when you get back, you have to catch up with daily life.  The grass was to cut, the garden to tidy up.  Laundry to catch up with.  Banking to catch up on.  Grocery shopping to do.  Everything to put away from the vacation; and on and on it goes.

We ended up coming home a day earlier.  I was not well.  My poor stomach was so upset.  We find the food very rich down south.  Mind you no one forced me to eat poorly!!!!

We were to leave on the Thursday but we had a rough night Tuesday night with acid reflux, me especially.  So much so we decided to head on home on Wednesday and stay overnight in Ohio again.

Here is some of the bad food choices we made!!

This was at Cracker Barrel and was actually not a bad choice, minus the biscuits with lashings of butter on them!!

This was hubby's plate of food from the Museum of Appalachia.  He left the green beans, as they were cooked within an inch of their lives he said!!

Mine was chicken noodle casserole, corn casserole and fried cabbage with a piece of sour dough bread.  The chicken casserole was like mac and cheese with some chicken and veggies in it.  It was very heavy.  The corn casserole was like a dead weight as well, left most of that.  The fried cabbage was not great.  Even the sour dough bread was odd.  It was the worst meal of the vacation.

We went to Dollywood and bought the tasting pass, which gave you five "meals or drinks" for a set price.  I will talk about this more when I do my post on Dollywood.  So the next three photos are what we got and none were healthy choices.

This was a kielbasa sausage skillet and a stuffed sweet potato with chicken and collard greens and fried onions and that white stuff was gravy I think.

A funnel cake.

A hot honey chicken pizza and garlic knot bread.

Then this I think is the meal that broke the camel's back as they say.  We had this on Tuesday lunchtime at the Cracker Barrel.  Again I think it was the biscuits with lashings of butter on them that did it.  Cracker Barrel has the best biscuit's/scones.  They are warm and fluffy, and oh so good!!

Suffice to say; I hardly ate anything on Wednesday nor on Thursday.  Friday I make chicken, carrots and some rice for supper, as by then my stomach was finally settling down..........

Now back to sensible eating!!

Vacation time.....

So late last month we headed out on our annual vacation.  We were supposed to be going to Northern Ontario, but honestly that did not feel like a vacation to us.  We had another death in the family, an uncle who was only 71 and I/we decided that we were going to go to our favourite place as life is way to short; and Donald and his idiotic rantings are not going to determine where we vacation.  So Tennessee we went, to Pigeon Forge and our beloved Smokies.

We started out on September 23rd and travelled as far as Middletown, Ohio the first day.  We crossed over at Windsor and drove right up to the guard and was through in as long as it took him to swipe our passports and ask us where we were going and for how long.  Super nice guy.

As I said we stopped at The Comfort Inn in Middletown, Ohio.  One of the nicest, cleanest hotels we have stayed in.  Far enough off the I75 so not to hear the traffic noise.  Many choices of restaurants to eat at.  We chose the Olive Garden, I had the soup, salad and bread sticks, hubby just had salad.  He came down with an awful head cold a couple of days before we left.

The hotel was super clean, the bathroom was clean, there was plenty of hot water, and lots of choices for breakfast.  We both slept like a log that night.  It cost us under $150 CDN for the night through, Expedia, so a good start to the vacation.  

On the Wednesday we headed down to Pigeon Forge which was less than a five hour drive, but with a couple of stops took us longer.

Got to the cabin just before 5pm.  After we called into Walmart to pick up a few supplies.  My first impression on grocery prices, expensive.  However we were just so tired.

We booked this cabin: Mountain Mischief, in the Hidden Springs Resort/Gated Community which is behind Dollywood. We have stayed in this resort 3 times now.  We like how close it is to town, but how quiet it is.  This cabin although looks gorgeous on the photos, is very tired looking in real life.  We had a few text messages going back and forward between us and the property owners on the first day, which was a like a comedy of errors.  This cabin has a gorgeous view over to the smokies, but is not as nice as the last one we stayed in, which didn't have the view.

I will say we are up a height which makes me worried with parking the car.  I have got over the fear though of the cabin sliding down the mountain/hill though...LOL

Driving up to the cabin:

We turn around, so we park facing downhill.  There is a green hydro box on the left hand side of the photo, we parked there outside of our cabin.

View from back deck, looking towards the Smokies in the background.

Some more of the cabins, nestled in the trees.

There will be more posts about our vacation over the next week or two.

Corning Museum of Glass

Back in June we decided to make a quick trip to Corning, New York, as I have always wanted to go to the Corning Museum of Glass.  Following are some photos from the trip.  Please read the last bit of the post as well if you can.

