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Published: June 11th 2012
Happy 65th Birthday!
Here we are out for dinner at the Hills Health Ranch. Snowing and blowing outside but warm and cosy inside. It’s hard to get my brain around our Christmas activities since it is now June! Our first Canadian Christmas since 2007 was very exciting. We got to see all our children and grandchildren for a few days around Christmas itself and also to visit Dianne’s family in Alberta.
We had driven to Mission to visit our daughter and her family then flew to Calgary to visit the Alberta relatives. We arrived back at close to midnight to discover they had freezing rain that evening. Hmmmm. The trunk was frozen shut as were the back and side doors. Luckily, I was able to get driver’s door open and we could climb in after pushing the suitcases into the back seat through the window. Good thing we travel light. Our suitcases for China wouldn’t have made it.
Dianne’s Big Day Dianne’s birthday was a Friday this year and we took off after school to drive to Hills Health Ranch at 108 Mile. We were really looking forward to a day of dog sledding. It didn’t look good though as there was virtually no snow. Sure enough, when we got there we discovered it had been cancelled. We could have gone
Snow Girl
It was magical walking around in the snow. Big fluffy flakes and no wind. home, but decided to spend a leisurely weekend hiking and enjoying the time away from school and computers.
But then it started to snow. And snow. By Saturday afternoon there was plenty of snow for dog sledding but it was too late to get a commercial outfit to bring out a team. Local dog sledders had their dogs out and it was fun to see them whizzing up and down the trails. We rented cross country skis and spent a few hours enjoying the new snow.
Despite the disappointment of the cancelled sledding it was still a pleasant weekend.
Other trips Another benefit of being back in Canada was being able to spend Spring Break with family. It’s only two weeks but that’s plenty to drive south to see family. The time went by so quickly. But we did get a bunch of stuff sorted out in our newly renovated place and we are now ready to do some serious weeding out of extra stuff.
Dianne got a four day weekend around Easter. We decided to take a couple of extra days and drive through the mountains to Alberta to celebrate Dianne’s Mother’s 94
th birthday.
The Mad Hatter
When I bought this Russian hat in Harbin, China I never expected to need it in Canada. It turned out to be very useful here during our short cold snap this winter. It’s always a gamble driving through the mountains in winter but the forecast was good so we took a chance.
The drive there was fantastic and the visit a great success. All too soon it was over and it was time to head back to WL. We drove in sunshine with bare roads to Golden where we stopped for the night. It was early and we could have pushed through to Revelstoke but decided to take it easy and have a nice dinner and walk around the town. We felt it would be better to drive the Roger’s Pass in the daylight. This may have been a mistake because we woke up to news that the highway through the pass was closed for avalanche control. It was scheduled to open at 1 PM and finally did at 3 PM. Had we pushed through the previous night we would have been home free. Sigh.
We did manage to spend a nice day walking around the town and visited the library. The lineup of trucks and cars waiting to go through the pass was truly unbelievable. We drove around until we found a spot to park and were astounded how
Ski Girl
The skiing was fabulous. I don't miss snow (Dianne does) but when the skiing is as nice as it was that day we might just have to take it up again. easily we got out of town when they finally opened the highway.
Back home in WL This is cowboy country and the first event was the Annual Indoor Rodeo. I didn’t know you could do this sort of thing indoors. But it’s a big deal up here. Lots of horses and other livestock. You have to watch where you walk.
The school puts on an ethnic dinner each year as a fund raiser. This year it was a Bavarian Bash. Dianne and I worked as servers for the dinner so we didn’t get much time to relax but it was still lots of fun. As all fund raisers do, they had a silent and live auction. Various groups made up baskets to be bid on and some people put in services they will provide the successful bidder. Before the dinner, some of the staff were sitting around talking about what “we” could offer. I related a story I had heard about a non-Dinner where you paid $50.00 but didn’t have to go. I said I would offer an Evening You Don’t Have to Spend with Peter. One of the teachers suggested Dianne would bid a lot on
No rest for the wicked
This is definitely something we didn't miss in China. Luckily I had the winter jacket I bought for visiting the Harbin Ice Festival. Why can't the snow fall on the trails and leave the roads open? that one. And these are my ‘friends’.
What now? As I write this we have three weeks of school left. We get emails from our friends in China talking about the excitement (and stress) of packing up to return to Canada. It seems unreal that a year ago we were packing up then too. It’s a bit easier here. We just rent a trailer, back it up to the apartment and load it up. The tricky bit? Where is it going?
To be continued….
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