Canda and New Zealand visits

We are now back on our boat after our 3 month trip in Ecuador and Peru, 4 days repacking and then almost 4 weeks in Canada and 4 weeks in New Zealand.
We had a wonderful; visit in Canada with family and friends; it was great to see those of you who are reading this ongoing saga.
We arrived to the news of the arrival of Alexander James, Dave and Becca’s newest baby in Hong Kong—they now have the ultimate family of Arianne, who is a sweetheart and Alex who I am sure will also prove to be. We were unable to fit in a visit to Hong Kong on this trip and so are sad that we missed them. Hopefully we will catch up with them in the not too distant future and meet Alex and see Arianne who continues to be a beauty—I am sure she has some of her Nana in her!!!
We spent a couple of weeks in Calgary enjoying staying with Amy and Rob and their happy family. We loved watching Isaac and Alora involved in their many activities and acting as “real grandparents” for a while—poor Mike always wanted a “real mum” and now we are having grandchildren who will spend their lives wanting “real grandparents”. Luckily the in-law grandparents are filling in for us and we will be the ones they will speak of as the crazy ones who travel in exotic lands. It was good to have those family “get togethers” where baseball became the sport of the moment—Isaac having a “great arm’ with his pitching.
We met Ashley, Aaron’s new girlfriend who is a delightful young woman and was good to see Aaron established in his own place and patrolling on his “hog”. Mike had started his new job which seems to offer him his outdoor lifestyle and a decent salary as well—what more could he want.
We then went with Aaron and Ashley to Kelowna and visited with Adelyn who was almost walking. She is a cutie and very happy but drives Kristen nuts as she will not cuddle as she is far too busy in her own world—reminiscences of Dave!! Also has Kristen’s sociability so appears to have either the best or worst traits of them both?? It was lovely to spend the week with their family as well. We have since had news that Kristen is expecting a boy—she is due in March which will give them the perfect family as well---she hopes he will take after either Kyle or Mike!!! Adelyn who hated the riding toy which I was so excited to buy her of course loves it now that we are gone!!
We were proud of Kyle who we watched run his first marathon and achieved the time of 3hours 27mins which he had hoped for.
As parents your greatest hope is that your children are happy and having successful lives and they are all doing very well which makes us very happy.
We then flew to New Zealand and had a lovely visit with my family there. My mother had had a stroke a month before we got there but much to my delight had lost very little. Her walking is slower but her mental capacity was not changed and she is still as interested and involved in the world as ever and is very capable living on her own still looking after her dog and cats. We had a low key trip spending a lot of time with her and taking her out and fit in visits with my brother and sister and their families. Luckily for my mum she has lots of family and friends who look out for her so even though I feel guilty that I have abdicated responsibility I am glad she is so well looked after.
Met up with Anne –my old school friend (became apparent how old when she had to sign as a character witness on my NZ passport application and say how many years she had known me!!!—where did the time go?). We went out on their power boat on Guy Fawkes night—a big celebration in NZ—he tried to blow up the house of parliament in England many years ago and everyone has set off fireworks every Nov 5th (also Dave’s birthday) ever since. When I was young it was just a neighborhood celebration with every family having their own and maybe a local huge bonfire but now there is a huge display on Wellington Harbour and so it was great to be right there. It was a beautiful night and was Wellington at its best. It continues to be one of the world’s most beautiful cities and I always leave with mixed emotions.
This time was a little different as we should be there next November with our boat to stay for 6 months and renewing my NZ passport gave me a sense of renewed citizenship.
We had one of our last nights and took mum to a Chinese variety show which had been put on to showcase the Beijing Olympics. It was very colourful and bright. It had a distinct lack of Chinese flavour and was China meets Las Vegas—I think a sense of what they will try and portray next year—a little sad as McWorld is quite large enough. The highlight was a tenor who would have outrivaled Pavarotti had he been born elsewhere and we all enjoyed him immensely.
Stocked up with minties, vegemite, manuka honey, tea and chocolate and headed back to LA where we had a couple of days to run around stocking up with cheddar cheese, jelly bellies and various boat parts. We marveled at the amount of “stuff” which is available and were tempted to sail our boat back to San Diego just to buy more stuff!!!
We got back and cleaned our grubby boat having had workers fixing our single side band radio and hooking up our new iridium aerial in time to greet Karen and Jeff (previously of Calgary and now Pender Harbour BC). They stayed with us for a few days and we enjoyed visiting with them. Took the opportunity to go to the local museum which was very impressive for such a small town and we went over to a local beach where many gringos are buying waterfront property. Mexico and then Costa Rica have become very expensive and now the Ecuadorian government is very stable and is the most desirable retirement country right now. Now that we are back to $2 50lb huge shrimps and chicken breasts and $10 being more fruit and vegs than we can carry home we know why.
We are having sanding done right now $10 a day and in a week or so will take one last trip to Otavala—the largest market in Sth America to stock up with goodies here and then we will head to Panama to cruise until Feb when we will cross to the Galapagos.
Many thanks to all of you who entertained and fed us on out visit we did love seeing you all.