Toronto

What a trip...

Olivia had another appointment with the specialist at Toronto Sick
Kids, so Allison and I made another vacation out of it!

The trip started a little rough as I had hoped that we'd be on the
road by 5am. We only got to bed at 1am, so we decided that we'd set
our alarm for 5am instead of 4am. The extra hour was nice
considering...

We got the car packed, along with Olivia and we hit the road around
630. Our plan was to stop in St Leonard to meet up wit our friends...
Everything was going perfectly until we got approximately 5km's
outside of St Leonard.

The car started acting funny and was chugging along. Every time I
tried to accelerate, the car was "burp". Well after 5hrs, including
renting ã car & talking to 5 different mechanics, we figured out that
iwe where having spark plug issues!

Eric and I ran down to Grand-Falls Canadian Tire to buy some plugs and
wires... Once we got everything installed on the car, Allison, Olivia
& I where back on the road.

Day 1 of the trip was certainly a long one as we pushed it as far as
we could... Into Drummondville, Qc. It made it a very long day for
Olivia as she was getting extremely uncomfortable in her car seat. She
really wanted out.

The rest of the week went off without a problem. The car ran smoothly
and we made it to Olivia's appointment on time.

The Dr's where pleased with Olivia's progress. They said that we only
really need to concentrate on one of her stretches to encourage her to
continue to develop that movement. It would be her shoulder rotation
outwards. The only thing that was slightly discouraging was being told
that they don't believe that her forearm rotation probably won't get
any better. But on the bright side, if she becomes a Tennis player,
she would have a great back-hand! LOL

Once everything was all done with Toronto, we decided that we
absolutely wanted to make it out to Niagara Falls this time. We tried
& failed in September, but this time was going to be different. We
made plans to meet up with Colin & his girlfriend Jody. Unfortunately,
we only got together late in the day, but honestly, it was a great
time anyways. We went to a couple of the museums (Rippley's Believe
it or Not & Guinness Book of World Records...) and we also went for
supper to the Rainforest Cafe.

Expensive, but great food.

Hard to believe that this was the first time that Colin got to meet
Olivia. But I guess it can be expected when you live halfway across
the country.

On our drive home, we went through the United States. WHAT A BORING
DRIVE!!! Some people had said that it was a really nice drive, but I
think because we stuck to the Interstate, it was extremely boring. I
imagine that if I had managed to get the GPS figured out to bring me
through Vermont & stuff, it would have been better, but honestly, we
sort of had a dead line to get home... That part really sucked!
Allison kept saying that she didn't feel like she was on vacation &
that there was a lot of work involved in traveling & I have to agree
with her 100%. We did almost 36hrs of driving in a total of 4 days – 2
days up & 2 days back home, not including all the travel we did to get
to our destinations....

Well, what else has been going on since my last update? Hmm... not a
whole lot. I have been extremely lazy with my car... I'm overdue on my
safety, by almost 3mths. I still have my winter tires on my car & my
oil change is due! Urgh! You'd think that with 4 days off I could get
things done, but I usually get overtime... But not to worry, it's on
the books for this week for sure!

The city elections turned out ok... half of the people that I voted
for got in (mayor, but not the councilor that I wanted). I think that
I'm going to try to get involved in the Ward 1 committee that the new
councilor had stated that he wanted to create. I think that it will be
interesting and offer some insight in what is going on in our
community.

Well, I guess that's all the news that I have so far. Now that I have
it figured out between my phone & my laptop, I should be able to put
more frequent updates again!

'til next time!

--
Joel
joelgallant.ca