Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

Sunday morning we flew from Kelowna, British Columbia to Edmonton, Alberta. We had brunch with our oldest son and daughter-in-law and then they drove us to our youngest son’s place for the night, where we had another great visit and got totally worn out by our youngest grandchildren. It was just an overnight visit but we are so happy we were able to see all our children, and all but one grandchild, this Christmas 🙂

Yesterday afternoon our daughter-in-law drove us to the airport and we happily boarded our flight for Phoenix … we were looking forward to our own bed!

A nice Edmonton sunset.

We were doing great and were all set to make it home just in time to bring in the new year … but then our suitcase was one of the last to come out and we ended up being the last to get dropped off by the parking shuttle.

But even with that it was looking like we may still make it, until we started seeing signs saying I-10 was closed at 35^th Avenue and we needed to exit. Now that probably isn’t a big deal when you live in Phoenix and know the area, but once we were forced to exit there was no further direction provided 😦 Fortunately Holly came to our rescue and helped reroute us. I then hit Google to find out why the Interstate was closed. Four hours before a bank was robbed and that resulted in a high speed chase along several freeways throughout Phoenix, all ending with an Officer Involved Shooting on I-10. From what I read it looks like nobody was seriously injured, but it caused I-10 to be closed for a very long time.

We were unable to make our next turn once we exited I-10 because of a serious accident at the off ramp. That accident was followed by another one just before our next turn. Phoenix had had some recent rain so we are guessing that maybe the roads were slippery … or the New Year’s Eve celebrating started too early :sad:.

And then once we got back on I-10 we came across another accident. Yup those Phoenix roads are dangerous, so we were happy to turn off I-10 onto Highway 85 and head down to I-8.

Even though it was dark there was no question we were back in the desert. The recent rain had filled the air with smells of creosote and mesquite bushes.

Since we were not going to get home before 1:00 a.m. on January 1st we decided what the heck, we should stop for a final meal of 2019!

We hope you can look back on 2018 with fond memories, or for a few, who I know it wasn’t a good year, we hope you can find comfort in moving on to a new year.

We wish you health and happiness in 2019 and Safe Travels 🙂

Until next time …

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A Hat Trick

Which is totally what I should have labeled yesterday’s blog! The meaning of a hat trick is “three successes of the same kind, especially consecutive ones within a limited period.” And that is what I had last night …

Team Canada beat Team Czech Republic 5-1The Kelowna Rockets beat the Kamloops Blazers 2-1The Vancouver Canucks beat the Calgary Flames 3-2 in overtime

Yes last night was a good night and definitely a Hat Trick in the hockey world!

And now we are off to the airport 🙂

Until next time …

I’m Sure I Have Used This Title Many Times But … Go Canada Go

So the Canadian World Junior Hockey Team is undefeated so far. Of course this is only the beginning, the real test will be the round robin, which starts after New Year’s Day.

Saw this guy and one other dress in cool Christmas Suits at Costco before Christmas.

Today we spent the afternoon walking around downtown Kelowna, in the falling snow, with friends and warmed up with a latte/hot chocolate in a great downtown coffee shop. We then headed back to our daughter’s place for the rest of the afternoon, part of which included packing up for our flight to Edmonton tomorrow to see our son’s and their families. At five we began watching the hockey game, Canada versus Czech Republic … Canada won 🙂 and shortly after six our son-in-law and our grandsons headed out to watch the Kelowna Rockets play the Kamloops Blazers in a WHL Hockey game.

Our grandson’s having a snowball fight with the snowman on Christmas Eve.

There was a lot of hockey pressure for me tonight! I watched the Canada/Czech World Junior game while getting updates on the NHL game where the Vancouver Canucks played the Calgary Flames … Vancouver won in overtime 🙂 … while also getting updates on the Kelowna Rockets versus the Kamloops Blazers … Rockets won 🙂  … and on top of that I was also following the World Junior game where Sweden played the United States (Sweden won)! Yes this was one heck of a hockey night!!!

