Holiday Part 2 - Alaska Cruise

ALASKA

Saturday morning Mike and Holly drove us all the way to Seattle where we met up with my Mom and Chuck to go on our week long cruise to Alaska. Our ship was called the Norwegian Jewel and was a much bigger ship than the Bahamas cruise Matt and I went on last. I had told Matt before that on cruise ships there’s always a formal night and you can get food including fruit and ice cream 24/7. The last cruise did not meet the expectations for Matt, but this once certainly did!

View of Seattle from the ship

While at sea and hanging out on the ship we got to go to shows, play Deal or No Deal (more like watch someone else play), get massages at the spa on board, and eat lots and lots of food. Since we booked the cruise with my mom’s company Cruiselady we also got to hear from inspirational men Jack Marshall and Bob Millet from my church. On Sunday we had a small devotional where we got to hear from each of them. Since we can’t have sacrament on board the ship, this was definitely a wonderful alternative. We never made it to any of Jack’s other talks, but I did get to two other talks from Bob Millet and loved every one. Some of my favourite questions/topics were “What would it take to shake your faith?” and “If you died today, what kingdom would you go to?”.

Le Cirque Bijou acrobat show ended with the entire ship's crew

Our first port of call was Ketchikan, Alaska. We went to a fun lumberjack show and then took a bus to Totem Bight Park with the Cruiselady group. The show was a lot of fun and we got to watch two guys in our group compete in the axe throwing competition and one was the overall winner. The park was amazing to see all the totem poles as well as the history behind them. Sometimes the story behind the pole is what makes the totem more interesting. My mom and chuck had gone on a seaplane tour and because the weather was so amazing that they even were able to land on one of the lakes up in the mountains. I can’t imagine living somewhere that you could only get to it by seaplane.

The next port was Juneau, Alaska. The ship spent the first part of the morning traveling to a glacier called Dawes Glacier. Matt and I woke up at 6am to see it and ended up having to wait an hour for the ship to get there. We had a great seat in the front of the ship, but since it was rainy none of our pictures turned out very well. There were still a few hours till we actually arrived in Juneau so my mom and I went to do an Origami class on the ship where we made tulips. Afterwards we went to a Thomas Kinkade lecture in the art gallery. My mom has always loved Thomas Kinkade, but after learning about all the symbolism and spiritual meaning underlying each of his paintings I saw his artwork in a whole new light.

When we finally reached Juneau Matt and I went on a sea kayaking tour. We thought it was a tour near the large Mendenhall glacier, and were disappointed that we couldn’t even see it. Nevertheless, we had fantastic weather. It was pouring rain when we arrived at the kayaks but it stopped when we got on the water and didn’t start again till we got out. While kayaking we saw about 4-5 bald eagles, a couple of harbour seals, and one straggling salmon. It wasn’t as exciting as we had expected, but we still had fun.

In Skagway, Alaska we did the Chilkoot trail hike and river float. Chuck wasn’t feeling well so he missed it, but surprisingly only my mom, Matt, me, and one other old guy made up the whole group. The tour guide was great and explained a lot of the neat things about the plants along the way. The mountains were absolutely beautiful! It was a great way to see the beauty of Alaska.

So a side story from all our ports is that Matt and I did a bunch of shopping. In Ketchikan I bought a Philip Stein watch which is also supposed to have health benefits. Well it stopped working that night and neither Juneau nor Skagway had the same watch to replace it and I had to ship it to them to fix in the end. Additionally, we had found a magnet and a stuffed moose we like at the lumberjack show but when we got back from the totem park it was closed. We hunted in loads of shops trying to find something else we liked and finally in Skagway we found the moose and magnet! I was overwhelmed with how many jewellery shops there were and my mom says every cruise port has tons of jewellery stores and especially Diamond International Stores. I don’t wear much jewellery and I’m not much of a diamond person as it is too glam for me. One woman tried hard to convince me to buy a necklace and when I put it on even Matt said it didn’t fit my personality. Another sales rep said Matt was lucky that I wasn’t a jewellery person. It was the end of the season in Alaska so it was a great time to buy stuff since everything was on sale and you could bargain to even lower prices.

Our last port was Victoria, British Columbia. We spent the day with my mom and Chuck. Somehow we missed getting a map, but were able to take a bus to get to Craigdorroch Castle. Matt and I had been there before but the castle is constantly being changed and restored so there were a couple rooms and other details we didn’t remember. The beautiful buildings including the Empress Hotel and the Legislature building make Victoria such a unique city. My favourite part though was the harbour seals at Fisherman’s wharf.

