Check this video out! It’s about Grouse Mountain which is in North Vancouver, British Columbia. I lived at the base of this mountain for a few years as a child and I was married 14 years ago at the top! Needless to say… this place holds many special memories for me!

Enjoy…..

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tom Brokaw did a piece just prior to the opening ceremonies at the 2010 Vancouver winter Olympic games. I was glued to CTV so I missed the NBC airing of it. This morning the video on YouTube, had roughly around 22,000 views and now, just before midnight of that same day… it’s almost at 53,000. I know I’ve watched it several times… crying each and every time! It’s favourited in my iPhone, so now when I need a ego-boost about this marvelous nation I live in… I can thank an American for making me feel so patriotic!! Thanks Tom.

If you haven’t seen it. YOU MUST WATCH!! Enjoy, grab that kleenex box just in case…

Last medal count was 8 (4 Gold; 3 Silver; 1 Bronze)

This crazy Canuck is proud to call this place HOME! Here’s a photo with my Dad and one of the torch bearers. She’s a good customer at his restaurant in White Rock, BC so she had to let him see it up close and personal.

my dad and the torch

My son, 13 at the time, went on a mission’s trip (humanitarian aide) to Guyana with a church group affiliated with our church.  They had a great time helping a local church in Georgetown. One of their tasks was to fix up the building and the outside washroom.  My son was up on ladders taking down spider webs and painting, they were digging pathways and filling them with cement. 

But the highlight of the trip was handing out the shoes.  Our church collected 3 suitcases full of shoes for the boys to bring with them.  Shoes are very expensive there and when we asked the pastor at the church in Guyana what they could use the most – they said, “Shoes”.  So the team dumped the shoes and sorted them all, then the kids and adults came in to “shop” for a new pair.  My son said he couldn’t believe how fast they disappeared!!  It didn’t matter if a pair of shoes were pink, if it fit a boy, he was thrilled to have them.  Really makes you think about our life of over abundance here in North America!! 

 

Their trip wasn’t only to work – they also got to enjoy some time travelling and experiencing the country.  They went to the ocean and played in the waves and the sand. They went on a boat to a small village where they played in the trees and enjoyed meeting some new people, and they went to a market.  This is where my son had an experience that he would not forget – and we have pictures to remember it!!  He knows that he is allergic to cats, but usually it is just a small respiratory problem.  Well… this particular “market” cat that they found and he befriended… must have had more then just “cat” on him. 

 

My son petted the cat and a short while later ended up with what the locals called “pink eye”.  His eye had swollen so much that he couldn’t open the lid anymore.  He looked like he walked out of a boxing match!!  I am glad that he didn’t need to use the travel medical insurance that we had bought for him.  It seemed to clear up over the next day.  I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if I had gotten a phone call back here at home, saying that my son was in the local Guyanese Hospital!!  We learned through all this that it is better to be prepared for sure always have your insurance, you never know when you may encounter a market cat!!

Thank you Ruth for sharing with us your son’s experience. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson! Ruth writes a blog about her life, her passions and her 5 amazing children, it’s called Mom’s Musings. You’re welcome to go check her out, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind!

If I could spend a weekend in Charleston, South Carolina each and every summer, I would! I first fell in love with this city during the summer of 1998 when my hubby and I took my parents for a journey through the South. I was a few months pregnant with our first child. It took 10 years to return again… My husband and I took the kids there this past summer and the two of us managed to escape to there for a romantic weekend away in the fall of 2008.

There are so many remarkable things to see, the character of Charleston is outrageous. Over 500 years of incredible history!! They’ve been through it all; wars, flooding and fires and they did more than just merely survive, they conquered and continued. You can walk the city each and every day and discover something new.

We didn’t have the best weather this past summer but I did manage to catch the beauty of this city during both trips. Please enjoy a trip to Charleston, South Carolina through my eyes. (You’ll get a sense of what I love about this city by the photos I took.)

I even love their official tourism website.

So have I encouraged you to take a little tour?! Personally…. I can’t wait to go back!

Even if you travel south for a simple weekend getaway, you should always make sure you have the proper travel insurance. You just never know when you’ll need it!

As a person who loves this planet and loves to travel it… we really need to do something to keep it clean! I might not believe the world is going to end in 2012 but I do believe that God doesn’t want us to abuse what He gave us! I know that at times we, as individuals, don’t feel like we’re making a difference, but together we are!

It was originally shared with the Care2 community by Megan on the Mother Nature Network.

“As the world’s population balloons to almost 7 billion, it’s become more and more difficult to find anywhere on Earth unaffected by man-made pollution and development, and far too often it takes things going really wrong before people take action to keep our planet clean. So here’s a list that might help to motivate: The 15 most polluted places in the world.“

Citarum River, Indonesia

The Citarum has been called the world’s most polluted river. Around five million people live in the river’s basin, and most of them rely on its flow for their water supply.

