Father's Day 2009 Minus Father

Well, I'm very lucky that I still have mine nearby. My Mum and Dad (Granddad) joined us on the beach on Father's Day, but Douglas was of course far away.

We had a package of cool "Affliction" clothing and such ready to mail out to him to El Salvador, but after mulling it over, I decided to hold onto it until we get down there. You see lately I have learned that, suspiciously, the "good stuff" doesn't seem to make it there. I recently mailed him three packages in one day; one with swim trunks (perhaps next time i will send some thongs and see if those make it!), one with four boxes of cologne and one with 30 pairs of opulent chandeleir earrings (no, he is not into wearning these earrings, but rather was going to sell them at the salon). Guess which one did NOT make it to him? The one with the earrings. I can just picture some customs agent opening up a little kiosk of jewellery on her lunch hour!

Hey, look Douglas in Tokyo! ha ha
We taped some very touching singing/dancing performances for their Daddy for Father's Day. They are missing him, but are also so busy that the time apart seems to fly by. They spend much of their time discussing and making plans for their "adventure" in El Salvador. Trinity pointed out yesterday that we talk about him as if he has died. We seem to talk about him in the past tense. For example; "Daddy would have really loved the beach today", or when the cornflakes are on sale Avalon would say "If Daddy were here, we would have stocked up on those!". Trinity is often looking at the prices for flights and occasionally trying to convince me to send her down there to surprise him. So, on Father's Day we headed to the beach for the day. We were met with this menacing sign. Do we heed the warnings? Well, we haven't grown a third arm yet! The sand is shipped in from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, but not the water.

Our Foreign Affairs Minister and Hilary Clinton were recently at The Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls making a re-commitment to The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The level of toxins have dropped, bald eagles and other species have returned but there is still much more work to do to restore and maintain the integrity of the Great Lakes.

Avalon seems to have an aversion to carrying anything! Trinity carried most of the "stuff".

She even carries Avalon!! We stayed until dusk, when all the seadooer's and boaters had retreated back to their harbours. We look forward to the waves of the Pacific; the only waves here are the ones that the seadooers make!