walked with mom for 55 min

Mom fixed lunch and I stayed for a couple hours to talk about our vacation plans.

I have been saving to go on a train trip in the Canadian Rockies with my parents for 3 years. We were originally planning to go in Sept, but that plan doesn't work because of a scheduling conflict, so we decided to go the first of May. Off-season so we get a better price.

Anyways I've spent a lot of time on the internet looking up packages and prices etc today. We picked out a package we like, but still plan to do more research. The thing that caught me off gaurd though is that we have to get a passport. We went to Canada about 7 years ago and just needed copies of our birth certificates. Don't know why I was surprised, it is post 911, I just didn't think about it.

So now I need to hurry up and do that. I have to get pictures taken and from what I read it takes up to 6 weeks to get the passport. We go on vacation in 9 weeks, so I'm really hoping to get it done this week. Another surprise was the price, it's $97, plus the price of the pictures. Ouch!

The trip is very expensive too. Airfare is around $495 and the tour package is about $1700. Still need to add meals, entertainment and shopping, plus a couple new shirts. But I have saved $3300 for this and hope that covers it. If not I have 2 more months to save and I save $100 a month towards this, plus all my extra funds, so that will probably be another 3 or 4 hundred that could go towards it.

I'm looking forward to the trip, but it's kind of a scramble to get it all together. Should have started last month, but we still thought we were going in September then.

Got a free sample of Head and Shoulders in the mail today. Will probably give to my brother. When I sign up for samples now, I'm signing my mom up at the same time. My dad thinks it's pretty cool to get stuff in the mail.

I also got a whopping $234.00 in a settlement for stocks I purchased from one of the big companies that went bankrupt in 2000 and was in the news for accounting fraud. My shares were worth $22,000 at one point and went down to $0 and I get a big $234. About 1% of what I lost. Oh well, I've since made the money back on other things, but still I was hoping for at least 10%. The pot is something like $38 million, but of course the lawyers get most of it.

Finished reading the library book Questionable Remains by Beverly Connor. Mystery. Very good.

I was talking to my oldest niece last night and she told me she was reading Little Women and had two chapters left to go. I gave her the 3 books in the series awhile back. She was telling me how much she liked the book. I remember the first time I read it and how much I enjoyed it too. I've read it a couple times since then and always like it. It's nice to share an appreciation for books with her. I told her she should watch the movie sometime. She didn't know there was one. I said the most recent one I know of had Wynona Rider in it and I didn't like that one, that much. My favorite is the one with Katherine Hepburn. She was excited to hear that, I guess Katherine Hepburn is a favorite of hers. Another thing we have in common

The youngest niece is still grounded, so haven't been able to do anything with her lately. According to her mom, I may never get to take her anywere again.