Overall the cruise was fantastic and it has made us excited to do another one in the future! As this was part of our 5 year anniversary celebration, I feel it was well worth it. 

Holiday Part 1 - Oregon

I decided to have this blog in 3 parts as when I completed writing it all up it was 6 pages. So to not overwhelm any readers, I have separated it for you and will post only one per day.

I’m getting considerable better at recording interesting events in my journal daily so instead of giving you a play by play of my entire holiday I will try to focus mostly on the highlights or things I have pictures for.

OREGON

After four planes we finally arrived in Portland, Oregon. I had managed to catch a bad cold that week but the day we flew out it seemed to be almost gone. Unfortunately, all the pressure on the plane and lack of sleep made it worse. I got to spend my first day on our holiday mostly in bed. Matt’s brother Mike had arranged his family and grandparents to come to Salem that day for a barbecue lunch/dinner. I managed to survive a few hours on Dayquil but eventually got so tired I had to take a nap. My biggest worry was that I would get their two young kids Danny and Rocklynn sick. Luckily I woke up the next morning feeling much better.

The next two days we spent in Corvallis with Laura and Michael Dexter. Laura arranged for us to go out with some girls and float the Willamette River. As Matt was jealous we went again the following day, but bought a raft so Laura could go with her kids. It was a lot of fun! 

Laura and her kids Liam and Amelia

That night I also got to spend a little time with our friends Patrick and Valerie Gollmann and meet their son for the first time. Next we went to Eugene and stayed with Matt’s sister Jaime and her son Jacob. We didn’t have any big plans in Eugene other than closing our bank account there, and visiting friends and family. Matt was still struggling with jet lag so he enjoyed sleeping in late. Jaime made us curry the first night and we had friends Paul and Cassie visit with their daughter Anya, and Matt’s sister Lindsey and her daughter Amelia were there. It was fun to talk to them after a long 3-year absence, although I realised it’s difficult to spend much time catching up in just a short time frame. Some things you just don’t want to post on Facebook.

Matt's niece Amelia with Jamie's pitbull

Amelia with her rainbow dash jacket

The following day Matt and I caught up on the recent American Ninja Warrior videos while we waited for Lindsey. We all went to visit the Gateway Mall which had been completely redone since Matt and I were last there. It’s now mostly an outdoor style mall and we didn’t really like the changes. Considering how it rains most of the year there, it doesn’t make sense to me to redo a mall so that you have to go out in the rain to visit different stores. The layout seems way more complicated. On the bright side Matt found some great fudge at Cabela’s – a large outdoor sports store. To finish off our night we had all of the family meet at Papa’s Pizza and the kids loved being able to run around in the play area.

The family at Papa's Pizza

Matt's entire family kids and all!

Most of the week Matt had been trying to find a time to meet up with his best friend from his childhood. Finally, we worked out to meet Paul Suzuki and his wife Friday morning before we headed to Salem. Unfortunately, his wife wasn’t feeling well and so only Paul came. Although we spent a good 2+ hours at the restaurant, it just wasn’t enough time. I could tell Matt was sad that we didn’t spend more time with him, but sometimes on these holidays you can only get a few hours with people due to busy schedules.

Our last day in Oregon we went to the Oregon State Fair in Salem. Mike and Holly and their two kids, Laura and her two kids, Lindsey and her daughter Amelia, and Jaime and her son Jacob were there. Notice anything about the group? Matt and I were the only ones without kids! It was a lot of fun to experience the fair with a bunch of kids. We got to see them frequently change their minds about what they wanted to do or eat, and spend lots of time playing with corn. Our favourite was the petting zoo which had some less common petting zoo animals like deer, alpaca, and even a baby kangaroo! Another highlight was these large balls that float on water and all of the older kids got to go in one. They were pretty fun to watch. It was a fantastic day and I was glad we were able to spend that time with family and nieces and nephews. We may not live in Oregon, but I hope we can always keep contact so that these kids will grow up knowing they have family in Australia. 

Lindsey, Amelia, and Matt on the monster truck

Matt's nephew, Danny, in one of the blow up balls

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

I leave for the US next week so I realised I would have so much material to write my blog after that so it would be better to write about events since my last blog now. I recently read part of a book that says "Procrastination, by definition, is avoiding a task that you've chosen to do. If you decide not to do it, your problem has been solved" (The Feeling Good Handbook).  In terms of my blog, I definitely have been procrastinating.