This display was the lobby of the museum.

Now one of the things I did was make my own vase.  Below is what I made.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it was well worth the price.  I did this one but there are many more you can do.

It has the shape of a heart in the bottom.

I also bought this vase from the store.  I could have spent a small fortune in that store.

I also picked this pen holder up at Vitrix Hot Glass Studio in Corning.

We stayed at the Econo Lodge in Painted Post, which is just a few minutes from the museum and it was an okay hotel, stayed in better, but have also stayed in worse.  Good value for money.

We thoroughly enjoyed the museum.  We arrived at the opening time and stayed until later in the afternoon.  There was something of interest for everyone.  Even hubby was interested in some of the technical things about what glass is used for.  Everyone was super nice.  They have a cafe with typical cafe food at slightly higher than average prices, but typical for a place like this.  I would recommend everyone visiting this museum, well worth the money.

Now I don't talk politics or religion generally on this blog, BUT my fellow Canadian's are probably not overly happy with us for spending a few days in the States.

However, not that I need to make excuses, but we were ready for a break, not a long break just a few days away, as we had a lot going on at the time.  I had always wanted to go to this museum and I don't want a certain person (D.T.) making me wait for four years until he is out of office (we pray and hope!!)

Crossing the border, both ways, was a breeze.  All the horror stories we had heard online and in the news didn't apply.  Everyone we met in the States couldn't have been any nicer if they tried.  They were as fed up with D.T. as we Canadians are. We left on a Tuesday and were back in Canada by late Friday morning. 

We are going away for a few days next month and are spending those days in Northern Ontario.

There is another museum I would love to visit and that is the Tiffany Museum, but that's in Florida.  Has anyone ever been to that?  Also does anyone know of any glass museums in Canada?
 

Vacation Booked..........

We have been humming and haa-ing over where to go for our vacation this year.  

Some places that came up were New York State.  Close to home and I would love to go to the Corning Museum of Glass.  We then thought we would head over to New York for a few days and then cross the border back into Canada and drive home via the lake.

We then took a look at Ocean City, Maryland.  However a condo on the beach was flipping expensive, but again it's a place we have never been and there was plenty to do it seemed.

We had the best vacation ever, other than the no-see-ums at the Isle of Palms in South Carolina.  Again for the building that we stayed in it was super expensive, but as it was in September 2008, then no doubt the price would go up.  You can see here on this post where we stayed.

We then decided to "look for a place" in the Savannah area as we have never been there before.  We checked out places in Hilton Head and Tybee Island.  I managed to narrow it down to two places one in Hilton Head and one in Tybee Island.  

We have ended up booking a condo with clear ocean views in Tybee Island for 10 days in September.  As it is a 16 1/2 hour drive from our home we will drive for around 10 hours the first day and have a shorter drive the second day.  

So have any of you been to Tybee Island?  Any places we should or should not go too?  We will of course go into Savannah, any places we should go too there?

How do you pronounce Tybee by the way?  Is it TIE-BEE, or TEE-BEE?

Are you planning on going away on vacation this year?

Down the rabbit hole......

and before you know it, here I am writing this post at 6pm on Sunday night.  Where did the day go too?

The day was spent on the internet looking at places that we thought we might like to go to on vacation this year.  That and researching a Google Nest Door Bell camera and various other Door Bell Camera's.

I mean one minute it was 9am and before we knew it, it was lunch time.  Popped out after lunch to buy a new snow shovel, got this one:

Garant Snow Pusher

We have had a few of these over the years and love the ergonomic handle.  It's great for our sore backs.

Came back from buying that and got back on the computer trying to narrow down where we want to go.  We had thought the UK, but it looks as though we have family coming over, so no need to go this year.  

For those of you who have followed my blog for a while, you know we favour Tennessee and the Carolina's.  I adore Charleston, SC; and the Smokies.  South Carolina is tugging at me to go.  We still have enough time to book, we never normally go until September; I just don't want to spend an arm and a leg on a vacation.

We enjoy being able to park at our lodgings and walking everywhere.  However staying downtown Charleston is super expensive (((SIGH))).  I haven't looked at Savannah, Georgia, that might be an option?  Or do we spend a week in the Nashville area?  So many places to visit.....

Then as for the door bell it begrudges me paying for a monthly service so we can "store" video footage of people coming to our door.  We do not need security camera's as neighbours around us have them.

