Week 4 of BZ adventure

January 10 - 17, 2014

This week was spent entirely at the Barefoot Beach resort in Indian Rocks Beach Florida. The 2/1 condo (2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom) was awesome and rented from a teacher friend in London. It was a 1 minute walk to the beach or the pool depending on the wind.
Since I really don't remember anything from last week, this felt like our first week together. My tooth is fixed, stitches out of my arm and head and we relaxed. I mean really relaxed. You know when you wake up and say "I don't want to go to work today, please let me go back to sleep"? Well, we did that. We still woke up at 6:00am but were able to go back to sleep till 9. Lennie made us wonderful breakfasts, we hit the beach, lounged, and then ate again.


I was really happy for Lennie this week as he got to rest. With his teaching, coaching, hockey, and second job, I really wanted him to have a chance to just rest. Turns out, he is really good at it :)

This week we had the opportunity to use a wonderful gift from some families and players from Lennie's volleyball team. They knew we were coming near Tampa so they gave us a night at Bern's Steak House. Unbelievable world famous service, food, and atmosphere. We shared chateaubriand, got a tour of the kitchen and wine cellar plus went to the dessert room - 65 pages of homemade desserts and wines. 100,000 bottles, 7500 labels and the biggest private collection in the world. What a wonderful evening.
Wednesday night we invited my parents to the gulf to see the condo and take them out for dinner. We had a wonderful evening of Mexican and live music.


We head back to my parents tonight in order to drop some stuff off then we drive to Miami tomorrow to catch our cruise to the eastern Caribbean. We think the cruise should be really fun with lots to do. We have already booked a couple of evening shows and I have entered a slot tourney too. So happy I am feeling better as we got the most out of this week.

Week 3 of BZ adventure

January 3 - 10, 2014

This week is brought to you by the letter C; beach condo, head cold, root canal, closure, contemplation.

Lennie and I knew on this sabbatical we wanted to see if retiring to Florida would be an option for us like my parents enjoy so much. We rented a beautiful condo in Indian Hills on the beach and moved in this week to experience beach snowbird life. It's pretty sweet let me tell you!

Unfortunately, I had woken up Sunday morning with unbelievable face pain and swelling leading to a hospital visit, diagnosis of a dental abscess and subsequent root canal today. I am a tough cookie but this was unbelievable pain and swelling. It wouldn't stop hurting needing lots of meds and even my eye was shut. It took forever for the infection to die down so I had to wait till today for the procedure.

I received wonderful care from Manatee memorial hospital, Dr. Spice, an oral surgeon, and eventually Dr Duerson and his team and Lakewood Ranch Endodontics. I walked in and everyone took great care to help with my pain and reassurance that I will be ok.

This week also brought us sad news from home that a wonderful family friend, former principal, and curling coach died in London so we drove my mom to the airport to catch a flight home to celebrate his life. Bob Leatham gave Lennie and I teaching placements at his school when we were in teacher's college and we have always been grateful to him for taken a chance on us in his school.





Another thing I wanted to do while in Florida was to see a skin cancer specialist. I got 2 visits with Dr. Kadivar and his wonderful team at Bradentonskincancer.com where he took off 2 "highly suspicious" growths. I have had some basal cell carcinomas before so am not taking anymore chances. Turns out I was right. The one on my arm took 5 stitches and was benign but the one on my head was not. 6 stitches later... It looks bad but he did a great job. Stitches out next week for both.

This week also saw a lot of contemplation. We talked about retirement, our health, careers, stress, and money. When you have lots of down time you can talk lots plus get lots of advice from my parents.

Long tough week but still nice to be with my family and Leo here in the south. Next week brings us more time at the condo and lots of great beach weather.

Week 2 of BZ adventure

December 27 - January 3, 2014

We are still in FLA and are finishing our time at mom and dads. We are driving Grumpy to the airport on Sunday for his flight home and we will check out our condo we rented in Indian Hills while we are near Tampa.

We celebrated New Years at Hard Rock casino as we did last year and then drove home for a Newsroom marathon.

Lennie is enjoying his golf, grumpy got a ton of fishing in, and I have shopped at all the deals. Mom has golfed in her leagues while dad carves and reads the paper.

Pretty typical week 2 in FLA like most years EXCEPT we're not packing to head home :) we will be toasting all our family and friends on Monday as we know that is when everyone heads back to work.

Next week brings the condo and more beach time.

Week 1 of BZ adventure

December 20th 3:30pm

December 22 3:30pm

December 20 - 27, 2013

We drove with my brother aka "the Grump" to Florida to see my parents. Took us 21.5 hours non stop with no problems. Got there in 30 degree weather, hit the pool, casino, shopping and most of all rested.  We knew we needed some rest before we started own other adventures. My parents are doing great and we celebrated Christmas with so much fun.

This is our gazillion time coming for Christmas and that way my parents don't have to fly home for the holiday. It's nice to have a second car to bomb around in and that way the boys can go fishing and golfing with the car and we are not suck at the house. We also can bring lots of stuff with us and are not limited to the weight restrictions of an airline.