The biggest thing that happened since my last blog was that I was released from my calling at church as Young Women president. I finished off my last week with the girls creating a Mormon ad video and later in the week I got to take some of the youth out for dessert for winning a previous bake-off competition. It was bitter sweet. The reality was that I was burning out with all the work and I believe it was the right time. It's mostly just really difficult that my world doesn't revolve around the girls anymore. I miss them! 

My new calling is Self Reliance Specialist. The church has really made an effort to help members know about the self-reliance resources. I basically help everyone to be more spiritually and physically self reliant by utilising the courses and resources that the church provides. There's also other programs I oversee including mum's pre-school, and an English class. It's a lot more flexible and I have my nights back so I'm excited to try something new. 

Another big piece of news is that I finally have working internet! As cable internet was faulty I had to find an alternative plan. I finally found a company that uses 4G wireless for internet purposes and they have an unlimited data plan! They are called Vivid Wireless and when I got my modem and I was pleased to find I get about 11mbps on average. That is nearly 3 times the speed I was getting before! So I can now download, scan, and watch videos on the internet without buffering or long delays. 

Other events include a couple of work dinners. For June we went to Teppanyaki and surprisingly my favourite menu item was the Kangaroo steak. It was so juicy. The next dinner in July was my turn and I chose the local Brazilian Churrasco restaurant called Rio's. The meat and sides were tasty, but the atmosphere wasn't ideal for talking to people. Near the end they do a show with scantily glad dancers and it went on too long for my liking. Then they just play music and let people dance which makes it too loud to talk to anyone. So far I think my favourite work dinner location was the Chinese restaurant we went to where we all fit on a round table so it is easy to talk to everyone.

A while back I went to a home show and got tickets to a property conference. Matt and I attended it at the end of June and it was awesome! We got to see all of the different kinds of strategies in property investment that are available. We really wanted to get into renovating, but now is just not the right time for investing. I don't want to start any major strategy unless I am confident we can dedicate enough time to learn how to do things properly.

So after our issue with the internet we discovered our blu-ray player was actually having issues and needed to be replaced. As most of our DVD's are from the US we need a multi-region blu-ray player. Somehow I was able to get our first one from the store and it was region free. Replacing it was quite difficult and I had to buy one online. The good news is that the old one was under warranty and they gave us cash back for returning it. Sweet!

In July is when Matt and I first learned about Pokemon Go - a week after it started. Our friends Brock & Kaytlin came over with their baby Ronan and told us about it. Sure enough Matt and I started playing. For the next week we went out nearly every night hunting pokemon. It was great because we spent a lot of time together, got lots of steps, and we went out to eat at a couple of new places. I also really enjoyed seeing new places and noticing art and other locations that were marked as pokestops. Matt has really taken it to the next level and even gets up early to take over gyms. At least he isn't all consumed, cheats, or spends heaps of money to get ahead in the game. Unfortunately there are a lot of people that are very extreme so it's hard to compete with that. The area around my work is terrible so I rarely find much when I go on my walk for lunch. Oh well. I can at least say I now regularly get 10,000 steps a day!

While searching for pokemon we found a couple of possum's.

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, I've struggled to know where I'm going in life since my dream of being an animal behaviourist died. I decided to work on my plan B to be a psychologist. Since making that decision I continue to feel better and better about it. I've been doing an online course on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (it was a living social voucher) just to learn more about the techniques. Then I hope to send in all my qualifications to get assessed. Well it happens that friends of ours have two housemates that are doing their psychology internship. While Matt discussed the painting they wanted to do, I got to have a long conversation with Eve about her program. She was super helpful in helping me understand how the program works. It made me nervous to hear about the assessments and how each case study with clients has to be perfect. Nevertheless, after discussing my previous studies and what I hope to achieve Eve confirmed that I should really go into Clinical Psychology. She helped give me the confidence to pursue that dream, and I was happy to learn that the internship program can work well as part time.

