Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians. Thankyou to our forum friends. Mary, it is held the second Monday in October every year. Most have turkey with the works as the USA does, with family travelling from near and far. My family is Acadian therefore I grew up having Rappie Pie (a potato and meat dish) for holidays and turkey was second, most likely on Boxing Day. So it is according to your own traditions. This weekend is the big pumpkin weigh-off (today) always draws a crowd. Great fun, games for the kids and pumpkin carving, etc. (Beautiful day outdoors, I have to get out there.) Ours started years ago with a competition between towns with the same name as ours, US and Canadian. Many towns have their own weigh-in. Howard Dill started it all with his giant pumpkin seeds, he lived in Windsor, N.S. Passed away a few months ago. What joy, wonder and entertainment he has brought to the world. I am sure he will be on a lot of people's minds this weekend. Besides Thanksgiving, it is birthday time around here, I should be making my son's cake. My mom's was the 9th, my ex-husband's the 11th and my son's the 13th. (Born on Friday the 13th) and left handed. Thinks that is special. Hosta Forum, Hosta Forum. The front steps are gone,the old shed is gone,all plant material from around house is gone,machinery in the yard moving soil and rocks around. Making a trench for run off. Guy just gone home for the day. Stuff from the shed is outdoors, waiting for place to put new shed when it arrives. Also made new planting beds. My grandaughter said, Nanny look at all the dirt we have to plant in. (4 years old, probably will be a true gardener). 3 day weekend, 1 1/2 months to retirement. Winter on the way. Lots to do. Got 4 bags of leaves yesterday. Must bum some more. Have a good one. Work hard but safely. (Not like me awhile back, I told myself that I must move the rake and promptly tripped on it, no damage). Betty

Wow, it's funny how people have such different ideas of what is worth seeing. I've been to Niagra five times, with and without kids. I could stare at those Falls endlessly. Every time I go I do every possible "tour" of the Falls. The Cave of the Winds is not to be missed. Sometimes I get off the MOM and get right back on the next trip, and the next. I'm mesmerized by those Falls and the closer I get to them the better. I'm not fond of the cable car over the whirlpool, but I do it if the others in my group want to do it. I heard the cave that goes behind the Falls is closed now and if so I'll be heartbroken as that is a fantastic experience. I am told that Goat Island is the best of all the attractions in NF, but somehow I have never managed to get over there. There is a safari/amusement park between NF and Toronto...my whole family loves that place. The only thing I've really enjoyed seeing in TO is the "castle" that is there. I spent a week at 1,000 islands once. It was a long week, lol. The highlight of that trip was also a castle built on a privately owned island. NF does have a horrible area full of mini golf, funhouses, ripleys, etc.

DH said the other day, "We'll pay for it in our taxes or we'll pay in the ER" which is true. I don't mind at all paying taxes to cover more american's health care costs...but I do mind paying taxes to fund thee deaths of thousands of our youth in wars we shouldn't be fighting. My biggest issue with this debacle is that it's not health care reform (call it that all you want but it's not!) It's just a screw around issue with insurance companies that obviously isn't working terribly well for most. I like parts of it, but the ability to hop prices up the day after the bill passed should have been addressed if our congress wouldn't have tried to rush this through. Goldie shouldn't have to "win"...it should have been a clear mandate to be enforced immediately. This staggered crap just means that when we have a new administration, and we will, it will be available for debate and for new laws to remove all that this bill might have done good. Health care reform though was desperately needed. At every hospital we visited we saw this need. Families that weren't devistated by costs so much as they were by lack of a good system of diagnosis. No standard of care from state to state, no central records keeping....transfering records from hospital to hospital is a nightmare! And that pile of lost paperwork (they forgot to include an early bloodwork result in our package and that carried over from hospital to hospital because we were copying the original package with the forgotten piece). that one little slip was the answer to our son's pain taken within the first month of his life, he suffered for three years because the other doctors didn't see that one piece. And this is not the first case of a medical clue gone astray. So many things aren't covered, so many issues of health care and drug costs that were swept under the table....terrible stuff. And as to the life expectancy issue.....life style does come into play there. I know that at all of the hospitals we went to for rare diseases, the beds were full of children from other countries. Most paid cash to get to America for the quality care of someone who actually specialized in their condition. At Johns Hopkins half or more (it varied) of the children in the program we were in were from other countries, including Canada, Japan, Quatar, Mexico, England and Germany. They paid cash to get in because it was the best program in the world. America is tops in many many areas of the medical world, but getting the kids or adults who need the special care to the specialist facility is an exercise in futility most often. My frustration shows :) I know that many know what real medical trials are....and I can easily say I'd probably view the insurance reform differently if I hadn't experienced what we did. But my experiences led me to see that this is all a silly joke without addressing the real issues that needed to be addressed.

We are home! We drove a total of 1900 miles - way too much driving, but was it worth it. Our first night was in Bar Harbor. Lovely little town that I would like to visit for longer next time. Then on to Saint John by way of Campobello. Campobello was great and I'm so glad we went. I LOVE PEI. Another place I would like to go back to for a longer visit. We stopped at a little out of the way fish place near Stanley Bridge. I have never had oysters on the half shell that fresh and that good! I fear from now on other oysters will be a disappointment. Highlands Provincial Park in Cape Breton was beautiful. The first day was rainy and foggy. :-( But, the second day was gorgeous. It was rainy again when we got to Halifax, so we just kept going. Lunenburg was charming; touristy, but charming. The old houses and the academy have been well-maintained and gave us a glimpse into what the town must have looked like 150 years ago. From Lunenburg, we went to the Luckett Vineyards in Wolfville, where we did a small tasting (driving prevented a larger tasting). I brought home a small bottle of ice wine. Loved the red phone box in the middle of the vineyard (not my photo) We were told we could call anywhere in North America for free, but everyone I tried to call was unavailable. Mom, Sister, and DD were all having lunch together and not answering phones! We drove through Annapolis Royal on the way to Digby and had a quick lunch at the German bakery and cafe across from Fort Anne. Lunch was good but the palmier I had for dessert was fantastic! Many thanks to all of you who gave me information and ideas for planning my trip. I would like to especially thank robo who answered dozens of questions by PM (she would probably have her cottage totally finished by now if it weren't for helping me!). I think we are home for a while, now, except for weekend jaunts. I slept 15 hours last night/this morning!