Tropical Storm Fay

Nick and I have never been ones to prepare for a hurricane so when they announced TS Fay, we both just laughed at the government/media attempts to get people to buy stuff for the sake of improving our economy. Shame on us! We didn't realize Fay was going to stick around THIS freaking long. I now realize the hazards of constant rain.

We're experiencing some difficulties in our house. When we moved in, I had the house pressure washed and noticed that there were some leaks on three of our downstairs windows. It hasn't been a problem because they only leak when there's constant, hard hitting water directly on the windows and until now that hasn't happened. TS Fay brought the leaks back. Nick was caught by surprise when our bamboo blinds came crashing down on the floor. It turnes out it's not the window that leaks, there must be a crack on the side of our house because it was leaking through the anchors on the top of the window. The bamboo blinds were acting as rain chains and absorbed all the water- until it got so heavy that the anchors came out of the drywall. Being that neither of us are handy, we really don't have tools to fix stuff around our house. We can't use putty b/c the top of the window frame is soaked. Nick came up with a cheap solution. He folded paper towels and taped them to the holes. He had to change them out every couple of hours but they stopped the water from dripping onto our wood floors. Nick and I both had a moment of regret about the wood floors b/c we wouldn't be so worried if we had tile down but I'm worried if the floors get wet they'll buckle. We're calling professionals to find out exactly where the crack/leak is coming from.

Here's a picture of our make-do patch:

Our Baby Recuperates from Surgery

Baby hasn't visited the vet in a while but this month he met the quota. Nick took him to the Dr. last week because Baby's right eye was so red and full of gunk, we knew it was probably an infection. He did have conjunctivitis (pink eye) and has been on antibiotics since. When Nick came back from the vet last week he bathed Baby and found a growth on Baby's lip. It was gross- like a big pink mole with red dots on it. Today was Baby's follow up appointment for the conjunctivitis.

Once we told the Dr. about the growth, he suggested we remove it. Baby has his own health insurance plan and the plan covers one dental cleaning a year. Since they have to put him under full anesthesia for his dental cleaning, we usually take advantage of that and take care of any other things that need to be done w/full anesthesia. Since he hasn't had his dental cleaning this year, the Dr. suggested we do it today and take care of the growth on his lip plus a growth on his belly (he's had one of these before and it was just a mass of fat). We didn't expect to have it done so soon but since Nick and I were both off from work today we decided to do it.

When we picked Baby up from the vet, they explained what he can do and what he should refrain from doing. He has stitches on his lip so they're afraid he'll scratch his face and pull them out. The nurse said "you can bring him back in 2 weeks for us to remove them but given his demeanor he probably won't let us, so they'll eventually dissolve". I kept thinking what does she mean by "his demeanor"??? Now, everyone that has met Baby knows that it takes a while for him to warm up to strangers. However, he has never acted up against a nurse/Dr or groomer. He only misbehaves in his own territory so I was actually surprised when she said that. So, we'll have to wait until the stitches dissolve. What Baby doesn't realize is that "his demeanor" has cost him about 3 weeks of "cone punishment". He must wear a cone around his neck to keep him from ripping the stitches off his lip and cost me even more money to put him under anesthesia again.

This is like a Mastercard commercial:

Vet visit: $50

Doggie dental cleaning: $100

Doggie Blood work and urine analysis: $89

Surgery to remove two growths: $100

Antibiotics for 3 weeks: $85

Seeing your doggie wear a cone: Priceless

The doggie health plan covers a lot but we still ended up paying $200 to cover medication and other stuff. It turns out Baby has an urine infection as well.

Mamma Mia!

On Friday night, my mom and I got to see the broadway show Mamma Mia! at Bob Carr in Orlando. I didn't know what the story was about until I went to see the show. Even though I'm not a musicals fan, the show was great. Towards the end I did want the singing to end but I made it through and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another update for those who haven't realized it yet...
From now on, most of the updates will be posted on our new blog:
http://www.guittars.blogspot.com/

I will still keep this blog for random non-baby related stories.

