Entering into summer

With posts becoming few and far between you do wonder what we get up to all day.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lovely parents came over for a week at the end of February - celebrating our 'Canniversary'. This celebration brought with it a number of enlightening moments, many of which will reveal themselves over the coming months and year.

March was a whirlwind personally as I moved to a new job. I am very fortunate to work for such a great organisation and the work they do is phenomenal - or phenomenally Canadian according to L. I work with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative dealing with all things donation related. It is wonderful fun and I am continually learning every day about the projects that we lead or support on, from the tip of Yukon all the way down into America to Yellowstone National Park. For obvious reasons all things bear interest me the most though hearing about the destruction and damage of Dam's (Site C being the most current and horrific) on the environment is overwhelmingly sad. Yet the government see $$$$$ rather than nature. Plonkers.

April was by far my most cherished month here. The arrival of a beautiful baby boy and most beloved sister!! I haven't seen my nephew since he was three moths old and now he is a full year, they changes in him were astounding. He looks like a little man, or more specifically my dad. He is the cutest and most charming baby ever, and a super-duper flirt with the ladies! Waving and grinning
at every girl he saw! We had a wonderful time together and couldn't believe how quickly time flew by.

And here we are at the end of May. Yikes. This month we had L's mum visit us for a week and to take full advantage of the Holiday Monday we decided, at the last possible minute, that we would drive to Victoria. That is correct, a 14 hour drive EACH WAY for a 3 day break. On Friday night we strated our ambitious drive and stopped in Sicamous, then at 5am Saturday morning we continued the journey to reach Cordova Bay on Vancouver Island. It was the best decision ever as I have missed the ocean so much, I am truly a water person and lakes just do not have the same influence on me.

Sunday we explored downtown Victoria, enjoying Fisherman's Wharf and a marching band competition in front of the Legislative Building then on Monday morning 4am (after watching an amazing sunrise) we drove back to Canmore. Worth every minute.

Catching up almost to present - which would include the tale of L cutting his foot on a rock while climbing Saturday and 24 hours later being taken to hospital by moi with blood poisoning. He had to have 4 days of IV antibiotics, we are now friends with all A&E Dr's at Canmore Hospital, and now he has a further ten days of heavy duty oral antibiotics to make sue it doesn't come back.

As you can see we are keeping busy and continuing to explore Western Canada. With one more significant visitor booking to arrive in August for three weeks of climbing, hiking, kayaking and surfing who knows what stories we will come back with!

Random Act of Surprise

My beautiful sister and her charming husband are expecting their, and our families, first baby. This baby has been affectionately known either as Juju or Thor for the past nine months. I have no idea where Juju came from but Thor was certainly Mark’s influence.

Anyway, the due date had approached a lot faster than we were expecting and I decided, along with my mother, there wasn’t a chance in nelly-puff I was going to miss the arrival of the most beautiful baby ever born. Me bias? Never.

So without telling my sister, which is very difficult as we are in touch almost every day, I jumped on a WestJet flight to Glasgow and arrived the evening after he was born. Somewhat jetlagged, I followed my parents into the hospital room where my sister, brother-in-law and the golden child were resting.

According to my sister, I walked in so casually that she didn’t think there was anything strange about me being there and it wasn’t until a couple of minutes later she realised I was several thousand miles from where I had been talking to her the day before.

For a wonderful week I managed to hog the most cuddles from the fuzzy headed baby with the excuse I was returning to Canada. No-one else stood a chance really. He is beautiful and I think his yawns are the best thing I have ever seen. Also, thanks to me being jetlagged I was the perfect night watchman, which meant even more cuddles for the tiny tot.

I am absolutely thrilled for my sister and cannot wait to see how much more he can look like her, as right now he is a mini-Tar.