Favourite Ways to Pass the Time

Thought I might share with you what life in our area is like.

My wife, Mary Anne and I have the pleasure of enjoying all this within a 45 minute radius of our house. We love all kinds of sports and nature watching.

We are definitely happy and have been for 9 years now.

Only question is...Where do you go to "get away from it all"???

This is our starting point.

Our houses on 5 forested acres, myself and my wife in the cedar house.

The other house has 2 suites. Too much house for 2 of us.

21 pound Chinook salmon-10 min. drive, 20 min boat ride

7 Halibut in two hours-30 min drive 15 min by boat

Me on the right, brother on the left

Fish finder

Gettin some airtime-10 mins from our door

More airtime....only slightly different...3000 ft.

This one took all day though with training and all.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........The toys of it all

the latest addition...Mary Anne's quad

gotta go up the mountain for this one

.......and then there are the sunsets, particularly from the boat

Amazing what a difference in colour a few minutes makes

...and my favourite one...my Dad and myself out fishing on my boat

getting our rig back in the water

The most important aspect of my life, my wife

(on the right of course, me on the left in case there is any confusion :-)

Well I hope you all enjoyed the tour of our "backyard". Come again soon as I will be taking more sunset shots this time of year as well as Bald Eagle roosting grounds at an estuary near our home. We saw 10 in one tree a few days ago and perhaps 60 or 70 others nearby but alas.....no camera.

Life is good here.

Doug

Mary Anne and my birthday

Well, as a direct result of Mary Anne my birthday was a success, except for the idiot that one of Mary Anne's friends brought with her. Nobody could get in a word in edgewise and we all suffered as a result. Most interesting that Sandy broke up the relationship later that evening. Proud of her. Mary Anne put out a spread that was to die for. All my faves and then some. She is quite a woman when it comes to special occasions as I am sure u can all tell by the pics on her blog. Anyways I just want you all to know how special she is. (not as in special olympics) but just that she has such a heart.
Later,
Douglas

An innocent victim of a lie told in silence

My wife "qualicumrn" introduced me to this project and told me about Cathy's story line. I thought I would like to participate. This is so out of the norm for me, but I wanted to give it a try. So here is a poem I wrote, not sure why or how the words came to mind but here it is,


A flash in the pan
A shot in the dark,
A half life of innocence gone on a lark.
The stockings are hung by the chimney with care,
She hoped that her parents wouldn't know he was there.
In silence they looked into each other's eyes,
Still to this day, doesn't know why she cried.
She offered herself to this homecoming king,
With hopes that someday he would offer a ring.
As daylight approached
Being physically spent,
He gathered his things his blessing he sent.
She called and she called
Every day every night,
Holding on to the dream everything was alright.
One evening of lust now she is a mother,
By virtue of nature, She will not love another.
Now the baby is grown his mother long gone
His roam through the darkness sings a sad lonely song.
She walks by his side never offers opinion,
She still protects him for he is God's minion.
She walks with him even though she has died
She suffers forever as a result of the lie
He suffers each day as a life of reliance
An inocent victim of a lie told in silence.

I hope that you may enjoy this poem.

Life's journey

In looking at my last post...Which was sometime ago I might add. It got me thinking. What role has my life experiences played in who I am today and where I am today in my life's journey.

I will not venture to tell it all here and now...But I will use this blog to journalize my life's experiences.

So without further adieu....I begin.

My life started at 21. Before that, I was persecuted. I was neglected friendship because I was different. I was living a life of solitude. I was different because at a young age of 2 1/2 years I endured a life altering experience. That being I was burnt over 35% of my body.

Surgeries over the course of 16 years had caused me to have no summers. School was a necessity, so my surgeries always happened in the later part of the school year with recovery period being in the summers. While other children were playing, swimming, water skiing, having camp fires, I was in the background. Relegated to observation only.

My mother. God bless her. During the 6 weeks while I was critical, she never left my side. I was in the hospital for six months. She never left me. She slept by my crib. She wiped my brow while I cried myself to sleep. I think I gained my strength to live from her. I think she made the biggest sacrifice of them all. She gave her soul in the hopes that I would survive.

It came time for me to go home. She nursed my wounds. Day in and day out. She never complained when I would fret and cry and say I didn't want any of this. She abandoned my brothers and sister to be with me. I feel bad about that. I thank the powers that be that she was there.

I spent my birthday in the hospital, the nurses were so good to me. They bought me birthday gifts. They tried their hardest to make my life the best it could be under the circumstances. They were a huge part of my recovery. Maybe that is why I am married to a nurse today.

Then there is my father. Thank god for him. He provided me with undying love, support and nurturing. He helped me through those very difficult times. My father has always been an integral part of my life. He endured in his life more than you and I can imagine. He was there through all my surgeries, my loneliness, my grief, all those summers while I had to sit by and just watch life. I so wanted to participate. He knew it. I felt like "Quasimodo" so disfigured. Who could love someone like me? Who would want to be with someone so disfigured. The persecution I endured was extreme. I became a fighter. Survival of the fittest. It was out of sheer necessity and I became hardened.

I remember one time in grade 6 and I was hanging with some kids. There was a girl who started talking about my burns. She commitment on how ugly they were. She said "nobody would ever love him because of his appearance" That if anything was burnt into my soul.

From that day on my soul changed. One day without notice, I obtained inner strength. I felt that I knew who I was, what I could do. I found that I didn't need anybody else. Life was going to be what "I" made it.

The grievous part about being different is that the persecution becomes your strength. It is unfortunate it has to happen this way. The weakness of other people enables you to gather strength. You learn from it.

You learn that the people who condescend you for being different, are weak themselves. They gather their strength in your differences.

