Finally....

Okay…here goes. It’s been too long, so I don’t even know where to start…

A few weeks ago (June 15-22), my brother, Bryan, his wife, Sally, and three of their kids – Christopher, Michael, and Patricia – came up for a visit. They were heading up to the North Dakota area and, fortunately, we were only a short hop, skip, and a jump (okay, more like 8 hours plus a border crossing) from there. But we were 6 hours closer than this time last year, and that was good. Cynthia and her four kids came down from Edmonton as well, and we had Bob and Kristy home - to complete the whole family! It put (with our household and Tanya and Tom’s family) the headcount for meals at 24 but that was so much fun!! It was so good to have everyone under the same roof (okay, not literally…Bob and KB, Patricia, Cassie, and Samantha stayed with Tanya; Christopher, Michael, and Andrew slept out in our camper trailer) once again…it’s been awhile.

With Tanya’s help, I’d prepared some meals ahead of time and/or, at least, purchased the ingredients to have on hand. So mealtimes went well and there always seemed to be lots of leftovers. Everyone chipped in to help in the preparation, cost, and clean up (thanks, Christopher, for doing the dishes all by yourself at least one meal!!) and that made it much easier – that, and paper plates :-)

Highlights of our visit include:

- The almost nightly concern of “meeting the skunk”. We have one in the neighborhood and several sightings occurred when everyone was here. Bob and Christopher eagerly obtained a trap from Fish and Wildlife but the tantalizing bait of peanut butter was never the right incentive to lure the culprit into its confines. The dilemma still continues to this day….
- The day trip to Waterton National Park. This was our second time to this park in the Rockies, and Bryan and Sal’s (and Cynthia’s) first. It was pristine beauty at its best – just spectacular. We hiked around the town site, Cameron falls, and then up to Red Rock Canyon, picnicking by a beautiful lake. We got some priceless photos and some good visiting times in while we walked.
- The phone call. Which corresponded with our day trip to Waterton. It was a blow in the stomach and an arrow to the heart that I wasn’t expecting, although I guess I should have been. Dear Aunty Ruth went to be with the Lord. It was a sad ending to our day but we realized that her days of suffering were over and she was in a much better place.
- The Corner Gas episodes. This Canadian sitcom takes place in a small Saskatchewan town. We’d told Bryan and family about it when we saw them in Minnesota but weren’t sure they would “get” the Canadian humour. Apparently Christopher has been watching it in North Dakota and had got the family watching it there on their way up to Canada. So it gave us quite a few laughs during their visit when we watched some more of the episodes.
- Patricia and her disgust at the Picture Butte “smell”. For those of you that may not know, PB is the “Feedlot Capital of Alberta” which means that there are quite a few of them, not in the town, but in the surrounding countryside. If you want to know more about feedlots, have a chat with Jorge who worked at one for about a month… Anyway, the abundance of cattle does bring its own distinctive odour to the town – “the smell of money”, the locals call it. But poor Patricia was often seen with a wrinkled nose, lamenting the way the wind was blowing at that moment in time! She’ll never make a farm girl…
- The night that Andrew went to bed early and locked Christopher and Michael out of the trailer. How they laughed when they came back into the house, saying they’d banged on the doors and windows yet still Andrew slept. With the lights all on as well! Thank goodness Floyd had a key to let the boys in to bed.
- A Chilean barbeque thanks to Jorge and Mandy! They did all the preparation and presented us with a Chilean feast that was spectacular to look at and delicious to eat!! Thanks, you two!!
- Going thru old photos with Bryan. We hauled out the boxes (thankfully I knew where they were, which is a miracle in itself!) with all of Dad’s old photo albums and loose photos of our childhood. It was good to spend the time reminiscing with him and watching him show the photos to his children.
- For Floyd and I, the visit was a wonderful time to just relax (finally) as we’d pushed ourselves to get the house and garden presentable for the big occasion! We’ve painted, torn apart, repaired, repainted, built, rebuilt, added to, taken out, planted, dug up, etc., for the past 3 months – ever since we’ve moved in. And this week was the week to just put our feet up, enjoy the garden and visit with family. I was so excited to show Cynthia the house and garden even though, in hindsight, I don’t feel like we two had as much time to visit as I would have liked to. I’ll have to get her down here another time this summer! It was also wonderful for Floyd and I to have all three of our girls and their families home – that’s something that we always cherish. Those times fly by so fast.

I’d like to say that was the week in a nutshell but I realize it was a big nut and so I am sorry that I wasn’t able to blog nightly during the time because (a) this wouldn’t have been so long, and (b) there probably would have been a lot more funny times that were remembered.

We all agreed that these reunions need to happen more often and we really want them to continue – maybe every two years or so. And we want to include Derrick and his family if that is at all possible. Seeing them the following week at Aunty’s funeral only confirmed that in my mind.

Life is just too short not to…