And the hits just keep on coming....part 1

It has been a really hard couple of weeks for my family...

First the good stuff...

We departed on February 20th for a family vacation (the first one in 4 years) and arrived to a sunny day in Orlando at around 4pm. We enjoyed the rest of the day. We relaxed by the pool, went shopping and then went to bed exhuasted.

The next day we went to The Magic Kingdom. The kids loved it...I may never go again!!! It was soooo expensive and the line-ups were horrible. But, there really isn't anything like seeing your child's face light up when they see Cinderella's castle for the first time. We did meet some of the characters and the kids were able to do the rides that they really wanted to do. The parade and fireworks at the end of the night are not something you want to miss. They are amazing.

Things started to turn from there....

We got home at about 9:30 that night and, finally, got the kids tucked nicely into bed. I was exhaused myself, so I headed up to bed at about 11pm. Shortly thereafter, while I was watching "The Golden Girls", the bathroom light went out. I got up and checked it and it turned right back on as if someone had just turned off the switch (no one had, it was still in the "on" position when I went in to check and I turned it off and then on again). I went back to bed and went to sleep...without thinking much more about it, other than it was a little odd. Dave came to bed around 1am. At a little after 2 am, the phone rang...this is where it turns bad. It was the nursing home and they needed to speak to my Mom about my Grandmother. I hung up the phone with a sense of foreboding and went to my Mom's unit to get her. While Mom was dialing the phone, Dave showed up to tell us that they had called back and were waiting in our unit on the phone. By this time, my Mom had gotten a hold of the nursing home. Nan was gone. She had passed away in her sleep. I was devistated, but I didn't want to show it. Other people needed me to be strong. I left to go and get my sister and Dave went to hang up the phone and check on our kids. My sister and her husband greeted me at the door....and I told her the news. That was hard. She took it well, but I don't ever want to have to tell someone that kind of thing at 2:30 in the morning ever again. Mom and Dad showed up shortly thereafter and we went to get my cousins (who had just been told by my Aunt and Uncle that Nan had passed). As we all sat there in shock talking about our "game plan", we couldn't help but start telling stories of someone we all loved dearly and meant the world to us. Now that I think of it...Nan might as well of planned it this way...we were all together and were there for each other. It was decided that my Mom and Dad and Uncle Brian and Aunt Cathy would head back to Canada and help Uncle Mike make the arrangements. We would stay and finish our trip because our kids were all young and wouldn't understand why we had to leave. We tried to make the best of the rest of our time in Florida, but there was always a shadow hanging over our heads. Nan was never far from our thoughts. On our last day there, the kids and I wrote notes to Nan, tied them to our Disney balloons and sent them up to her. (the one from Me, my sister and cousins said "thank you for being a friend" as we all fondly remember watching the "Golden Girls" with Nan)
We were fortunate enought to get to spend a day with some very good friends(whom we met when they lived in Canada) and am thankful for it. We went shopping, played poker, had a few drinks and many laughs. We reluctantly said good-bye to them on Friday and then to Florida on Saturday. After a near-miss in Washington (they overbooked the plane), we finally made it to Syracuse were our husbands were waiting to see us back home to Canada. To be continued...