Winter away from Ta-b
21 March 2010
Jane, cold and wet - yuk
Oops it has been a while. Writers lull I suppose, it is definitely time to share what we have been up to in the last few months.
After visiting friends and family in Queensland and New South Wales (Australia) in October/November we flew to Auckland (New Zealand). Russell's younger sister Jillie and family live there and we spent a couple of weeks with them before heading back to Vancouver for Xmas.
While we were in Auckland we borrowed a camper van and drove North to 19 mile beach for a while. The Kiwis are big on camping and we found some of the best places to stay were campsites as they tended to be on prime locations It was just before the Xmas holidays so we had the place to ourselves, however the weather was not as good as it should have been being Summer over there.
The trip proved to us again how beautiful and laid back New Zealand is. We feel very blessed to have family there.
Then it was back to Vancouver to enjoy the season's festivities. Wow, we felt overwhelmed at first, but soon got into the swing of being out every night reconnecting with friends and family. We visited Edwin in Vernon/Silver Star, where he is currently living, and have never seen him happier. Although finding work has been a struggle, both he and his friend Greg had such positive energy it was catching. We had a wonderful time with them both. In January we also managed to get some time up in Whistler and Sun Peakes, enjoying ski-ing in Canada at its best.
Xmas with close friends and the kids was such a treat - certainly a little different from the last couple of years!! January was spent in catch up mode before returning to England in February. We stayed in the basement suite as Amy's flat mates, it was wonderful to have so much time with her. She is maturing into a gorgeous young lady. As you can imagine it was hard to leave our beloved home and kids in February, but once in Europe we enjoyed being Proud Canadians and sharing the 2010 Olympics with everyone. It sounds like we missed the party of the century, but we were there very much in our hearts and our kids sound like they made up for our absence.
Yet again while in England we found ourselves trying to reconnect with as many old friends and family as we could in the little time we had. The whirlwind eventually caught up with us the week before we left for France as we both became very sick with a flu/cold/cough bug - we have not been ill for so long that we went down hard!!
There was no let up though as we had a "boys" weekend in Sameons to get to. I was invited to tag along and must admit it was fun being one of the lads for a while. We even had the treat of our best man Foxy flying in from Australia for a couple of weeks. A lot of laughs, reminiscing and great ski-ing was had. We are currently still in Sameons staying at my brother's place and due to drive down to Ta-b next weekend. Whilst here we have also visited friends in La Clusaz and this week went for a trip down memory lane to Neuchatel where I was at College at age 18.
Russell is going to spend April doing blue jobs on Ta- b, plan is to splash (put her back in the water) early May. In the meantime I will visit my Mum as much as possible, see old school friends and spend some time with Amy in England and France before we catch up with Russell. Next blog will hopefully be in May sometime. Enjoy the photos.