Besides all the other things going on, I had some fun things at work over the last month. The operations manager went on leave for over a week so I shared part of the role with the boss. It was a week where I felt like everything went horribly wrong, but somehow we all survived. Needless to say I decided planning deliveries is hard! On a different note, on my lunch break at work I dropped my phone onto a very rock path that completely shattered the screen. I was surprised that my tempered glass screen protector didn't really protect it at all. I was able to get a company to pick the phone up from me at work the next day and then the dropped it off after fixing it the day after. This was the first time I have ever broken a smartphone screen so I'm glad it was fairly simple to fix, although $200 is a lot to just fix a screen!

On a better note I have finally finished all 14 books in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan! I also finished a bunch of shorter books. I finished Think & Grow Rich and As a Man Thinketh regarding thought changes behaviour and the power of positive thinking. Similarly I finished Who Moved My Cheese about learning to adapt to change. I also finished two books written by a neurosurgeon and his near death experience and scientific evidence of heaven called Proof of Heaven, and Map of Heaven. An unusual book was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time written from the perspective of a teenage boy with mild autism. After all the self help books I'm in need of a fiction so I started reading Passage to Zarahemla and am loving it! I'm love technology which makes it so easy for me to listen and read books wherever I go!

It's been a good couple of months, but I am definitely ready for my holiday in the US!! I'll post details on that when I get back but here's a general overview - 1 week in Oregon with friends and Matt's family, 1 week on a cruise to Alaska, and 1 week in Utah with my family. Matt hasn't seen his family in three years! This will also be our 5 year anniversary trip. Just one more week!

A Modge Podge of Events

It's astounding that months can go by so quickly and yet that next holiday planned can take forever to arrive. Weeks go by quickly, but Friday's seem to take too long to arrive during the week. And that last hour of work seems to take an eternity. Nevertheless, in those hours, days, and weeks, a lot has happened. To bring this blog up to speed I thought I would just mention some of the highlights.

INTERESTING EVENTS

Cat Missing
One morning I got up and went to the bathroom and found myself standing in cat pee, after cleaning it all up, changing, and walking out the door to work I discovered I had locked myself out. As I needed my keys to get to work I tried to go through our neighbours yard to get to our back window. They recently decided to block the gate with a bunch of bricks so I had to knock on their door and they don't like me going through the house, but misunderstanding I followed the guy through his house to the backyard. After jumping the fence, taking the screen off the window, and climbing through the back window all seemed well. Later when I got home I found the window open and no cat. Matt had come home earlier and had opened the window but had not noticed the screen was missing. After about an hour of searching and Matt jumping on roofs, he found him in the back yard of the neighbours four doors down. Whew!

Youth Activities
I spent months preparing for an important youth activity called New Beginnings which took place at the end of March. I decided to go with a pirate/scavenger hunt theme ending at the Tree of Life. Although I had my counsellor Jaydene to help me, she was finishing her PhD that month so I just took care of everything. Matt made me a treasure chest and I made pirate maps that we cooked to make them look old. Basically they started with a scripture which gave them a clue to which church room to go to next. Once they got to the room the map gave them a clue as to where in the room the next clue was hidden. I marked all the doors so others in the chapel wouldn't disturb all the activity. Once they all made it to the Tree of Life, they got to eat snacks as I presented the "hidden" items in the treasure chest that represented different things about Young Women's. I had made them t-shirts with the 2016 Mutual Theme on it as well as bracelets to help them remember. It turned out really well!

We just completed another big activity where we played human hungry hungry hippos. I was able to borrow scooters/trolley/dolly from work and a couple of other people. I found ball pit balls for free on gumtree and got some extras for cheap at K-mart. After all that effort I found out that the floors were going to be resurfaced and we may not be able to use the gym that day. Well due to the weather the floor people couldn't come on the Monday as planned, and on Tuesday their car broke down. Divine intervention perhaps? So we had no problems being able to use the gym Tuesday night for our activity. Although it took a lot to get the youth to listen to the rules and instructions, I think it turned out well. I even added balloons on the last couple of rounds for bonus points.

Easter Show
Matt and I decided to go to the Easter Show this year. Although it happens every year, we have never gone. It's basically like what we would call a State Fair in the US, but bigger. The whole thing is run by the Agriculture people so there was a chicken building where you could see new chicks hatching and every breed of chicken, duck, and geese you could imagine. The cattle building had milking cow demonstrations, the sheep building had sheering demonstrations and women spinning wool. We got to touch the wool and pet a baby lamb. They also had alpacas and we learned that you can even get alpaca carpet! They had horse shows including horse training shows where we watched some of the training they do for horses in movies like Man from Snowy River. There were rides like you would see a fair, but we avoided that section completely. There was also a huge lumberjack competition that was pretty impressive. There were cat and dog shows going on and we got to talk to some of the owners that had already competed. Matt decided when we get a dog we will get a Nova Scotia Retriever after that. At the end we watched the Man from Snowy River show in the big stadium and the huge firework show that is right after that. It was a great day.

