Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Happy Anniversary to us!

We just got back from Temple Gardens Mineral Spa in Moose Jaw. We headed out there on Sunday afternoon and stayed two nights to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary (which is on Friday January 22nd). First of all I would like to say, it has been a long time since I drove down to Moose Jaw and it is quite a pleasant, quick two hour drive from Saskatoon. When we got into town Jay showed me around some of his old hangouts and where he used to live (he went to SIAST there for two years after high school). Then he took me over to the mall. Let me say, wow, what a crappy mall. Haha :) I think I am spoiled to live in Saskatoon. Not that we have all the best stores, but I think the mall in Moose Jaw was smaller than the mall in Swift Current. Thought it did have Zellers, Pennington's and Sport Chek which are not in Swift. After killing a bit of time until check-in time at the hotel we headed over there.

I checked us in and we went to locate our room. It was in the skywalk wing, which was just fine but we had to go down a lot of long hallways and use two elevators to get from our room to the pool. Our room was very spacious (though the bathroom could have been a bit bigger, it was not a designated wheelchair accessible room, because that room had two double beds and we preferred to have one bigger bed), with a nice low king sized bed that was ideal for Jay to transfer in and out of. The mattress was a little old however and I could feel springs poking me when I rolled from side to side. I found the bed in our $70/night, run down, Super 8 motel in Calgary more comfortable to sleep in. Oh well!

The first night we went down the street to Nick's Place for supper (at the recommendation of Jay's dad). We could see why he recommended it. As soon as we got there, Jay remembered having gone there when he lived in Moose Jaw. They are quite generous with portions and very reasonably priced. After our supper settled I decided to go for a dip in the wonderfully warm pool. It was lovely! I even wore the bikini I bought this summer for the first time in public and did not feel self conscious!

Monday we had planned to sleep in then get up and get Jay in the pool. We had checked it out the first night and the pool did indeed have a ramped entry and a pool chair. I went down to get a pool chair so Jay could transfer into it from the bed and should have realized it was not going to be an easy feat. It took a LOT of pushing and grunting to get it up to our room without someone in it. I guess because it is a pool chair they don't grease the bearings or look after it, because that thing handled a million times worse than a shopping cart. Once Jay got into it, I could hardly push the thing. However after a lot of grunting and groaning I got it down the many long hallways and down the one elevator and up the other elevator and into the pool. I have to say that their ramped entry into the pool has got to be more than the legal 1 to 12 angle! However once we got in, it was a very nice relaxing swim/float/hang out for over an hour. Then we decided it was time to get out. It just happened that my aunt and uncle were staying at the spa at the same time as us and they just happened to be at the pool at the same time as us. Uncle Hans helped by pushing the pool chair up the ramp and I pulled from the front. I did okay until I got to the top of the ramp and slipped a little bit, but thankfully I didn't hurt myself or Jason. We got him out. It wasn't so bad. We realized at one point during the trip down that the chair seemed to handle better when being pulled backwards, so I pulled Jason down all the long hallways and into and out of the two elevators to get back to our room, backwards. Then there was a pretty harry transfer to get out of the chair. I was almost ready to go and find a strong man or two to just hoist Jay out of his chair into the bed, but finally managed to find a way to help Jay get out of that silly pool chair! It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed swimming with my hubby :)

I think if we go back and hope to go swimming again we would do two things differently. As much as it would be a little extra work, I would consider bringing along his shower wheelchair. It is also meant to get wet, but he has a lot less trouble transferring in and out of it, and it handles somewhat better than a shopping cart. I would also make sure he put on a life jacket before we went in the pool. We didn't think of this until he was already in the pool and it is really hard to get a lifejacket on in a pool when you can't stand up. So we just did a really half-assed job of it, but it did help keep his head above the water.

After being in the pool for that long and all the work of getting in and out of the pool we rested for a while then had lunch at the restaurant in the hotel. After lunch we weren't sure what to do until our supper reservation at the same restaurant. We decided to go walk through the casino. That is only the third time I have been in a casino and I have to say they all really look the same. Just a bunch of zombie like people sitting at their slot machines pushing a button over and over and over. Just for fun I plugged $5 into a penny slot machine (one that you could actually pull the handle!) and I ended up getting up to $17 but then lost it all, but probably played for at least half an hour to forty minutes! Jay decided to try a different machine and plugged in $5 and the machine took it in a matter of ten minutes. We decided to head back to the hotel. We just read and napped in our room until it was supper time.

We had planned to have a nice meal in Moose Jaw because we were given some money from Jason's parents for our anniversary. We ate at Harwood's Dining Room and had a nice meal. I had pork ribs with a wonderful light maple glaze on them, and Jason had these orange crepes filled with marscapone cheese and crab with shrimp and scallops. It was a very nice leisurely meal. I had another swim before bed last night and we headed home today at lunch time. All in all a very nice little holiday :)

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