UPDATE

Randal is doing quite well.. the surgeon is happy with the surgery. It looks pretty good. I don't think there will be any permanent nerve damage..he was up and walked with a walker to the door of his room once today and sat up twice. I've been away from home for 2 nights and the kids farmed out to some wonderful friends.
The kids were brought to the hospital tonight to see Dad and then I brought them home. So we're all at home tonight except for Randal.
I stopped in at Randal's mom's place on the way home and she was having strong symptoms of a blood clot in her leg. So I made some calls and had her other son "convince" her to go to the hospital. I don't think she was very pleased with me, but you don't mess with this! She has already had 14 leg surgeries with life and death implications, in the past couple or three years. So anyway..this is not good but our God is and He is very capable and willing to take care of her and to see her through this as He is with Randal...
So....please add Florence to your list of people to pray for.
thank you so much...and please pray that nothing else happens around here!
♥Heather

M.I.A.

I just wanted to let you all kn0w that I may not be around for a few days.
Randal hurt his back and the last several days have been bad for him. He has been having a LOT of trouble walking. He's needed support to walk. So he ended up falling quite a few times this week. We figured it probably happened on Tuesday as that was an extra bad day. When I say "it", I mean the ruptured disk. His disc between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae has ruptured out and into the spinal canal. It is compressing the nerves that normally hang in that space and he has next to no control over his legs. Why didn't we go to the dr. sooner, you say? Mmmmm... well mostly because he's hurt his back before and going to the chiropractor and resting has fixed it up. So Wednesday and Thursday he saw the chiropractor and he told Randal that this looks very serious and to go see his dr. So yesterday morning we went to our dr. and he sent us straight to emergency to meet the neurologist. He had several tests done. Once the results were back the neurologist came back and explained to us that Randal has a ruptured disk and that they want to operate right away last night. The hospital here doesn't do that kind of surgery so they want to transfer him to the next city where the neurosurgeon is. There weren't any beds at the hospital where they do the surgery, so they ended up keeping him overnight where he is. So right now I'm waiting to hear from them as to when they will transfer him. The neurologist did say that they want to do this surgery pronto so that there isn't permanent paralysis in his legs. So sometime today. Please pray for him today.
Thanks alot.
♥Heather

Unprecedented Wind Storm

Today we had an incredible wind storm. It started last night and continued through the night and throughout the day. It was awesome to watch but had sad results for many inhabitants of our fine city. The winds were gusting up to 65 mph/105kmh! Very high winds..maybe not for those of you who live in hurricane country but this is unheard of in this area! We went for a walk down by the lake where the wind was gusting in off the lake.I was SO annoyed that I didn't have a camera, but I did find some pictures on the internet. So here you go......


One of the many broken pine trees in the park.



Uprooted trees by the dozens! I heard that about half of the pine trees in the park are down.




The waves were roaring up onto the beach..I don't think I've ever seen such large waves on a lake..although it's hard to tell how big they are in this picture. On the news they had footage of someone surfing and the guy disappeared under the curl of the wave!!



The water is normally about 20 feet to the left of that sign.
While we walked along the sea(lake)wall the wind was almost blowing us off our feet. It made us weave as we walked along. The sand was whipped up and we felt like we were being sand blasted at times. Why, you say, would you go out in this?? Well...for no good reason other than to feel the sheer force of the wind and be out in it experiencing natures amazing force!
They said on the news that this is the worst wind storm that our city has ever experienced.
photos courtesy of Goog*le.
(Peter...I can't comment on your new blog...can you contact me via my email on my profile? thx)

Remembrance Day.

Today we paused to remember those who gave their lives in honour of their families and their countries.
Since today was Remembrance Day our church service was rescheduled to start at 9 am so that we'd all have lots of time to get over to the cenotaph for the ceremony.
We got there and I was pleasantly surprised to see a huge crowd! We couldn't see anything that was going on until we walked around to the other side of the crowd and then we were able to at least peek around and through the crowd. I found it an emotional ceremony. All our lives we've heard about these men dying for their country.(now women too) Today it really hit home for me. I suddenly had a revelation of just what these people actually sacrificed for! They did NOT do this for themselves, really...They did it for the generations coming after them. Generations that they would not see, even if they did manage to survive the war! What an incredible sacrifice...it's mind boggling really..and I have to really think about it to grasp and hold onto that "aha!" moment that I had today. I was also contemplating and wondering how many generations after would we remember...would it really have any meaning for. How many....one, two, maybe three...It's really sad how forgetful we are. It's our responsibility to remember.