I will say (touching wood) that we live in a safe area.  The break-ins tend to take place on the other side of the subdivision, as they are closer to the main road; we are in the "back" of the subdivision.  We did have an idiot who was breaking into cars on a Thursday/Friday night on a regular basis.  Got to the point where folk would remind everyone on the Subdivision Facebook page that it was Thursday/Friday night and our "friend" would be visiting...LOL  Lock your cars guys!!!

By the way before I forget, thank you all for your suggestions on Costco.  Will maybe have a wander around again this coming week.

So my questions for you today.  Do you have a video doorbell, pro's and con's and which one do you have?

Where are you going to on vacation this year, if you are going somewhere?

Just a little thing.

Hubby is on vacation for three weeks; so we have been getting lots of little jobs done around the house, as he's not one to just sit around.  The outside light out the back was as old as the hills, so we purchased another one and he installed it over the weekend.

It's just from Home Depot, you can see it here.  It was very simple to install, though you had to have a relatively small hand to install the light bulb.  I also wanted the seeded glass as it doesn't show the dirt as much.

We went with an antique looking lightbulb that is LED.  I also wanted to make sure that no rain could get inside of the fixture, so the opening is on the bottom.

We are pulling the front hall closet to bits at the moment, as I never got that and the linen closet painted.  The way they did the front hall closet did not make the most of the space.  We aim to rectify that!  More to follow!

British or Canadian?

(image credit)

When people ask me where I am from my standard answer is: "I am a British born Canadian."  We hold dual citizenship and there was no doubt in our minds that we would become Canadian citizens as soon as we could.  We are lucky that we didn't have to give up our British citizenship; if we had to though I think we would have.  We carry Canadian passports; and have no desire to carry a British one even though we could/can.

Canada is home; the UK is where most of our family live and it's where we go on vacation to.  A lot of expats still say they are going "home" when they go back to their country of birth, I do not.  We have strong roots in Canada.  Our children have married fellow Canadians, have super careers here and have Canadian born children; our grandchildren.  Canada has been good to us and we are thankful for that.

Do I miss the UK; very much so.  As I said most of our family are in the UK.  They are getting older, and along with that comes the problems of aging.  If we lived there I would be able to help out more with various members of family.  As it is, all I can offer is support from the sidelines; it's not the same.  Add into the mix the pandemic and things become increasingly more difficult.  We were due to go to the UK in 2020, that obviously was cancelled.  We knew this year would be a no go; so we have our fingers crossed that we can go in 2022.

As our children were 5 & 3 1/2 when we came to live over here, they have little to no memories of living in the UK.  Dh and I were 25 & 30 and we still speak with a British accent, the kids sound as Canadian as people who were born here.  As we age our memories are viewed through rose tinted glasses.  However in real life things are totally different.  In our last couple of visits I for one have found that how I remembered things and what things are actually like are night and day.  I feel more and more like a "foreigner" every time we visit the UK.

The UK has a huge part of my heart and always will have.  We prefer to watch tv programmes from the UK.  Our sense of humour is very British.  The way I speak and the way I spell and write things are very British.  That's part of me and it will never change, but Canada is home.

Are you living in a country that you weren't born in?

Photos from the UK

Now none of these photos are anything special but all held some meaning for me and I'll explain why.

We travelled through the Yorkshire Dales one day and were reminded constantly how narrow the roads were.  This was one of many tight squeezes on the roads!!  

This is so British I had to take a photo.  The iconic red post/mail box.  This was in Skipton in the market.

 Oh those traffic cones.........miles and miles of them with never a workman in sight.........so familiar; nothing has changed in all these years!!

 This the street our last house in the UK was on.  We are about a third of the way up the hill.  It's as steep as it looks and I made dh park at the bottom of the street.  I was out of puff by the time I walked up to our next door neighbours house.  Yes even after nearly 31 years they are still our next door neighbours.  And you know it was as though we had never been away, we were that comfortable with one another.  We have had many wonderful and some not so wonderful neighbours over the years but I have to say J was the best one ever and we do still write to one another even after all these years.....

No regrets moving to Canada though.  Canada is home and the UK is where we were born.

In with 2020.......

Guess that says it all, and onwards we march into the 2020's.  Not sure about you, but I remember all the hype about going from 1999 into 2000.  Everything was going to crash and nothing would work.......but 2000 arrived and everything was fine.  I hope going into the 2020's it will be the same.

We will all be a little older, but with age I hope comes wisdom, so hopefully we're all a little wiser.

Our plans for this year are all still a little sketchy, but do have a couple of things we want to achieve.

