Wow, it has been over 6 months since we last posted something up here, sorry! Lots has happened in that time but I will start with our recent vacation back to Canada. Over 4 weeks we managed to travel to... Vancouver, Squamish, Canmore, Vancouver, Toronto, Temagami, Bracebridge, Ottawa, Temagami, Toronto, Yorkton, Vancouver... phew! Lots of distance covered, but we were thrilled to have good visits with so many of our family and friends. Overall it was a great trip.
In Squamish we stayed with and mountain biked with friends of ours that we met in Edmonton. It was an awesome way to start - I'm still trying to decide which trail I like best, Cheshire Cat or Angry Midget. We will definitely have to go back and ride there again.
Next we drove to Canmore to spend a few days with the Yorkton Paynes. Despite a little rain, we spent a nice day visiting Lake Louise and had a memorable canoe excursion on Moraine Lake.
While in Canmore we also participated in a 24 hr mountain bike race, the same race that we've done in the past. The race went well, we had a sweet set up this year with RVs, a bit of an improvement over the tents we've used in the past. We especially enjoyed the pre-race dinner of steak, sausage and scallops, paired with good wine and lots of beer, perhaps too much beer...
The day after the race we drove back to Vancouver and spent a couple of days with Ted's cousin Shirley (and Ryan) and also saw the Victoria Paynes. Luke enjoyed riding high on Uncle Ted's shoulders.
Our next stop was the Bertrand's cottage in Northern Ontario. The lake was a perfect temperature so we spent most of our time relaxing on the dock, swim, dry off, swim, dry off, beer, water ski, swim, dry off, beer, repeat! While in Ontario we also attended a party for Ted's cousin Jeremy's wedding and the annual Norton family picnic. It was great that we could see so much of our family in such a short time!
Finally, we flew to Yorkton, Saskatchewan along with the Windsor Paynes. It was a good week that included a game of Mission Impossible, multiple trips to the beach, several games of take 2 and ended with a big game of road hockey !
It was a great trip back!
Flying back to Wellington we were hoping that we might have missed the worst of winter... WRONG!
We arrived back to the biggest winter storm in decades. It snowed in downtown Wellington, which is very rare. Up on our hill we had a few centimeters on the ground. In some ways we're glad we got to experience the snow, but we could have easily missed the cold weather that came with it. Fortunately, it was short lived and the weather has returned to normal, 15 C today, leaving us with a nice view of the snow capped Tararua's (mountain range we can see from our place).