Chernobyl, Ukraine

Chernobyl is the town in northern Ukraine home to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Once home to more than 14,000 residents, the town remains mostly uninhabited and unsafe today due to extensive radioactive contamination.

Linfen, China

Linfen has more air pollution than any other city in the world. Sitting at the heart of China’s coal belt, smog and soot from industrial pollutants and automobiles blacken the air at all hours. It is said that if you hang your laundry here, it will turn black before it dries.

The North Pacific Gyre

An island of trash twice the size of Texas floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, circulated by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. The trash, which is mostly made up of plastic debris, floats as deep as 30 feet below the surface.

La Oroya, Peru

La Oroya is a soot-covered mining town in the Peruvian Andes. Ninety-nine percent of the children who live here have blood levels that exceed acceptable limits for lead poisoning, which can be directly attributed to an American-owned smelter that has been polluting the city since 1922.

Dzerzhinsk, Russia

The Guinness Book of World Records has named Dzerzhinsk the most chemically polluted city on Earth, and in 2003 its death rate exceeded its birth rate by 260 percent. More than 300,000 tons of chemical waste were improperly dumped here between 1930 and 1998.

Riachuelo Basin, Argentina

The Riachuelo Basin is a waterway whose name is synonymous with pollution. More than 3,500 factories operate along the banks of the river, a landscape that also includes 13 slums, numerous illegal sewage pipes running directly into the river, and 42 open garbage dumps.

Check out 8 more toxic cities!

#1. Photocopy your passports, make 2 copies, take 1 with you & leave 1 at home with someone that has access to fax machine. In case they are lost or stolen, it is so much easier to replace.

#2. Sun screen for those hot spots, start with a 30 or higher. (Based on my – Shan’s – experience, I’d recommend a sun burn salve for those “just in case” moments!)

#3. Tie a colored ribbon on luggage, so much easier to identify, or buy purple like I did. (I totally agree!! I even posted about loosing my bags a couple months ago)

#4. Spend a few days there in the sun before booking day trips/excursions, if not you could burn badly ruining your holiday right off the bat. (I have a not so funny story about this… a couple we met while on our honeymoon… where on their honeymoon, 2nd day there… they were burnt to a crisp and had to spend the remainder of their honeymoon in their room, one on the couch and one in the bed. Burnt like lobsters! Not the way to spend your honeymoon!!)

#5. Take your own soap for the shower if you have sensitive skin.

#6. Book a stopover hotel prior to your trip if during the winter months, it’s not worth taking the chance. (You only need to spend one night on the floor of the airport to know THIS IS GOOD ADVICE!)

#7. ALWAYS purchase travel insurance. (Couldn’t say it better myself!!)

#8. Take along a bottle of after sun Aloe Vera gel, you will thank me later! Your skin will drink it up!

#9. Drink bottled water when away.

#10. Pack your carry-on in such a way that if it was lost or stolen, you could survive a few days. Create a few outfits out of a few items & be sure to have a swimsuit & wrap in there.

#11. Remember to take your own snacks when traveling to the Islands, they can be very expensive there.

#12. Take along a scented candle or 2 for your room, they are great for the high humidity & your room with smell awesome. (Not to mention… ROMANTIC! I was going to hyperlink the company I worked for when I met my hubby but I wanted to highlight all things Canadian…)

#13. Have a great time and make certain to relax; holidays are not holidays if you come home exhausted. (CAN I GET AN AMEN?!!)

#14. And… because Sherry did this for me out of the kindness of her heart… here’s her email if you need a holiday!!  swatkinson@tpi.ca

Thanks Sherry!! I really appreciate it!

Get the Thursday 13 code here if you want to participate on your own blog!

This isn’t exactly “Wordless” but I am speechless…

I can’t stop crying every time I turn on the TV, the scenes of despair and destruction are almost too much for my soul to bear. I wish there was more that I could do.

The abject poverty that is prevalent in Haiti reminded me of my trip in July 2008 to the Valley of 1,000 Hills / Embo Township in South Africa. To go from having nearly nothing to absolute nothing would crush the strongest person I’m sure. I pray that the funding and support continues, that people will not just turn off their TV’s and close their eyes like to say, “If I don’t see it… it doesn’t exist”. I pray that hope lives on.

If you haven’t had a chance to donate to a relief fund for Haiti as of yet… I’d encourage you to do so. The Canadian Red Cross or The Salvation Army are good places to start. I would caution you however; there are a lot of pseudo organizations out there looking to take advantage of this tragedy. Charlatans are always among the crowd.

walked in... wheeled out

Remember what this picture is from??….