Day 6: Niagara Falls, ON & Niagara Falls, NY

As most of you can tell, I'm writing this update waaaaaay after the fact. In other words, you'll have to forgive me if this isn't as interesting as our previous posts.

This morning we awoke knowing that today was our last day in Canada (for now, anyway). Honestly, we'd already seen and done almost everything we'd set out to. Aware that today was going to be a really long day, we stayed in bed until the very last minute. You see, our flight departs from Buffalo, NY at 7pm, arriving in Orlando near midnight. As usual, our first piece of business for the day was to get some food. Since it was already 11am, I proposed eating at the Hard Rock Cafe. For those of you who don't know, Steph and I almost always have a meal at Hard Rock in whatever city we're vacationing in (hard rock=guitars=us). Everytime I walk into a Hard Rock, I try to read the plaques for every piece of memorabilia I see in hopes of finding one of my favorite bands. The Hard Rock in Niagara Falls, Ontario had instruments from two of my favorites. First, we have an early 80's keyboard used by Depeche Mode.

The other find is a guitar used by Trent Reznor, the brain behind Nine Inch Nails (HR misspelled his name).

Just down the plaza from Hard Rock was a large Hershey Store. Here's a picture of Steph standing in front of an indoor waterfall at the Hershey Store.

After acting all tourist-like for awhile, we made our way back to the car. While walking, I took pictures of the two casinos Steph gambled at (Roulette) the day before. The first casino, Casino Niagara, was the more casual of the two.

Pictured here is the newer, fancier Fallsview Casino located just up the hill from Horseshoe Falls.

Back in the car, we decided we might as well begin making our way across the border back into the U.S.. I was interested in getting a view of the falls from the U.S. side, so we set out for the Niagara Falls State Park (of NY). First, however, we had to drive across the bridge and through a border crossing. As we were crossing the bridge we noticed that there was a walkway that ran along the bridge as well. Steph and I found it interesting that you could walk along a 'pedestrian crossing' between Canada and the U.S., but then again, not everyone has a car to drive. After crossing back into the U.S., we parked the car and began walking back across the bridge toward Canada. Here's a picture taken from the pedestrian walkway along the bridge.

Notice the flags representing the border on the center of the bridge. The view of the falls and Niagara River as a whole was outstanding from the bridge. This walkway gave us the chance to take a great photo of the entire river, including both sets of falls, downtown Niagara Falls, Ontario and the four Maid of the Mist ships. Hey dad, can you believe we were simultaneously standing on the edge of the U.S., and the edge of Canada!?

On the left side of the picture is a platform that resembles the edge of a bridge. This is a viewing platform that is part of the Niagara Falls State Park, which is where we were heading next. The park itself was very nice. It stood in sharp contrast, however, to the rest of Niagara Falls, NY. All I could think about was how much nicer it was on the Canadian side. Anyway, our quick visit to the park in NY gave us a chance to read about the history of the falls and take a couple of pics of the falls from the U.S. side.

Seen at the forefront is American Falls, and at the rear is the far right edge of Horeshoe Falls (and a bit of the Canadian cityscape). Our last stop before making our way to the airport was a quick stop at Seneca Casino. This is the only casino in Niagara Falls, NY and it is owned by the Seneca Nation (a group of Native Americans with reservations across western NY. Now, I mentioned that this was a quick stop, and there's one main reason: SMOKE. It was like walking into an early 90's bowling alley during Tuesday night's 'pizza & beer' league. I guess we've been spoiled by our smokeless state of Florida. Oh, by the way, smoking is illegal in any indoor establishment in Canada, including casinos. See, mom, even you can enjoy the casinos in Canada. . . they're smokefree.

Honestly, there is so much more that I could write about from this trip. We've taken some great pics of a lot of random stuff, so over the next few days I'll do a post with pictures and little anecdotes from our trip. Until then . . .