We took all our VISA points from building the house and flew to Mazatlan on West Jet.
We were preparing to leave the house Christmas morning when Brian checked the flights: we had a connector flight to Calgary to catch the flight to Mexico. The connector was delayed by four hours! The really great West Jet guy asked if we could drive to the Calgary airport to catch the flight – if yes, WJ would cover our gas and parking. Off we were – three kids in the backseat of the Accord and by the Edmonton airport they had regressed by 10 years of age (“stop touching me!”). We were the last to check in but made it in enough time. All good.
Mexico was lovely. We stayed at Villa Marina which is a gated community, about 6 minutes walk from a fabulous surfing beach that is rarely very busy. The weather was mostly terrific (one rainy day) and 25-30C with a breeze is a very nice temperature. The girls got the requisite sunburns and Alex a war wound boogie boarding. We feel very blessed being able to go away when it was dropping to –34C here!
Brian and Amelia carved some pumpkins. One is the front of our home, another two friends (Alex and Dan) of Amelia’s, and the last is a good friend – Sue, obviously enjoying a glass of wine. Brian had a little trouble with some of the more intricate carving; Sue doesn’t have a lazy eye in real life!
Well October 2009 might be unseasonably cold these days, but we were warm inside celebrating Thanksgiving and 3 family birthdays.
Catherine was 5 on Oct 8
Jocelyn was 21 on Oct 4
Alex was 24 on Oct 11 (and 4 in the birthday cat cake photo)
Alex and our “extra” son Matt are in one photo.
Michael (2) is enjoying some chocolate cake.
There was about 2 truckloads of beautiful topsoil hauled away. Brian has seeded the lawn with EcoGrass – a low water use grass that grows about 6 inches a year. Maybe that’s why it took so long to come up?
My brother Tom and his family came over to celebrate his (XX) birthday. Cate is almost 5 and Michael is thoroughly 2. After these shots he found the croquet mallets and was in toddler heaven.
The evening was perfect for late August – about 27C, no wind, no mosquitoes, and amazingly, no yellow jackets/hornets! Divine.
Dad DID get the handles on your sink before we were in the house a full year! It only took a little more than 11 months :)
Today we had an excellent bobcat driver change the level in the yard. It is scary to watch them cruise over the land no matter how much you are looking forward to it! All we need to do now is pick the colour we want the cement to be (not bright gray). Probably something in earth tones.
And Kathy finally came over to celebrate her birthday. We decided not to add a zero to the birthday...
At the Spring Encore concert we sat next to a lovely lady named Lynda who loves to take photos. It was fortunate we forgot our camera because she got some fabulous photos of Jocelyn. Jocelyn also sang a solo in the last song Tshosholaza and then there was the post-concert singing outside afterwards.
The concert was held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral downtown, and there was an Ethiopian feast onging in the church basement and consequently almost no parking. Kelly is proud of the killer parallel parking job she accomplished even if it was the 2nd try!
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Alex and his friend Andrew decided in January to create a wonderful wedding gift for several couples this year...
In the 2 weeks prior to the wedding, they are invited over, but only the groom knows it’s for a special supper. Alex and Andrew spend the day cooking up a feast. The first evening (April 26) it was much too chilly to consider an outdoors event, so we cleared out the guestroom and set it up for a private supper for two. Matt and Caitlin said it was a wonderful evening (look at their smiles!).
The menu: samosas; ginger and celery soup topped with sour cream and a homemade onion and poppyseed cracker (ooh, ah); garden salad greens with oven-roasted tomato wedges; apple and lime sorbet; lemon and pea risotto with cedar plank salmon with a maple balsamic glaze (ooh); fresh strawberries with crème Anglais (oh oh oh!). Divine!
Even those of us “downstairs” enjoyed the amazing offerings... What a duo!
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