I found it a sober day today thinking about this all. Especially now that we have a current conflict going on that we're involved in.
I'm so thankful for those that have sacrificed and continue to...Many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice..and to all of them I say THANK YOU!

National Bring Your Grade Nine to Work Day.

Last week it was National bring your Grade Nine to Work Day. So Randal took Courtenay with him out in the bush. She got to have a look and experience a day in the life of "Dad at work". She's decided it isn't something that she'd want to have as a career, although she does enjoy going out in the bush with Dad. Here's the report she wrote to send to Daddy's boss. She also took a copy to school and is using it for credits for school. Kinda nice to spend the day out driving in the bush and have it count towards school!!! Well I'll leave you with it then...Enjoy!

Bring Your Grade 9 To Work Day

November 7^th 2007

Ministry of Forest and Range

Compliance and Enforcement

The three sites that I went to today with my Dad were:

******** Bros. Mill

Logging sites

Several range pastures.

At ***** mill we visited the scale site. I learned that the logging trucks park their full load on the scale, go and unload it, and then come back and weigh it again to find the difference.

They categorize the different kinds of wood to find out how much they should be paid according to the weight of the logs. A cubic metre of logs is worth from $50-$200 depending on the type of wood. They put all the information into their computers and send it down to Victoria. The mills that don’t have access to computers store their information in booklets

The logs are unloaded either few by few by a front end loader or by a big electric machine called Letourneau that picks up the whole load at once. It is electric because it is more efficient than diesel powered Wagners because it can go uphill with a load and it has the ability to brake coming back downhill. After the logs are unloaded they are either taken to log decks or directly to the mill. Before they take it to the mill they mark and chop the logs every five meters to make sure it isn’t rotten on the inside.

After we left the mill we drove up to Jack Creek area and drove around looking at piles of logs and logged areas. Here I learned that loggers cut down the trees by hand with chainsaws. I also learned that if you want to log an area you must have a license to cut, unless it is your own private property.

We stopped in a few clearings and I was taught about the mountain pine beetle and how to identify a “MPB” attacked tree. The bark has squiggly indents in it from the beetles burrowing around and laying eggs, there is usually spots of pitch on the bark from trying to push the bug out, and there is a blue ring of fungus on the butt of the tree. Here I also learned a little about how GPS works and that if a moose were to ever charge you to climb a tree and call for help.

The third thing we did was go to Brownie Pasture area and looked for cows that were or weren’t supposed to be on certain property.

You can tell who the owner of the cow is by the brand on the cow. The brandings are either right or left, hip, rib, or shoulder. The ones we were looking at were RRC, right rib cow. We weren’t able to make out any markings on any of the cows though because they were all either too wet or too old and faded. The cows eat basically the same thing as deer or moose: grass or small green plants, though sometimes when they are desperately hungry they will eat twigs. Ranchers place salt blocks in the grazing area for the cows to lick. Putting the salt block somewhere ungrazed will help move the cows into a new area. You can tell that an area has been grazed by the height of the grass and whether it’s been trampled down. In the whole day we saw approximately thirty-two cows.

In conclusion, I had a good day today. I enjoy trekking through the bush and looking at stuff. The positives were just the whole day in general. The only negatives I can think of were getting up, the cold weather in the morning, and trying to write notes on the bumpy bush roads.

thanks for reading. Have an awesome night/day.

A Giveaway!!!

Hey you all!! Sue over at Praise and Coffee is having an awesome giveaway!!! Go take a look!
See ya tomorrow. :D

Today was a tiring day. I woke up with a headache and it progressed from bad to worse. I hate taking migraine pills so waited for too long to take it. Why do I do this?? It never goes away!! Just take the pill and get it over with. I ended up taking it but had to take more because I waited too long-DUH! Some day I will learn...either that or go get my neck/back worked over!! I'm tired so am just doing a quick "hi how are ya? how was your day" kinda post..so take care and we'll talk again tomorrow.

ps. I have an interesting post with pictures that I'll probably do tomorrow..or possibly saturday.
:)