The best of this week was that we got to eat and rest a lot. Our eating and sleeping habits at home are terrible and my parents make sure we get 3 awesome, healthy, home cooked meals a day plus sleep in past 9:00am. My mom is an amazing cook so we enjoyed all our favourites plus consumed lots of fruit and veggies.

We also are beginning our training regime for the Kilimanjaro hike by walking kms a day.

Great start to our holidays and sabbatical.

True To My Word...

When I was 8 years old, my grade 3 teacher had us do a project on any country in the world. Not one to be too studious, I grabbed an encyclopedia and flipped through it and under my finger hit a country.  My finger landed on Tanzania, Africa and from there I have always wanted to visit to climb it's volcano; Kilimanjaro, on the top of Africa, the tallest free standing mountain in the world.  

I have told many people that some day I will climb that mountain.

Lennie and I as teachers had the opportunity to apply for a self funded leave allowing us to have 6 months paid leave starting in January till June. We applied, were accepted, and contributed 20% of our pay for a couple of years into a fund that we will access while off in January.  

I have told many people that some day we will do a self funded leave.

In 2007 I met a really cool teacher named Kristine in my Principal's courses.  We hit it off right away and she returned in 2008 to complete the second course with me.  She was from London but was living and teaching in Singapore with her family.  While she was here I borrowed a book from her and promised that some day I would come to Singapore to return the book.  

I have told many people that some day I would travel to Singapore to see Kristine, her country, family, and return the book.

We are finally here.  9 days away from our adventure.  Lennie and I are going on a trip around the world, literally, 50,000+ km, stopping in Central America, Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, California, Seattle, Victoria, then home.

Got our shots - they hurt

With lots of amazing things in between, we are checking off many things on our bucket lists.

• Go on a cruise


• Summit Mount Kilimanjaro


• See a giraffe eat from a tree and zebras run in the wild on a safari


• Return a book to Kristen Greenslaw in Singapore


• Swim in the infinity pool at the Marina Bay Hotel, Singapore


• Have a Singapore sling in Singapore


• Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef


• Hold a koala bear





International driver's licences - check

• Complete the Sydney, Australia bridge walk


• See the Charles Sturt campus in Wagga Wagga, Queensland where I completed my MEd


• See water flow counter clockwise in a toilet


• Paddle board in New Zealand


• See the Hollywood sign and take a TMZ tour - yes we are that cheesy


• Drive the Pacific Coast Highway

etc etc etc

Stay tuned for our adventures.

The Colour Vibe

Never one to pass up a good time or a race, when my friend Tracy L called me to ask if I wanted to do one of those popular colour races, I said yes right away.  I also agreed because she said it was in Flint and would involve a night away and lots of shopping.  We signed up for the race and her family friend Margaret tagged along too.

We arrived in Flint that morning after a nice night at a hotel.  US races are always great because they have lots of help and make it easy to participate.

We parked the car, got our shirts, put on our bibs, got our colour packs and made our way to the start line.









We made sure we took before pics knowing we were going to get really colourful by the end of the 5Km.










Tracy had bought us matching shirts for under our race shirts, also braclettes, and earrings.









After 5km through an awesome route of out and back and on a trail that was sandy, well marked, and lots of cheerers.

I really liked the music being played to pump us throughout the trail.






We got very colourful from the volunteers, they were so much fun and would high-five you as your ran past making the colour go everywhere.

I would do this kind of thing again as it was so well done.

Storm the Escarpment

What a terrific weekend, we (The Hunger Dames) had September 13-14th at the Storm the Escarpment race in Milton, Ontario.  Having met these ladies just earlier in the year from meeting on Twitter, who knew we could have so much fun biking, running, obstacle coursing, and kayaking.

Thank you ladies for a wonderful weekend, oh and the bruises.

Warmed up and ready to rock. Michelle, Kelly, Carol and I stayed the night before in Milton and easily got to the start line.  What I really liked was the other participants.  They were so supportive of us 40+ chicks and we got lots of recognition of our cool name and shirts.





We set up a sweet camp with all our food, first aid, water, and a change of clothes. Kelly had brought a canvass cover and I brought a tarp, we were cool, dry, and looked like we knew what we were doing.







After a "find the flag" opening, 7 km bike, Kelly and I tackled the escarpment, one hell of a hill was waiting for us.  Not only did you have to run up the hill but you had to run down it too - killer on the quads both ways.






The bike route was totally doable and had a couple of tricky spots and with more confidence I could kill it next time.  Thank you Lennie for letting me borrow your bike, it was perfect.  Mine still has a mystery flat and his was really strong.  I felt great but needed more practice days.










After 8 hours, we completed 5 laps, 55+ km! and became great friends. I was exhausted and hurt from some obstacle course falls.

Not sure if I will do this race again.  You really need to be a terrific, fast, cross country runner in order to not let your team down.  Having great endurance is great but you must be quick.

I had not really trained this summer with our trips out east and west.  My knee has been bothering me and by the end of the day, I could hardly walk :( MRI next week.