Mid-November to Dec 6: Vancouver visit

Whenever we visit Vancouver we stay with our friend Barbara Brezer as we have the past 3 weeks. She has been most generous in letting us stay for extended periods and populating her cupboards and garage with our junk. We have had various items stored at Barbara’s house for years now, and have tried recently to relocate most of it to a storage unit nearby. Thank you Barbara!


Barbara and Alison prepared a nice traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Nov. 25th, even though Canadian

Thanksgiving was a month ago. We had delicious turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin cheesecake. But as we all know, the days of leftovers afterward are at least as good as Thanksgiving itself.

Last weekend we gave Barbara a break and spent the weekend with Anne who lives in Tsawwassen.  We had fun trimming her Christmas tree and knitting, tinking, and Sudokoing.  We all helped with the fall leaf raking and gutter (eaves trough) cleaning and were done in plenty of time to go to Ladner’s wool and antique shops because you never have enough wool or tree ornaments.  (See Anne’s tree picture.). We seemed to eat continuously and had plenty of wine. It was a nice outing from the city.

While in the area, Alison and I visited Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary near Ladner to see the Snow Geese while they were there.  What a sight when thousands of geese unexpectedly lift off and circle around the salt marsh and levees.  A large flock of shore birds was still hanging out even though they were standing on the thin skin of ice on the ponds.  There were lots of ducks and the squirrels were fat from the bird feeders and usually won out over the chickadees.  Several Great Herons and some straggler Sandhill Cranes were seen.  One of the Sandhill Cranes was very interested in my wedding band and tried to pull it off.  It’s interesting when a 3+ foot tall bird walks up to you!

During our stay in Vancouver Alison’s mother Jeanne has been moved into a facility that specializes in elderly dementia care. We are pleased with the care and friendliness of the staff. Jeanne now joins other elders as they walk around the floor and are free to wander where they will with occasional re-direction when necessary. She seems to have made the transition without a hitch, and really is not aware of the change at all. We worried about a period of settling but that has not occurred.


We have moved most of our things out of Barbara’s house and into a small storage unit close by. (There wasn’t room to sleep in the bedroom any more.) We seem to be collecting storage units! A storage place has been found for the car, and we’re almost finished packing for India. On Tuesday we fly off to San Francisco then onto Hong Kong, Bangkok and Mumbai arriving early Friday morning (4AM). We should be glad to get off the plane by then!

We’ll keep the blog postings going as we migrate to SE Asia and assimilate there. We are so looking forward to joining Twyla and Greg there…

On to the future……