We arrived in Vancouver with great anticipation. After being away for about 4 years we were back on the west coast to visit old friends and see our two kids for an early Christmas.
In Vancouver Rob met up with a few good friends, including John Gilbert an old tennis partner, well know for his UFO H2O creation at Vancouver's Expo 86. Later, we met up with Julia's mom's and tot's group who all have children of similar age to Adam, our first born. Although their meetings are not frequent, they have kept in touch going on to 27 years!
Next, it was off to Vancouver Island to relax with good friends at a beautiful resort located on Long Beach. It took Julia less than 10 minutes after parking the car to dash out in to surf. Although the next stop across the Pacific from where we were might have been Hawaii, the water was very, very cold. She seemed to love it. Just up the coast from Tofino we visited a secluded hot springs, a 90 minute boat ride away, and saw gray whales and sea otters. It was nice to be back on the Island where we used to live 30 years ago.
After returning to Vancouver we drove up the Coquihalla Highway to Kamloops, our home before moving to Foxwood. Again, we had a wonderful time visiting and being well entertained by friends. Several days were spent up at Sun Peaks where Rob used to work and where our kids Meg and Adam are spending the winter. This will be Meg's third winter working there, this year as a pro patrol. Adam, who has been working hard as a geological engineer in Vancouver, decided to take the winter off to teach skiing at Sun Peaks. It was good to see our friends and we celebrated an early Christmas with the kids. We skied two days and the conditions were actually quite good.
After banking almost 2000km of driving in 10 days we returned to Foxwood and to yet another foot of snow. It was good to be back at home and in our own bed. We knew that we were in familiar territory when saw the wild turkeys. The scratching at our bedroom window woke us; there he was, a peeping "tom" looking through the glass! A total of 7 turkeys paddled through the snow by the front of the house. We never thought they were that curious however from this experience, apparently they are.
