Three Years Breathing Easier

On February 24, 2007 I was in hospital in critical condition with respiratory failure and then on February 28, three years ago today,  I had my tracheostomy to help me breathe easier.    I posted updates  one year and two years  after this and other reports on my health.     Now I have had a trach and been using my ventilator at night for three years.   And my respiratory condition is stable.  In fact in the last year I have reduced in half the amount of extra oxygen I use.    So to mark this third anniversary I want to thank everyone once again for their prayers and thank God for his goodness.

Golden Celebration

We just finished watching Canada win the Olympic mens hockey gold medal.  You can see our "mascots" the monkey and the duck cheering in front of the TV where they have been through most of the Olympics.   The monkey has a team Canada sweater and both have Olympic mittens. 

Canada won 3-2 over a strong USA team.  It was an exciting overtime win after tense moments with the USA team tying up the game with 24 seconds left in the 3rd period.  It is soon time to get back to "normal" as we have been spending a lot of time watching Olympics.  

Chocolate Lab

One time someone was telling that he had a "chocolate lab" and I immediately thought he had a laboratory for making chocolate. Imagine my disappointment when I found out his chocolate lab was just a brown dog. LynnieC said she thought of a lab for making chocolate the same as I did. So last year she gave me a Chocolart chocolate making set as a gift.

Last night while Elaine was out at her choir practice I made some chocolates for her with my chocolate lab.  Basically you melt chocolates chips in the microwave, put it into the molds, and the chocolates harden in the fridge in 30 minutes.   

I also found a Chocolate Lab website that appears to be a chocolate specialty shop in Vancouver.  So there are others who don't just think of  it as a brown dog.

Raising Turkeys

Well dressed newly wed couple with the turkeys

My father with the turkeys at the back of the "white dorm"

 My father with the turkeys looking toward the "old tabernacle" 

When my parents were married in July 1950 they lived at the church campground that was a Bible school at that time.  My mother taught in the high school there and my father worked on the grounds, before he started the milk delivery.    Their first home when they were married was in the building we call the "white dorm"  with one room as a bedroom and an adjoining room as a living room.  At that time the rooms in the white dorm just had partitions that didn't go all the way to the ceiling rather than full walls. 

One of the interesting stories about when they were first married was raising turkeys.    One of the ministers at the Bible school got 1000 young turkeys and my parents took care of them.  When the turkeys were small they kept them inside the building that we now call the "west building" at the campground.    In fact they told of sometimes staying in that building with the turkeys to make sure they were OK.   It appears from the pictures that when the turkeys got larger they had a fenced off area behind the "white dorm."   I  am not sure if they raised turkeys more than one year.   But the west building at the campground continued to be known as the turkey building after that.