The view out our window at dinner with friends, while watching the hockey game, on Boxing Day. We have a lot more snow now!

And I’m a happy camper because three out of three of my teams won tonight!

Until next time …

Snow :-)

Unfortunately, at least for me, we had a green Christmas, but Boxing Day came through with a skiff of snow 🙂

The Delta Grand Hotel, in downtown Kelowna, look pretty with a fresh snowfall.

Tonight we met friends at Craft Beer Market where they have over 100 beers on tap. Okay that was the reason hubby and our friends wanted to go, but I was all about watching the first game of the World Junior Hockey Tournament where Canada was playing Denmark.

Before we met up hubby and I wandered along Water Street to take in the lights and all the action at the outdoor skating rink.

The Spirit Bear looked pretty at night with all the lights.

We enjoyed a great dinner, a few drinks, and a lot of awesome conversation, not to mention a great hockey game, with our friends.

Kelowna is just as pretty at night as it is during the day!

And our evening ended with Canada winning Denmark fourteen – zero, not bad for our first game of the tournament 🙂

Until next time …

Merry Christmas

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
Our Jesus Christ is born

Hubby and I would like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas! We hope your day is everything you want it to be 🙂

We are enjoying the frenzy of Christmas morning with our grandchildren and looking forward to dinner at my sister’s place tonight. I think we will be a group of twelve so it should be fun, but still a manageable size for playing games after dinner.

I will leave you with a funny story from Mass last night. During the homily Father talked about families being together at this time of year and how there was always one or two relatives that are dysfunctional … either they drink too much, tell inappropriate stories, or any other number of things. Everyone laughed and he moved on. Father ended Mass with the comment “If you have been sitting here thinking that there is nobody dysfunctional in your family then you should consider that it is probably you!” And with the church full of laughter Mass ended 🙂

Merry Christmas …

Bear Creek Provincial Park Update

The weather since we arrived home has been great … well great for everyone who lives here, not so great for me who really wants snow!   Since the weather was decent we decided to drive out to the campground and check out the changes, as well as check on our shed and make sure everything was okay.

Progress on the new washrooms is really coming along and it looks like they should be done by the time the campground opens in the spring.

These are pictures of the women’s side because of course I can’t go into the men’s, but hubby assures me it looks the same 🙂

It looks like there will be two large sinks on the back of the building for washing dishes.

Our site, and more importantly our shed, are all okay.

It looks like all the underground irrigation has been repaired so the park should be nice and green next year. They are also working on the landscaping around the new sites so they are starting to look much better.

They have also added some new picnic tables.

When I do my morning walk around the campground I have often asked the Beaver I occasionally see why he never eats the trees, but of course he never answers me. Today we saw signs of his work in the park, I guess there are to many people during the summer for him to eat the trees so he is stalking up now that the park is empty.

There was no question where he took the trees he chewed down, as he left a pretty clear path.

Until next time …

Driving Home For Christmas

Do you know that Christmas song? It came on yesterday as we were driving to Phoenix to catch our flight home to Kelowna, British Columbia and I thought it was appropriate because at that point we were Driving Home For Christmas 🙂 However I am very thankful that we only had a three hour drive and the rest of the trip was on a plane!

Very little traffic

See ya later desert landscape, hopefully you are replaced by some snow!

We left Yuma early and arrived at my aunt’s place in Surprise, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, by noon. She made to us a lovely lunch and we enjoyed catching up with her before we headed to the airport to catch our flight.

My aunt has several really nice fruit trees on her site.

We arrived at our daughter’s place to be greeted by some very excited grandchildren … well honestly I’m not sure if they were more excited, or if we were more excited, but lets just say there was enough excitement to go around 🙂

Our daughter and son-in-law where at his Christmas party so his mom was looking after the kids. Once we arrived she was able to go home and after a short visit we were able to get the kids settled into bed. We also managed a visit with our daughter and son-in-law before we headed off to bed. Yes it’s nice to be home!

Until next time …