Going on

So what has been going on in our lives since we stopped posting on this blog? I guess lots of stuff, and yet at the same time it's hard to know what to share about. (Maybe I should ask Greta, since she is now becoming an expert at show-and-tell...)

Summer of Visitors

This past summer was a fantastic season. I think we will always remember it as the summer of visitors. When we added it up, we really only had about 3 weeks in which we were just here by ourselves - Dave's parents were here in June, followed by Kevin, Tracy, Camille and Peyton in early July; my parents came after that followed by Jason, Katharina and little Frieda; Garth and Leanne visited us with their twins in mid-August. Just when we thought we'd be alone for a while, Susan and Ken, with their family of five, stopped in for a few days while on their way to Alaska.

It was certainly a lot of fun to have people to talk to, catch up with - lots of visiting till midnight and observing what the little people are up to. More than that though, it underscored how much being connected means to our family. We feel quite privileged to have had visitors. Many people here in Fort St.John say that they have lived here for 10-15 years and have only had the odd family members visit them. We are really grateful to our families and dear friends who have made the effort to stay connected in many ways. To be honest, it is one of the reasons that I wanted to try to post a few things on our blog. Touching, I know...

In all seriousness, we welcome visitors as often as anyone feels like coming.

The Laughable Trip

Another little piece of our summer was our laughable trip to Vancouver towards the end of June. It was laughable for a few reasons - mainly because we drove, packed snugly in our Matrix, the 1200km to get there, stayed for 1 day, then turned right around and drove home (all when we didn't even have to go). I only recognized a few days before we left what an error of judgment it was to go, but I had already committed us. (I had wanted to go to the UBC Residents' Research Day but didn't want to wean Aaron, so ... the whole family goes.) Maybe the biggest joke of all was that we had decided to take the "shortest" route to get to Vancouver and took the road that goes through Lillooet. Anyone who knows a little about BC will laugh at us because it is an extremely slow road, slowing at times to 20km for sharp curves and old single lane bridges. Fortunately we only really admitted that we took the wrong road after we were almost in Pemberton, and that's where the road gets faster again. The kids slept the whole way and Dave and I got to enjoy a fantastic drive. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we drove that whole road with one loose wheel - Dave and his dad didn't quite tighten the summer tires on enough...

Anyway, it was all-in-all not a bad time; it just felt as though for that amount of effort, I should really know how to perform heart transplants instead of having heard a few fellow residents discuss their research projects. Dave is still waiting for his "Long-Suffering Husband" award. (Or maybe I was getting him back for asking to have a shower when he found me in full-blown labour instead of getting me to the hospital on time!)

There is just one more story I must relate about our time there, because it characterizes Dave's "can-do" attitude about taking care of the kids - one of the things that keeps impressing me. We stayed at the house of one of the other resident's in our program. It was a very large house and our host(s) were gracious when they were there, which didn't really amount to much time. Even in the best of accommodation, I think any parent feels the need to get out. Well, only Dave would plan a trip with 2 pre-schoolers and a baby on the SkyTrain to downtown of a new city during rush hour. Dave was a little disappointed that the downtown portion was actually underground, but he wisely just stayed on the train until it went all the way back. Of course they all took it in stride, and the kids liked the ride. He called me after they got off and offered to pick me (he'd driven to the train station.) I didn't need a ride and he just told me about it when I got home.

Summer Break

The only other thing that I can say about our summer was that I had a week of holidays at the end of August. It was nothing fancy, just a chance to spend some time at home all together. We had at one point dreamed of going camping this past summer, but we have learned our lesson about making a big effort to travel. Plus it is almost too cold by then. Hopefully, we'll take our kids camping when they get a little older. We spent some time doing a bit of canning and otherwise mostly hung out, including going biking almost every day.