Tuesday, January 9th - Belated Happy New Year to you all

After a relaxing week off, we are off and running into 2018!
What a busy couple of weeks. Petra's last week was fairly quiet. She worked with me at one of my card stores but I left her at home the next time as it was just really cold.

 She found the cold quite a challenge, as is most of the rest of the country. It's been very cold for quite a while, and it's just not so much fun. We went on a couple of drives and saw a bit of the area.

We enjoyed an fun evening at Ray and Marlene's. We provided the food and everything seems to have gone well. Thanks to Marlene for her kind comments online after.

Sunday morning, the 31st, was travel day for both of us. I headed out early in the morning and caught my flight to Toronto. Lloyd dropped me off at the airport, then came back and shuttled Petra to the airport for her flight to Halifax a little later in the morning. She had an incredibly long day ahead of her. Charlottetown to Halifax, then to Montreal, then finally after a whole day and a long delay she finally got home sometime Monday. Needless to say she was exhausted but I'm sure she was happy to be home.

Patti was coming home from a flight and we met up at the airport. It was New Years Eve morning and we had no plans. When we got home, we spent a fairly quiet day having a second Christmas day. Meghan was working at the Mill Restaurant so we called to see if they by chance had any spaces left. Turns out they had one table for two available at 5:00 so Patti and I went down there for supper. We enjoyed a lovely meal and Meg was happy to bring us some bread, and she also plated our desserts.

We were home early and spent the rest of the evening watching some TV and waiting for midnight. I picked Meg up at work at 11:00 so she was home to share it with us. James was out with friends but everyone else was home.

New Years Day was a bit snowy but we all ventured down to Patti's aunts for her annual Christmas Cookie decorating day. It's usually held before Christmas but it just didn't work out this year. The kids enjoyed playing around with icing and decorations and then we all enjoyed a lovely meal.

Tuesday evening we were guests at the local Lions Club where Meghan gave a speech about her experiences at Diabetes summer camp. They asked her a lot of questions after and presented her with a very nice certificate. She did a really great job and we were all very proud of her.

Wednesday, we traveled to Toronto. Patti and Meghan were going shopping while Tristen and I went to Medieval Times. That was his Christmas gift and he had no idea what to expect. Needless to say it exceeded his expectations and had a great time.

"Lord Tristen" being knighted before the show

Patti picked us up when it was over, and we headed over to the Eaton Centre. We were meeting Greg's sister Nancy, who was taking Meg for dinner, and then to a play. She was staying over at Nancy's and then took the bus back to Guelph in the morning.

I was pleased to have some time to visit with friends on Friday night, before meeting up with the family at the Storm Hockey game, and then off to Fran and Walt's on Saturday afternoon, before heading home later that night.

It was a really great week and I arrived back home in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Patti was flying to Paris around the same time as my flight to Charlottetown so it worked out very well.

Pizza on Sunday evening with the VanGaals and all is well.

Now it's time to get back into a normal routine, whatever that is!  We're heading to Halifax this week to spend a couple of days. James has a tour at Dalhousie so Patti and Greg are flying down with him and we'll meet up with them. Might as well make it a little bit of a vacation!