There was a time in my life when people took pity on me. I didn't want that. I didn't want my scars to hold me back. There were the coaches who saw my physical alignments and would not work with me to achieve what I felt I could. Then there were the ones who did believe. They saw beyond my scars. They saw my spirit. My desire to achieve. They helped me and supported me however they could.

I knew I could be more than my scars. I was Douglas. I was strong. I was proud. No one was going to tell me I couldn't achieve. Damn them...Damn them all. I was going to achieve. I didn't' give a shit what they all thought. My burns would not limit my life. No one or anything was going to limit what I could do....Only me. I would set my limits.

So I leave it at that for now.

If anyone out there who reads this has a similar story I would love to hear from you. This is only the beginning. I will not focus my whole blog on this topic. But there will be times that I will reflect back onto my early years. So bare with me. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog.

My post below, I talk about my experience in meeting Luna the whale. I posted a link to that. That experience changed my life forever.

A Whale of a Time

As the link below shows I had the great fortune of meeting Luna the unfortunate Orca. Very exciting and scary at the same time. These pics are from mine and my brother's boat who was also involved with the encounter (that's me in the red boat). I hate to think I was part of Luna's demise by boat encounter) but it was before the hype about human contact. Rest in peace Luna.

Luna

Me and my boys........

Just a good time hangin with my boys......It brings back fond memories for me....you see, my boys live 5500 kms away and I don't get to see them anywhere near as much as I would like to. You know...... the divorce thing. If there is anything I have learned in my life.....and I would like to think that I have learned a few things...it's that divorce sucks....especially when children are involved. Try as you might you don't want them to be caught in the middle, but they are......and in my case they continue to be. If one does not have the financial wherewithal to overcome such a situation they can get royally screwed. I don't mean for this to be a sounding board, but you know I think it will be therapeutic for me to put down how I am feeling and work through all of the emotions one goes through as a result of a divorce and the loss of their children.
This will be my journey. I will attempt to blog my feelings and events with regards to my divorce and my attempts to have my boys returned to the westcoast. Their home that they know and love. This is not meant to be a tyrade but rather an opportunity to document my experiences, my feelings, and distress and hopefully joys and rewards of the company of my boys again.
I am sure that there are many of you out there that have had similar experiences and I would really appreciate hearing from you on how you deal with your emotions on a daily basis knowing that your children were taken from you.
If you will bear with me, I would like to share with you briefly what happened during my divorce.
My company was developing and I was working 12-20 hrs a day. My ex-wife resented the fact that I was away for such long hours.....but she did enjoy the financial benefits of my labours. She felt that I was not always working when I was away for the long hours. She believed that I was out carousing. That was the farthest thing from the truth. I was so loyal to her. I loved her and my boys and just wanted a better life for all of us. Yes, I had a friend who after work I would have a few beers with...He was going through the same thing I was....trying to make a go at his new business. We would spend time talking about our business and problems we faced on a daily basis being self employed, but also the rewards that came along with it. My ex never believed I was doing that. That was the beginning of the end. She was an entrepreneur herself. She held down a full-time job and then was working at establishing her own utlrasound business. She would blame me for not being there for her and the boys. I started my business to support the family, she chose to start hers after. Is there anyone to blame here? I don't know. I just thought I was doing what was right. I was trying to provide for my family. That was how I was brought up. That was my responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I encouraged her and supported her the best way I could. I often worked my schedule around her. I would stay home and get the boys off to school so she could go in early. I would make their meals and ensure childcare was taken care of. She forgot all of that. She focused on my long hours away. She forgot that those hours provided her with a home, a boat, vehicles, motorcycle, bikes, hot tub and vacations. If it hadn't been for those long hours life would have been different.

So the long hours. She chose to seek personal comfort in a old high school sweet heart. They started chatting on line which they did for a year. Then they finally met at a "conference" A weekend conference to the mainland. Ah those conferences. The long and the short of it. She states she was home sick and wanted to go home for a visit and take the boys. I agreed. She went for the "visit" and took the boys and never came back even after the courts ordered her back.

The court battles ensued. Thousand upon thousands of dollars were spent trying to get her to bring them back. My finances ran out and so did my strength to fight. I regret that to this day, that I gave up the battle. I regret it because I feel I didn't give up on me but on my boys. It has devastated me to this day. As I said in the beginning of my blog, divorce sucks and who suffers when there are children involved, the children.

I do get to see my boys. That is if I can afford the flights out west from Ontario. In just one and half years I have spent over $10,000.00 in flights alone for the privilege to see my boys. I just took them to the airport today. They were with me for the past six weeks. That is all I have seen them this year so far. The ex has made claim to them the rest of the year. I got screwed in the separation agreement. I know it. I have spoken with a new lawyer and he tells me I got screwed. But it cost money to change. Money I don't have. It is a vicious circle. If I want to see them I have to pay for their flights. Where is the justice in that? She took them and now I have to pay to get them back. I have to pay support. So again where is the justice in that? If she was out here with the boys we could have worked something else out. I could have had the boys for certain time periods etc. many many options could have been pursued. But they were not.

She is now in a relationship with that old high school sweetheart. I had my suspicions, but only had it confirmed by my boys this past visit. They informed me...and please know it was under no provocation on my part that the boys shared this with me, that just after 4 weeks after me moving out he moved in for a month. You can't tell me she didn't plan something.

Anyhow, I have vented. It is good. But as I said earlier, I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced anything similar.

I continue my journey, and will attempt to blog about how things go. Please be patient with me as I am new to the blog world, but this seemed to be a great place for one to share their life's experiences.

Just sign me......a saddend but hopeful father.

Life with my Mary Anne

I love her and I will work on this blog.