House: finish renovating the downstairs bathroom.................that was only supposed to be a titivate the downstairs bathroom job, that has spiraled out of control...........more on that when it is all finished.

Titivate the upstairs bathroom.............HOWEVER...........after our experience with the downstairs bathroom I am truly afraid it will turn out to be a bigger job than we initially thought.  Also unlike the downstairs bathroom, I can't won't have it in an uproar for weeks on end........so hubby may have to take a week off to get the job done faster.

We will probably do other things around the house, but nothing planned yet.

Health: I must exercise more and lose weight to try and get me off these diabetes pills.  They are killing my stomach and I am not happy with them AT ALL!!  So it's all up to me to get off them......if I don't do the work it's my own fault.

Appleby Lane: I need to promote it more.  Make it's presence known on social media.  I also like the idea of podcasts, so may take a course in February at our local library.  I need to come up with new ideas and focus on what I like to do more, rather than what other people want me to do.  Which I guess is say no more often....LOL

Hubby is now working until he is 65, so four more years, so need to keep saving for his retirement.  I still use my savings pots for Christmas, Birthday's and my other pot.  Just used money out of the other pot towards buying a new vanity for the downstairs bathroom.  

Grocery shopping and menu planning..............grocery prices have just shot up I need to keep more of an eye on that and will do a blog post on that soon.  Menu planning has always been a weak point for me, but will will try and work on that this year as well.

Vacation..........not sure where or when we will be going away this year.  It will probably be in September (like always) but not sure where.......if anyone has any suggestions, we like to rent a cabin/cottage so we have kitchen facilities and have somewhere comfy to sit at night if that helps, we are open to suggestions?

One other thing I MUST MAKE AN EFFORT TO LEAVE COMMENTS ON OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS!!  I read blogs but hardly comment, I must remedy that this year!!

Happy New Year everyone!

Nothing like telling the truth.........

Recently our daughter and her family had a couple of days away and they stayed in a yurt.  It was stinking hot and no a/c in the yurt just fans.

After one night the 3 year old, asked to go home as she didn't want to sleep in the SHED anymore........

No more shed yurt holidays for them I guess!!

Out of the mouth's of babes!!

Crazy busy, I mean crazy, crazy busy!!

This week has been super busy with one thing and another.  

As with most things in life everything happens at once.  When I booked our trip to Britain, I said it'll be "sod's law" and we'll end up selling the house and having to buy another one all at the same time.

Well; we have an offer on the house.  We went back and forward with that at the beginning of the week.  We ended up accepting the offer, BUT the buyers still have theirs to sell.  Where it is at it shouldn't be a problem, but who knows?

Meanwhile we have no where to go and are going on vacation in a week or so's time.  Fast forward until today and I have narrowed down my selection of houses to ONE; BUT and there always is a but they want way more for it than it's worth and there is a bit of work to do on it.  So we are going for another look today (Friday) and we'll go from there.

The closing date for our house is October 31st, so only 60 days which isn't long when you go away on vacation in between hands!!

I also committed to send 10 knitting kits up North for a women's/girl's group, so have been busy putting them together.  Finally got that done, as they will be starting the Fall session soon, will do a post tomorrow on those.

Then we to get ready to go on vacation, plus I want to see all the grand children, they are heading up on Sunday with parents for a get together, so that will be 10 adults, 5 kids and a baby.

The home inspection is being done on Monday, so need to get the house tidied up for that.  Small children are like little tornado's and it's amazing where their sticky hand prints end up!

I still have photos to sort through and print out to take with us.  Still have a few things to buy to take with us.  Did get all paperwork sorted to take with us and got cash converted over. 

I know there are a hundred and one other things to do; I need to make a list😉

Missing Molly.....

Would you believe it is coming up to five years on October 13th that we lost our dear Molly?  There she is with that hedgehog of hers..........

Where we live is not particularly dog friendly.  We have new neighbours and they have a 12 year old lab called Hudson, he is the perfect gentleman and makes me miss Molly even more.

When we were on vacation in Williamsburg, we saw so many dogs and the majority were so well behaved.  Including this one called Nora, who was sitting on the "naughty bench," like our grand daughter has to do!!

This Nora was only a year or two old, I can't remember exactly.

When we were walking one morning we met a couple who were walking four Bernese Mountain Dogs, ages 4, 3, 2 and 4 months.  I wish I had taken a photo, as they were the cutest bunch albeit a big bunch!!

Is there going to be another dog in our future?  I do hope so, just not while we are living in this house.

Sorry for being so quiet..........

