Christmas Letter 2018

Man, is it Christmas already? This year has gone by so fast but they say that is what happens in your mid seventies!

We had no big home projects this year other than Norma's ever present struggles with her gardens and lawns which always seem to take up as much time as she wants to spend on them. The drainage on the rear bank is still corralled by all the drain pipes and sumps we had installed a few years ago to send it on it's way down the driveway, under the road and into the ocean. I just have to climb up the bank every three or four months to ensure all three sumps are empty of sand. We really enjoy having that year round stream behind the house but it does require maintenance.

Brooks' fencing and deck business is doing very well, in fact he is almost getting too much work which is OK because it lets him refer the jobs he really does not want or does not have time for to other people.  He and LindaLee have been on several mini vacations, this year's destinations have been Seattle, Nashville and Vegas.

We, on the other hand, only got away once and that was to our great niece Karen's wedding in Lacombe, Alberta. The groom is Irish and their home is in Ireland so as you can imagine the wedding had it's share of Irishmen (and ladies). The venue was on Karen's brother's farm and it was a blast that lasted several days! We made a slow trip out in the motorhome and an equally slow trip back. The return trip would have been longer but the forest fire smoke forced us to cancel our planned time in the Okanagan. As it was, we were gone almost a month!

The grandkids made it up in the summer. They are both incredibly busy but Jayde took time off to come up from Vancouver with Brooks and Sierrah caught a ride from Victoria with Caroline, her other grandma. It was a fun couple of days and so great to see these young adults (and fun to see Carolyn again)!

Norma had one eye worked on to remove a pesky cataract and add a new lens and I had a minor heart thing, A-Fib, which they tried to get back into rhythm with an electric shock. It didn't work but my specialist assures me that no one has ever died from A-Fib so I have added a blood thinner a day to my diet and am living with it. Not a big deal as I didn't know I had it (or even how long I have had it) in the first place.

I don't know where the rest of the year went. I know we spent more time relaxing, or "chillin" as they call it now than we used to but that is probably a good thing.

We are staying home again this winter for a couple of reasons, the primary one being my reluctance to spend any of my hard earned Union pension in a country governed by Trump.

So, Merry Christmas to all and as always, "Life Is Good"!