This morning I emailed (because there is no number listed on their website) the hospital that I visited back in Pigeon Forge, TN way back in August 2008 to get this “outstanding bill” figured out.

They sent me back a reply quite quickly, impressed at how quick actually, the phone number to reach the company that the Doctor’s bill through.

So I called them.

Buffy told me that yes there was an outstanding bill but she can’t send it to my insurance company because they already submitted it to collections. She gave me the phone number for them.

So I called them.

I finally reached the revenue recovery organization (fancy word for collection agency) & the department that was “handling” my claim. This time I was as sweet as cherry pie!

It’s true that you can get more bees with honey than vinegar!

The lady on the other end took my insurance policy information and told me that she’d send them a bill and help me take care of this issue. So there it stands. Hopefully soon this $326.00US bill will be paid and my credit score will be fixed!

Lessons learned: Check to see if the hospital and the doctor you visit in the US bill separately or all together. Read the small print!! Second thing…. don’t snap at the collection agents when they call… they are just doing their jobs. I apologized for being a cranky pants the last time we “chatted”.

1. United States ~ I’ve been to almost every State, with the exception of Alaska (which is odd since I worked for an Alaskan cruise line for 4 summers as a teen), Vermont & Maine. My favourite was Hawaii followed closely by South Carolina (Charleston in particular) and one day I’d like to see the beaches along the Gulf Coast.

2. Mexico ~ I don’t really remember Mexico, I was really young. I do recall the locals had a thing for my little sister who had white blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

3. Japan ~ I lived in Kanazawa for a year after high school on an exchange program. While there I visited Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe.

4. France ~ My hubby and I backpacked through parts of Europe when our oldest was around 7 months old. He was a perfect traveler. We stayed a few days in Paris in a place a step up from a hostel on Ponte Neuf. It was incredible to walk this beautiful city.

5. Switzerland ~ While we were backpacking we made a stop off for a week at a friend’s place in Lucerne. They were proud to show off Zurich and a little village near the Swiss/Italian border. The Alps (& the Matterhorn) were exquisite.

6. Italy ~ While Lucerne was our “base” we took a train to Venice and Florence and back again in just a few days. We spent a night in each city and took in as much history as we could. We joke to our son (who is now 11) that he slept through some of the most famous museums in the world. Note to self: do not eat – while seated backwards – on the Italian speed train! blech…

7. England ~ OK, so I haven’t actually touched UK soil… I was trapped inside the airport in London while on the way and back from location #8.

8. South Africa ~ I took 5 teens from our church on a Mission’s trip in the summer of 2008. We spent 3 weeks touring and working throughout KwaZulu Natal.

Places I’d like to visit:

9. Egypt ~ The history and archeology intrigue me, my momma raised me right.
10. Israel ~ Biblical history… need I say more!
11. Greece ~ Same reason as #9 & 10 and it’s only increased since my parents took a cruise throug the Mediterranean a few years ago.
12. Ireland ~ My sister went on a Mission’s trip while she was still in high school and after seeing “Leap Year” I want to experience those lush, green, rolling hills myself!
13. Norway ~ It’s a part of my family heritage on my Dad’s side (he’s half Ukrainian and half Norwegian). The closest I’ve come to experiencing anything Norwegian is on the Ship my parents took my husband and I on a cruise around Hawaii for our 10th anniversary back in 2006.
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others’ comments. It’s easy, and fun!

Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Snow in Dallas, Texas

Ice in Florida

Blizzards in England

What’s Global Warming!!

The other day a friend of mine from Fort Myers Beach in Florida emailed me to “brag” about their weather, “It’s 30 this morning,” she writes. I responded… “WOW, that’s hot, it’s minus 12 here!” It took me a day to realize that she was talking in Fahrenheit!

Being a Canadian, I think in Celsius.

It was then that I saw an image on the news with icicles dangling delicately from orange trees.

The CTV news correspondence in Washington, DC made me laugh. He finished off his story about all the strange, cold weather going on all over the US right now and says, “Canadians just call it, Winter”. Yup, that’s right. It’s just another normal winter up here. Maybe that’s why we have so many “Snowbirds“?! Just because we’re used to it… doesn’t mean we like it!

If you’re traveling this winter season to a location North of the 49th Parallel in particular… make sure you’re covered. I saw a whack of people sleeping in the airports in London, stuck there because they didn’t purchase the proper trip cancellation  / interruption insurance. That’s not how I’d like to spend my vacation!

Speaking of vacations… it’s been a great week at the cottage but it’s back to reality tomorrow. I hope you’re having a good start to 2010!