More About the Fall

I am glad to see the 'Stretched and Ripped Off' a ways away now. It was a challenging summer in some ways and the summer left abruptly, much sooner than it should have, that's for sure! But we made plans to make up for our missing holiday. We bought a new van - a Toyota Previa, which I am in-love with. And the next day we loaded it up with a huge turkey, a huge leg of lamb, pumpkin, tomatoes, bike and suitcases and headed down to Nanaimo to my sister Katie's place for an extended Thanksgiving.

Let me tell you, Katie and Brent are great guests but they are even better hosts! The weather cooperated. In Vernon it was sunny and + 20 degrees leading up to our holiday. When we drove out of town on a Wednesday afternoon, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. We stayed at Doug's in Mission that night and caught the 10am ferry the next morning. There were dolphins or porpoises leaping and doing flips in Horseshoe Bay. It was misty but the sun was peeking through every now and then. I loved smelling the sea air again. Andrew and I spent most of the time outside on the decks.

So we got to Katies around noon on Thursday. The weather in Nanaimo was pretty good, too. There was some rain, of course but that didn't stop us from enjoying time outside. There was glorious sunshine, too. Katie and Brent got right into the summer holiday mood. N and M took Friday off of school and Brent even took the day off of work. We went to Coombs and snooped around the shops, ate handfulls of bread and icecream, even though it was kind of cold. We stopped in Parksville briefly on the way home and I got some yarn and a not-as-good-as-expected yarn store to make Elizabeth a toque. It was super windy at the beach but we hung out for a little while.

Laura came that night and we had Basil's tasty leg which Brent cooked to extreme perfection - pretty good for the first time cooking lamb! It was all soooo good! Saturday we hiked around Piper's Lagoon in the rain. Laura has posted some awesome pics here (we left our camera on the table at home...). And the next day just Laura, Katie and I hung out at Sugar Loaf which I had never been to before. The turkey was fantastic, of course. Brent was involved, after all. I made a pumpkin pie from my pumpkin - two actually in pie crusts that Sarah had left behind. I made it with one of my french cooking pumpkins - a Galeux d'Eysines to be exact. It is the same as these but mine are a paler orange and not as warty with wonderfully textured, thick flesh.

Dean watched a lot of imax on Brent's surround sound and ate a lot of bacon that Brent cooked up and layed around reading his book. Rhiannon disappeared into her cousins' bedroom and surfaced occasionally to play wii. Drew tried out the skate park that was close to Katie's place, read his book, helped Brent make popcorn, watched girl movies with us and slept alot.

It was just an awesome visit. I am so blessed to have such great sisters and this great sister in particular. It was exactly what I needed. We stayed up late talking and watching movies that no one in my family would ever watch with me and laughing and laughing and laughing about the past, about each other, about other silly things. It was just so good. I went home feeling grateful and filled up and not ripped off at all.