The Bird That Was Delicious

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

This is the WASHA learning centre.

This was pretty much the LONGEST week of my life! Monday I was signed up to be a full-time Teacher's assistant (for a least a month) at Chris' school. There are only 3 teachers and a principal at the school, so when the principal went to Thunder Bay for a conference, the school was short-staffed. They put me in charge of the kindergarten kids! Imagine that. It was awesome, especially since there are only 4 of them. Four little ankle-bitters. We had fun on Monday - learning our ABCs, 123s, colours and shapes. However, I told Karen at the learning centre that I would look after the place while she went to Winnipeg (or wherever) for personal business. I was at the learning centre Monday night, Tuesday (ALLLL DAY), Wednesday (ALLLL DAY) and Thursday (ALLLLLLLLL DAY). Honest to Jebus - 2 people came into the centre, one used the computer for 15 minutes, the other sat and talked with me, told me ghost stories, scared the poop out of me, and left. Oh right, and then Chris came in too, with about 5 kids. They wanted to play games on the computer. But that wasn't going to happen.

Anyways, after about 30 hours of silence, I got to go back to kindergarten on Friday. It was especially awesome because I took the kiddies outside to gather material for an art project. We collected leaves and grass and all sorts of vegetation. Then we glued it to the paper. I let the kids take their art home, but felt bad because then I learned that the art would most likely not make it home in one piece, or not at all. Damn kids. Joking.

So Friday afternoon (the kindergartners are only half days, so I assist in the afternoon) was the bi-monthly movie day. The movie this time was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - a modern day movie based on the lives of human-greek god offspring and their crazy adventures. It actually wasn't too bad. But the other 2 teachers (besides Chris) decided to head to their families off rez early for the holidays. This means that Chris and I were put in charge of the WHOLE school and ALL the kids for about 2 hours. Whoa! Aside from a view grumpy grumps, the afternoon went pretty well.

And finally - Thanksgiving weekend! Let's just say that I started it off by taking a very long nap on Friday night. Then on Saturday we cleaned house and vegged out. Sunday was THE day! I let Chris sleep and sleep and sleep. Then he got grumpy at me for letting him sleep too long. Geez. Anyways, we seasoned the big, ol' 9 pound turkey and got it in the oven by 1ish. For sides we had cranberry sauce, mashed taters, turnips, sweet potatoes, stuffing and gravy (yes, gravy is a side dish). We even had pump-a-kin pie for dessert. I am proud to say - especially to those in my family who witnessed my last turkey dinner about FOUR YEARS AGO - everything turned out perfectly cooked and delicious...check it out!

This is the man who went online and watched a video of "how to sharpen a knife" so we'd have perfect cuts ... see the result of his cutting below. But it was a perfectly moist, delicious bird.

The spread - mmmm mmmmm good - notice the ketchup haha

pump-a-kin pie

the mangled bird

 Chris and I had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner. We even had a discussion on why our Turkey dinner was better just the two of us. We made some good points about the craziness of our respective families, but we still missed them very much and hope they had a good Thanksgiving too. That's it for now - xoxo Christine 

Plato's impression of how Chris and I felt after dinner. SO FULL!

Cat Scratch Fever!

The time since the last blog post has been very emotional. Those who know Chris and I also know that we refer to our cats, Newton and Plato, as our children. And yes, we call our moms and dad the "grandparents". I'm pretty sure even they refer to the cats as their grandchildren. It's sad, but I like it. So when Newton starting acting strange, as in less active (even more lazy than usual), straining to pee, and trying to pee in weird places, I knew something was wrong.

I really enjoy living out in Slate Falls, but discovering that your beloved pet is suffering through bladder/kidney stones and urinary track infection when you're 3 hours away from the closest vet AND! you have a full time job everyday AND! you know that if you don't get him to the vet he will most likely die a very painful death, it's a nightmare. When Newton got to the point of crying out in pain with every step he took, I just knew I had to take some time off work. I made Chris take a personal day too (not that he really had to be forced, since that's what they are for). We took Newton to the vet on Thursday after an episode of bloody pee and pain on Wednesday night.

The doctor told us it would be pretty costly to get Newton better - $300 to $400 - and if we had waited too long to get him to the doctor there could have been a chance of fatal kidney damage. Chris and I really wavered between the cost and the chances of recovery (only about a 75% chance of getting better). In the end the doctor told us he'd cap the cost at $300 and we decided we loved Newton too much to put him down when he had a good chance of recovery.

Newton was catheterized, had blood taken (which determined that he had extremely high toxicity levels in his blood since his kidneys weren't working well), was IVed with fluids and spent 3 nights in the hospital. On Sunday we called the doctor and he told us that Newton's kidney function was back to normal, he was peeing on his own, eating and drinking too, and he could go home. HALLELUJAH and all that jazz!

We drove back to Dryden, with a random stranger in tow who was visiting his parents but needed to go back to Sioux Lookout to see his sister in the hospital (so we gave him a ride of course), and picked up our little baby. We also picked up $150 worth of special cat food to stop minerals from forming in his bladder again. What's money right? Chris and I were just so glad we had our little cat back.

The only concern now is that Newton is peeing, a little bit at a time, but MANY times a day. We think that 3 days with a catheter irritated his little winky, making it swollen and sore to pee with. He's on Baytril, an antibiotic, though, so the swelling should come down. Other than that he's eating, drinking, peeing, and thankfully, purring too. I think Plato is glad that Newton is back, because he gets to eat his own food AND the leftovers that Newton leaves in his bowl too.

That's all for now faithful readers!