Home Show/ Mind Body Spirit Festival
Last weekend there was a Home Show that I went to. Matt was working and couldn't go. Basically it is an event where tons of companies relating to building, renovating, etc have booths to sell their products and provide information. I bought some nano spray stuff that is an amazing stain/water repellant, a nifty squeegee that is streak free, and a food chopper. Matt and I hope to buy land and build our own self-sustainable home someday so I grabbed lots of brochures for things I found like the allergy/stain resistant carpet, the mineral pool, etc. I also found a Credit Union, which in case you didn't know, when I first came to Australia I asked about Credit Unions and was told there were only banks. I won't go into the differences between the two, but in general credit unions have fewer to no fees. Also, as an added bonus there was a huge Mind Body Spirit Festival event next door to the home show. Knowing Matt would love that I went there as well. They had everything from vegan chocolate, iridologists, people who will read your aura, Reiki masters, pscyhics, healthy drinks, alkaline water filters, charcoal based lotions, and more. Luckily it was opened late so when I got home Matt wanted to go and we went back together. He had fun and got his aura read and met with the iridologist. Iridology is actually really neat where they take high quality images of your eyes and can allegedly determine your health and minerals from the picture. He was spot on with some of Matt's current health issues. It was fun and events like that have a wide range of interesting people attending.

Vivid Sydney
Matt and I decided to go on a Vivid Sydney cruise this year to see the Vivid lights. We got to the wharf and there were tons of people and I figured they must not be on the same boat. Sure enough about 300 or so people got on to a huge boat, but there were still another 200+ waiting. I had seen pics of the catamaran and saw the boat in the distance coming, but I didn't see how this many people were going to be on our boat. Well to my surprise they did jam that many people onto our boat. Although the online pics showed tables for dinner, they had removed all the tables and just put chairs up everywhere. We had a buffet dinner which you had to stand in a huge crammed line for and they when you got your food there was no place to stand or sit to eat it. Luckily Matt found a spot where we had to jump up to sit. It was freezing, but it was nice to see the lights from the water and not have to be walking around. It was a different perspective and I enjoyed it, but I don't think it was the best way to see the lights, nor was it worth the money.

NEW INTERESTS

- Matt and I got really into a series called The 100 after my sister left. We finished the whole season and haven't yet started the next season. We've watched a lot of movies though including Captain America: Civil War and X-Men Apocalypse. Recently we have also been reading/listening to the same books. We finished Feeling Good Together by David Burns, and now Matt has caught up to me on the Wheel of Time series. I am almost done with Gathering the Storm. It has been fun for me to discuss one of my favourite book series with him.

- So we've starting doing an official date night every Friday night. We rotate who plans it, and the rule is no complaining regardless of what it is. Most of the time we watch movies, but a couple of times we have played video games like Guitar Hero and Mariokart. Eventually I'm hoping we will work our way into a couple organised and planned date nights per month. My last one was a "Night of the Gods" where we ate at the new greek restaurant across from my work and went home and watched Gods of Egypt. If anyone remembers, Gods of Egypt was the movie Matt was an extra in and was part of Set's army. His insight made some parts kinds of funny, but you would never be able to know which soldier was Matt. It was actually a pretty lame movie.

- I made an impulse decision to buy horseback riding vouchers and go by myself. I can do a 2-hr experienced horse ride for $60. It was amazing! My horse liked to trot down hills at times which was unpleasant, but the running was awesome. My horse actually tripped and hurt herself so they had to bring me a second horse to complete the ride. The second horse was even faster although sometimes she would stop kind of abrupt and I would have to grip hard so I didn't fly out of the saddle. I decided after that, that I would try to go more often. I already have more vouchers but am waiting for the weather to get better.

- Old movies are the best because they are clean and funny. I had the youth watch The Gnome Mobile for our movie night in April. I was happy that they enjoyed it for the most part. It's a cheesy Disney movie, but a classic. The youth today have missed out on so many good Disney movies including some of the classic stories like Lady and the Tramp and Bambi. So for our movie nights I'm going to try and introduce them to more classic old movies. My next task is to get Matt to open up to more old movies from the 50's. I did get him to watch Fiddler on the Roof with me and he even liked it, but not enough to be enthusiastic about more movies like it.

