After living for a week in a hotel, it has become clear to me what is a need and what is a want. Living on less has not been as difficult as I had anticipated. Our daily routine involves being together 24/7. If Mike hadn't had 6 weeks off work earlier this year I'm sure we'd be having a more stressful time. But we have been blessed with good communication skills (if only for a couple weeks...) Diane manages to fall asleep before us, by facing the wall while I blog and we watch TV. We've settled into a nice holiday routine.
We spent the afternoon at Grandmas. In total there were eleven people in the house, yet it was surprisingly quiet. I'm so used to a plethora of children, not to mention the cacophony of laughter coming from the grown-ups in the kitchen. Besides us and Grandma, there were Aunties Viviene and Cherry. They live with Grandma and Cherry cares for her full time. Aunt Rose lives nearby and walks down every day to help Cherry until Viviene comes home from work. All three sisters are not married, and have no kids. Aunt Rose was married a long time ago and she had two children, both of whom died around the age of 5 from birth defects. When mom shared this story with me, it explained why Rose takes a special interest in what Diane is doing. The two of them will go outside to collect sticks or watch ants busy at work.
Uncle Ricky came over today with his son Patrick. Patrick is finishing his first year of university and working towards his MBA. I haven't met or heard of Rickys wife, and so I'm left wondering whats not being said. We had a nice visit with everyone. I'm so thankful that they have air conditioning in the house as today was insanely hot and humid. Grandma was very lucid today, and that makes for an easier visit. She is such a stubborn old bird. She fell a couple days ago and she blames her walker for it. It's quite amusing. With such pain in her lower back, she didn't want to walk from the living room to the kitchen for lunch. Aunt Rose just looked at her and said "well than why am I wasting my time coming over here, if you won't get up and eat lunch than I'll just go back home". Within a couple minutes Grandma joined us in the kitchen for lunch.
Later in the afternoon, we decided it was time to head over to our new hotel for the night. We need to be closer to the airport for our morning flight to Toronto. I just cannot get over how beautiful the highways are. It was a lovely drive from Bethesda to Alexandria near the airport. When there's not rush hour traffic, it's so much nicer.
After dinner, we had planned to take a dip in the indoor pool at our new hotel. But it's just a pool. No water slide, diving board or floaties. Nor was there a hot tub for Mike. So Diane opted to have a bath instead. But what to do about bath toys? Well let's see what do we have here? A shower cap, a plastic cup, a facecloth, a bar of soap, and what else? A rubber chicken. Yep you heard right. At one of the souvenir shops Diane purchased a small rubber chicken to go with the two she has at home already. And so we ended the day. Clean and content.
I know that it must be a real culture shock to be in a house full of people and no noise. I have NEVER experienced such a thing!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you are all getting this chance to meet Mikes side of the family and that Diane will have all these people to talk about and tell us stories about.
I am waiting to hear her memories of this trip when you get home.
Hug her for me please:)