Griff is Home

Griff arrived home as promised on March 1st, minus two suitcases. One suitcase along with those of 11 other passengers was left in Antigua by Liat because the plane was too full for everyone's baggage. They promised to make sure it was sent on to Lethbridge since it did not arrive in St. Maarten before Griff's plane left from there for Toronto. The second suitcase was left at Rob's place in Toronto for Jason to bring back in April as planned. The only problem being that Griff's medications were in one of those suitcases. That meant before we could go to the acreage we had to drive into Lethbridge and pick up enough medication for a month since we were unsure when either suitcase would arrive. As it turned out we received a call from WestJet on March 2nd to say the suitcase from Liat was at the Calgary airport. Leila willingly picked it up and Ryan brought it down on March 6. Fortunately the medications were in that suitcase. Rob agreed to ship the other suitcase by Greyhound and we are awaiting its arrival. So that was the saga of the suitcases. This is the only time in all the travelling we have done that we have had suitcases arrive much later than we did.

Now since Griff's arrival we have been very busy working at re-establishing our home. I had done the painting and floor etc. as mentioned in the last blog, but I had not made any effort at moving in the furniture. I was essentially living in one room with a bed, lounge chair, TV and of course the computer (essential for communicating with Griff). The first couple of days Griff was home were spent finishing of the floor in the living/dining room. We laid the tile around the fireplace and then laid the last few rows of laminate flooring. Putting down the baseboards would have to wait until we could decide on what style we wanted to get.

We made plans to move furniture on Saturday, March 6th and fortunately the weather cooperated. I can't say it was really warm, but at least it wasn't snowing nor was the wind blowing. Griff went into Lethbridge at 0800 to pick up the moving van and by 0900 he was back and we were ready to get started. All that we needed was the help we had lined up. My brother Dan arrived first at about 0930 and then Jason and Scott arrived from Calgary. Finally about 1030 Ryan arrived having left later than the others so that he could spend some time with Eva that day since he was staying overnight at his parent's house. By noon we had all the furniture in the house in the rooms in which it belonged, but not assembled. We fed everyone pizza and then Dan, Ryan and Scott left. Jason stayed over until Sunday. He helped assemble some of the furniture and then went in to Lethbridge with us to provide us with much needed expertise in order for us choose a good TV and home theatre system.

The next week was spent putting things (pictures, small furniture pieces, clothes, linens etc.) back in their places and figuring out where we wanted to put our memories of the past two years. We went into Lethbridge a couple of times to pick up the TV and home theatre system we wanted and the baseboards for the living/dining room. Spent some time with Randy and Aleitha, my friend Laraine and my mom. Parcels from BVI Yacht Shots arrived with the woven throws we had ordered. They have a picture of Mystic Journey in full sail woven into them. We are very pleased with the way they turned out.

Later (March 22)

Well, this blog has been a long time formulating so we had better get it out. The reason it has taken this much time is that there has been an astounding amount of work to do to get even the basic things in place. We were (are) constantly coming across things - usually when we are looking for other things that we don't find - that we had forgotten we had or that were (are) supposed to fit into places we already put other things.

We finished the baseboards - we put in new ones for the living/dining room areas - I painted them and Griff did the installation (reluctantly - Griff here - shaped baseboards inevitably don't fit for me at the angles they are supposed to, in spite of using the absolutely beautiful mitre saw Deb so graciously provided us with). We have things back up on a lot of the walls, except my office and the basement, and Griff has been doing as much outdoors as the weather will allow. He is definitely missing the outdooors environment and double definitely missing the warmth of the Caribbean sun.

Oh, and we still have not put up anything that we spent the last 2 years gathering. We didn't really bring back a lot - except pictures - so that makes what we did bring back doubly important and we want to make sure it is put in a place that will allow us - and others - to enjoy it as much as possible. One last thing, we have an addition to our family. Griff will talk more about that in the next blog. Stay tuned.