OTHER UPDATES

- I started seeing a Naturopath as my trips to the doctor to understand why I was always cold, had joint pain, and bad memory problems weren't helpful. Although we all thought I had hypothryoidism, it turned out I had serious mineral deficiencies especially in Salt, Potassium, and Magnesium. After loading up on mineral and vitamin supplements my wrists don't hurt as much, I don't seem to be cold all the time any more, and I think my joints are better. I'll do another test in July to see how it all has improved. I still seem to have memory issues though, but some of that is still likely depression related.

- In February the church started organising a Stake Trek activity for the youth. This is where youth typically 14-18 recreate a pioneer handcart pulling trek for 3-4 days. There was some miscommunication about who was to be present for the first meeting and I was invited as YW President to attend even though I didn't need to be there. In the end I volunteered to be Trek Secretary and to attend each weekly meeting on Sunday at 5pm to take meeting notes. At first I was happy to be involved in the planning as my insight from the pioneer trek I did in the US had some differences. Soon the responsibility was weighing on me and I kept debating if I should quit, but for some reason I always decided not to. About a month ago the stake was reorganised into two stakes meaning many of our trek leaders were now part of another stake. The new stake presidency had decided to cancel the Stake Trek and focus on the large youth activity happening in January 2017. I was relieved. I felt it was definitely the Lord's plan to cancel it.


- Our friends Josie and Lachie ended up moving about 30 minutes away. We had a big day with the youth and helped them move. It's sad to not have them close by, but we try to organise time to spend together. Lately it seem like everyone we spent a lot of time with has moved away like the Butlers, the Hamsteads, and the Barnett's. We still have friends nearby and have made new friends in the ward, but sometimes when you don't see someone every week at church it gets harder to make plans. My issue is I may think of contacting someone but often I forget when I know we have free time. To be honest I spend so much time organising things for the youth, I am also tired of organising things and wish someone else could do it all the time. Friendships don't really work that way though, each side has to be willing to reach out once in a while to make it work. I'm just hoping we don't lose friends that have moved away due to my lack of reaching out and organising time to get together.

- Shade has had a urinating problem since the beginning of the year. He gets a build up of crystals that make it hurt to pee so he wouldn't go in the litter box. My March it seemed to be better and we stopped giving him the special food to break up the crystals. Within the last two weeks he has been having problems again. Matt wants to use only holistic methods like Vitamin C in the cat's food, but I went and bought the special cat food again. He seems to be able to pee normal again, but still avoids the litter box. Nevertheless he is still energetic and loves to help me with the laundry, organising receipts, and has claimed the electric blanket for himself.

Odin - 8 wks old

- This is nothing in comparison to what my sister had to go through this week. When we lived in Oregon we found a cat behind a dumpster that was almost on his death bed. We rescued him and gave the cat to my sister when we moved to Australia. She has been a better owner than we ever were, but this week every cat owner's worst nightmare occurred. When she got home late she couldn't find the cat and eventually found him under the bed. As she put him in front of his food dish to feed him he just flopped over and she realised he couldn't use his legs. She took him to the Pet ER and they determined he had saddle thrombus. Basically a blood clot gets stuck in the aorta and cuts off all blood flow to the back legs. This is caused typically by a heart condition so even fixed it can often reoccur. It is an extremely painful condition and often ends in euthanasia. He spent a night in the hospital for more tests and to see if he would eat, but by the next day it was confirmed he had saddle thrombus and a heart condition that would likely mean it would reoccur. The options were A. spend thousands to keep him in the hospital to see if the clot can be removed or dissipate (movement may still take months to return) B. take him home and give him heavy doses of pain killers regularly and clean up his bowel movements for him C. euthanise him.  After reading about it I told her I think she should euthanise him as it was the most humane thing to do. She did. He was only about 4 years old. I'm sad I don't get to see him when I visit in September, but I'm glad he lived as long as he did and that he had a great life. This is my Ode to Odin:

We had to keep him warm when we found him

We used to take him placed and he would sleep in my hood

Matt always held him like a baby

Apparently 2 chairs is better than 1

Odin at my sister's house on one of the shelves she put up for him.

The last time I saw Odin in March 2015