The picture I used for my 2009 Landscape Challenge was taken from high on a hill where the Adair family have constructed log cabins and a lodge which look down on Kingston Creek, on the Kingston Peninsula in southern New Brunswick, and part of the Saint John River system. For about 10 years, our local quilt guild rented the cabins and went on yearly retreats, usually in April. We had so much fun! No food to prepare, no dishes to do, just sew, eat, & have a glass of wine before supper if we wanted. I still miss it. In all the years we went, the Creek never looked the same from one year to the next. One year it was covered with ice, another, there were peepers already in the pond. No matter, we loved it. The only drawback was that the cabins were heated with wood stoves, and it was too much for some of the ladies as we got older, as well as mobility problems, climbing the hill to the various cabins. We would come home on Sunday, smelling like wood smoke! We still go on a yearly quilt retreat, but now we go to the Villa Madonna Retreat House, still have our meals prepared for us, sew our little hearts out, and laugh a lot, but there isn't Kingston Creek with all its many faces to look at from our windows.
This year, Kingston Creek came back into my life in a far different way. On July 21, we got a phone call from Ambulance New Brunswick at 8 AM that our daughter in law was being transported to the Regional Hospital...no more info. We were frantic. Our son, (her husband,) was on a sailing excursion, you guessed it, to Kingston Creek. We tried to contact him but mobile phone service is not reliable in that area. Finally, his phone rang...no answer! I left a message for him to call. They were expecting their first baby, but it was far too early. We made contact, and managed to pick him up on the side of a road, near the river, and made the mad drive to the hospital. Her water had broken, & she was only 24 weeks pregnant! They were airlifted to Halifax, N.S. and one week later, our first grandson was born, by C-Section. His name is Cohen, & he weighed 2 lbs. He was 15 weeks early! It was touch and go for many weeks, but he is a little fighter. He's had 3 airlifts since he was born, and double hernia surgery. It was very painful to see him, with tubes everywhere. His father put his wedding ring in his hand, and it would go right up his arm.
After 128 days in hospital, they brought him home on Dec. 1/08. Today he weighs nearly 14 lbs. and is a happy baby. We are praying he doesn't have any major problems as he develops, especially Cerebal Palsy which is more prevalent in preemies. In any case, we are very thankful.
Every time I look at the Challenge Landscape, it brings back all these memories.
Cheers for now.
Judy
