Thursday, June 10, 2010

We Have Another Niece!

Aunt Heather with niece Maja.

My brother Wojtek and his wife Agnes welcomed their second child yesterday evening as Maja joined big brother Adrian. The entire family was back home healthy less than 24 hours after checking into the Grand River Hospital. Heather and I visited with the newborn for a short while today after work. Congratulations to the proud parents and grandparents!

Big brother Adrian.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

The Week That Was

The week did not start well for either of us. While we were babysitting Jolene last weekend, Heather and I both picked up a cold which began with a sore throat on Monday morning. I guess we're not used to overcooled places.

Then as I got to work on Monday morning I received news that one of my co-workers was involved in a fatal car accident only 14 or so hours earlier just outside of Cambridge. Needless to say our office of about 110 people was shocked to hear of this tragic news. Miraculously, though, the 22-month daughter, Emma, who was in the backseat of the car at the time of the accident, survived while suffering only minor injuries. Beginning Monday, our office will hold a two-week long fundraising campaign, comprised of various events, to benefit little Emma. What's hard to deal with because of my co-worker's loss was that she was only 32, same age as I am.

Rest in peace, Laurie Banks.

Monday evening was our soccer day which also happened to be photo day. By the time Wednesday rolled around, Heather felt too sick to make it to the game and I got drenched since we played the entire game in rain.

On Thursday, Heather left for Collingwood for a couple of nights to attend the annual General Meeting of the Association of Administrative Assistants (try saying that fast). I stayed home and found myself occupied. Or more specifically, others found ways to occupy my time. I babysat my nephew Adrian on Friday as his parents (Wojtek & Agnes) went to a stag-n-doe for Barb and Pat (Agnes' brother). I was available to babysit since I told Wojtek that I would skip the stag-n-doe because I didn't feel like going alone and I was a little under the weather. It should be noted that it was the easiest babysitting gig I've ever had since little Adrian was in bed when I started and he still hadn't made a sound as I left at 1am.

Saturday morning I got a call from my mother to keep her company while she was having an open house. Apparently, over the past couple of weeks my parents have decided to buy a hole in the ground in Breslau and it was now time to sell the house which they've called home for the past 11 years. The open house, which attracted a handful of prospective buyers, was from 11-4. Throughout that time, I generally tried to stay out of the way and cleaning the bikes was the perfect way to do it. And the motorcycles needed some good scrubbing from our Chatham adventure over three weeks ago.

There was another open house today, although the cool weather seemed to also cool the interest of prospective buyers. While that was going on, Heather was at work for 3-4 hours trying to catch up on missed work from Friday. Once she came home, we had some pizza for supper and then visited my parents' future home.

My parents' future home in Breslau.