Beautiful St. Lucia

So, I know it's been quiet the past week and a half or so. That's because Tom and I just spent a week in beautiful St. Lucia and we got back on Monday night.


What a gorgeous place St. Lucia is. It's very mountainous and full of lush, green vegetation. We spent the week at a Sandals resort there. It's the first time I've stayed at a Sandals resort, and now I highly recommend them. The staff was helpful, courteous and friendly - all making for a very pleasant stay. We had requested a room on the ground floor - which we received - so I didn't have to do too many stairs. The food was generally pretty good too. In particular, we really enjoyed the Italian restaurant and ate there twice. I didn't do too much during the week.... a lot of sitting by the pool (out of the sun so I wouldn't get burned) and reading. We had a short spin on a Hobie Cat and a short spin on a jet ski. Tom got in two 9-hole rounds of golf. There was a golf course attached to our resort so the green fees were free (altho you had to pay a very small amount for the mandatory caddy). I did manage to squeeze in a massage and a facial in the spa there. It was amazing - I felt like a big bowl of jello after that! One of the highlights of the trip was going to a cricket match. The World Cup of Cricket is going on right now in the West Indies and on Thursday, Canada was playing New Zealand. The hotel was good enough to help us get tickets and a driver to take us there. Tom learned a lot about cricket before we left and while we were there by reading and watching the games, so he was able to help me understand the game. The games in the World Cup are restricted to one day (from about 9:30 am to 5:30 pm) but we thought even that was too long so we showed up around noon and left at 4:30 pm when it because obvious that Canada was not going to win. The Canadian team was the underdog but when they first came to bat, we were beginning to hope for an upset! Unfortunately, they were unable to sustain that momentum and eventually lost.


And now it's back to real life again. The kids are, of course, glad to have us back and we're glad to see them again.


The Cricket Match and some beautiful girls at the cricket match. Apparently, the World Cup of Cricket is such a big deal that all the schools have class trips to see a match. And it's so cool to see because all the schools have uniforms and they are all so colourful.

A typical roadside view:

The bananas (the chief crop of St. Lucia) are grown in blue bags to keep them from ripening.

The golf course:

Enjoying a beverage while watching the beautiful sunset:

Cool pictures - "The Right Angle"

Some sunshine

Here is a picture of some sunshine I received the other day from my friend, "M". "M" has been such a wonderful support to me... bringing meals, baking Christmas goodies for us, and a surprise gift of sunshine in the form of tulips. Thank you M! I love tulips so much, I think they're probably one of my favourite flowers. They remind me of spring - they start to bloom when winter has lost its glory.... the snow is dirty, the brownish grass is starting to peek through. But then tulips start arriving... full of beautiful colour and full of the promise of spring. Tulips always make me thankful to God for the seasons we get to experience and for His beautiful creation. So many wonderful things in it.... how can I not be thankful?

"M" is representative of the wonderful friends I have who have been supporting me through this past year. I say it often, and I'll say it again, all the cards, emails, meals, goodies, flowers and prayers I receive truly do mean the world to me. It helps keep me strong and I thank you ALL again.

Now... here's some pictures of one of my other sunshines, Ryan. Ryan and I were killing some time waiting for Kurtis to finish his skiing lesson. Ryan is such a ham so I took a ton of pictures of him acting for me. For those of you who know sign language, can you identify some signs??

Back again...

This round wasn't bad either... not quite as good as the previous one, but by all my standards, a "good" one. It's interesting how I rate them now....compare them to previous chemos and figure out how to improve how I feel. My little science experiments, I guess!

This one was a bit harder emotionally though. It's been one year now since I started chemo. March 20, 2006 was the day I received my first chemo. This isn't an anniversary I'm going to celebrate! 14 chemos later, I'm still going through it. That kind of hit home this chemo and it's been a struggle for me emotionally. I mean, I'm obviously happy I'm still alive... but it's been a horrible year and this chemo is wearing me down. It's tough to go through chemo month after month knowing that you're going to feel horrible for one week out of every four.

I also hate what this is doing to Kurtis. He's starting to show fears of things he's never been afraid of. When we flew to Florida, he was terrified to fly because he was afraid of crashing. He remembered a discussion we had a long time ago about 9-11 and the planes that crashed that day. Last night, he had a headache (after a long day of skiing in warm weather with sunlight reflecting off the snow - not surprising!). He happened to see a commercial about strokes and one of the symptoms was headache. He got very scared and immediately jumped to the conclusion that because of the headache, he might have cancer (he missed the stroke part, but jumped to cancer instead). It took a while to reassure him that he did NOT have cancer or a stroke, and that the headache was just caused by all his activity that day. A few other things have happened too.... so we now have an agreement that we won't talk about anything that I think he might think is scary.

Please keep us all in your prayers. For healing for me, for strength and calmness for Kurtis, strength for Tom as he continues to be the rock in our family...

I'll work on a more cheery post for tomorrow. I promise!

That time again...

wow,, that old cliche about time flying? It's true. How can 4 weeks have passed so fast? So, I'm heading in this morning for another chemo treatment. #14. I can't believe I've had 13 treatments already either. Please keep me in your prayers that this treatment goes as easily as last time.... easier if possible!

Oma has the boys today as they have another "snow" day. The skies are clear, there is no wind and no snow, but the school board closed all the schools because of the cold. Ryan's happy about that as he was not thrilled about going to school today. We did consider keeping him home anyways as he's battling a cold. It's one of those colds where you're not sure if you should keep them home. It's not bad.... but you don't want to spread it... and you don't want him to get worse. So, I guess the snow day took care of that decision for me! I'll have to post soon about his party. Ryan had his first ever "kids party" on Sunday. What an event!

See you in a few days.