I am writing this to you from home, sick at home. Jay is in Boston for a week on training, he gets home Saturday afternoon.

I went to work Monday and Tuesday with a bad cough and stuffed head. Tuesday night it hit me bad. I worked on a project around 10 and then begged off around 10:30 pm and went straight to bed. Around 1:30 am I woke up with an earth shattering pain in my right ear. Nothing helped, I put rubbing alcohol in, it burned, I tried a million ways to clear my ear, nothing. Clogged solid and a constant, sharp pain. I was also nearly hacking up a lung with all of my coughing. I saw every hour until after 5 am.

I woke up Wednesday morning, took Thane to school, and returned home. I called in sick and made a doctor’s appointment. I then fell asleep on the couch and missed the appointment. I rescheduled for 3:45 pm and managed to both pick up the baby and make it to Yoneyama’s.

Once there, the nurse said I was on the verge of bronchitis. She looked in my left ear and it was your standard grey. When she looked at the right ear, she actually started laughing (and she and I get along well, so this was not bad). She said that if I could see my right ear, it was as red as the needle box on the wall.

Apparently this is not only not good but quite extraordinary. She called in two nurses to see it, one of whom was learning. She told me this is the worst ear infection, kids included, that she has seen all week. Lovely.

I was sent home with antibiotics, drops for my ear for pain and a note not to go to work until Monday as I was still contagious and running the risk of really coming down with a bad case of bronchitis.

This is one of those times I hate not being near family. It is really hard to take care of a baby when you are afraid of getting too near him. I cannot tell you how many times I have held him only to have a coughing fit. Changing diapers is really fun when that is happening too. Jay will be home Saturday and I cannot tell you that that cannot come fast enough!

Here are some cute Thane pictures from last weekend…

When we were in Ottawa, we witnessed the tail end of a record snow fall, approximately 5 feet. They had not seen snow this bad since 1971 (and for those who know Jay, that was a VERY long time ago, wink wink).

Part of snow that we do not think about when we are in a non-snow region is snow clean up. Not just clearing the streets the day it snows but making sure that the sidewalks are clear and what happens to the snow. That is the question for debate right now. When they clear the streets, they actually shoot the snow in to a huge truck. This then goes to a “snow” land fill. This year, they are running out of space. They are also in jeopardy of some major flooding this spring as the snow melts.

We also saw and heard then blasting the Ottawa River to break up the ice and snow on there.

Here are some pictures of the snow clearers on our street clearing the side of the streets. You can see how they crunch the snow then blow it into the truck. Once one truck filled, another would pull up behind it.

I have griped and griped that the Preds games are not “real” hockey so much that Jay was sick of hearing it. He also thought I was delusional.

We got tickets for Yanick and Dimitri, Jay, Thane and myself, (oh and Steve and Julie too!) to go to a Sens game–the boys first NHL game! We were telling our neighbor, Dave, and he said, “Oh, that’s not REAL hockey. I’ll take you to a game and show you REAL hockey.”

This coming from the guy whose brother used to play (for 12 years) for the Maple Leafs. The kid could hit a slap shot end to end when he was 12 years old.

So, we went to the NHL Ottawa Senators vs. St. Louis Blues game. It was blisteringly cold as we walked from the parking lot to ScotiaBank Place. There was also a massive wind that went right through you. I had to walk in front of Jay and Thane to shield the baby from the cold wind.

We got in and it was early, but still busy. It was a sell out night…almost 21,000 people in attendance. The boys got new jerseys at the game, which they did not take off for 2 days. The Sens won, and the papers went off the next day on their “sloppy win.” On a whole, it was much more expensive than Preds games, $11 for parking, $10.75 for a Molson Canadian. We had fun though and a memory the boys will keep!

We got home around midnight (traffice was insane, it took us over an hour to get to Kanata and 45 minutes to get back!). The next day we headed to Steve and Julie’s to play with the kiddos. Then we came back and headed out to watch the Hull Olympiques!

The game was the first of the playoffs for the CHL—the Juniors. The arena ws built about 40 years ago and had not changed one bit. The seats had the stenciled numbers of the 1960s. The game was in Quebec, in an area once called Hull, now called Gatineau-Hull. The mascot was “Hully” with a silent H.

Kathy, Dave, Jay, Thane and I were in Quebec so everything and everyone was French. The game was a blast and every single seat was filled. It was insane. Loud. Crazy. Fans screaming and blaring horns. Everyone out of there seats. The fights were crazy. One guy got taken off in a stretcher. The players had all bleached their hair blonde for the playoffs.

The Olympiques beat Les Cataractes de Shawnigan 4-3. It was a fabulous game. REAL hockey.