I haven't been feeling too great.  Had to cut our vacation short as we didn't want me ending up in hospital in the States.  

Without going into too much detail, my chest is clear and it is something to do with getting older and being a woman!!!

I will be back to posting in a day or two when I am more rested up.

Meanwhile took a couple of photos of this tree when in Colonial Williamsburg, thought it was interesting.

The "C" word.........

The "C" word is not well received this time of the year.  Let me give you a hint what the "C" word is:

There are only 133 days until the "C" word.

I know who really wants to know this in the middle of a stinking heatwave???

However it will be upon us before we know it.  Already the nights are starting to draw in.  It's now dark until after 6 am.  Despite this stinking heat the nights are a little cooler.  So it is on the horizon.

This year though I am no where near as organized as I normally am, basically because our son is getting married the beginning of January, so it will be a low key Christmas, as we are all travelling to the Bahamas for his wedding.

As most of you know I put money in pots each week for various things.  Been doing this for years now.  I have three pots; a birthday pot, a Christmas pot and a "other thing" pot.  I have a healthy $620 sitting in the Christmas pot.  So will keep adding too it weekly and it should cover everything.  

The "other thing" pot will be saved towards spending money and payment towards our vacation/wedding.  I put a deposit down with the travel agent the other day so that $300 will come out of that pot.  The rest of the money in that pot will be saved and converted into US $.

The birthday pot will take a big hit in September as it's Sammy's, son-in-law's and dh's birthdays.  The good thing though is I know I have enough money to cover everything,  It's a lifesaver those pots.

Back to the "C" word though; a lot of thought is going to have to be put into this, this year as I seriously want to cut back, plus we have two new members in our family..........

Have you thought about the "C" word yet?  Have you made plans for it?

Some thoughts about our trip.

We love going to the States.  They are such a patriotic bunch, flying the American flag everywhere. They truly believe their country is the best and I admire them for that.  Only once did someone mention how bad Obama is and as I said to him, "who would you prefer him or Donald Trump, running the country?"

He muttered something and as I then said, I was from Canada, and honestly we are no better off with the bunch of "misfits" we have running to be the next Prime Minister!

As many of you know, we are British born and as we came to Canada when we were in our 20's, we still have our British accents (dh and I;) the kids though sound as Canadian as the next person.  It totally confuses everyone and for some reason American's love hearing us talk?

Anyhow, we have got our response down pat now when people ask where we come from:

"We are British born, but live in Canada."

I must admit I think I blushed bright red from head to toe though one day, as I was talking to a cashier when I noticed another lady standing next to me, just looking at me.  I thought I was holding up things, and of course I apologized......I am Canadian after all...LOL  We apologize for everything, whether it's our fault or not.  Anyway she said no she was enjoying listening to me talk, and then turned around and told her friend to come and listen to me talk.  At that point I just clammed up, as I couldn't think of a thing to say.  

I honestly don't think about my accent and it surprises me when people notice I speak differently, as I never hear it.

The majority of the people are so well mannered; at least with us.  I guess it helps that we always say please and thank you, and if a job is well done I will let people know.  Whenever I talked to the ladies who took care of our hotel room, I always said thank you for a job well done.  I did find though that some people were just plain rude with people especially in the fast food places.

We were in one place and the daughter who was my age or older and her mother, were just plain bloody rude to the girl behind the counter.  Now granted she was as slow as molasses, but even so, don't be rude and disrespectful.  

I finally said to the mother and daughter, "you both seem to be having a bad day?"

Now I am not sure if it was my accent or someone spoke to them, but they both stood there with their mouth's open!!!  I don't remember what they said, but their attitude didn't change with the poor server.....LOL

My only gripe........I wish the exchange rate had been better, as I couldn't/wouldn't/didn't spend anywhere near as much as I normally do when do there.  The one thing we did find cheaper was the gas/petrol; they have super cheap prices for gas and we paid as low as $2.26 USD per gallon.

I look forward to our next visit to the States.  

St. James Church, Lancaster

My photos will not do this place justice but it was a lovely church from the outside; it wasn't open to go inside.  Plus the church yard was very interesting.

 I have never seen raised graves like that before.

 There was a number of graves with the informational plaques and flags beside them.

 I thought this plant was pretty.  No sure what is is.

We were talking to a local guy...............no shocker there for people who know me and he was saying that all the stained glass windows are lit up at night and are stunning.  However despite the fact this is a very safe city I have no desire to wander around when it's dark!!

You can read more about the church here and see what the inside looks like.