Here’s our look at the year that was.

Right after New Year’s in January we headed out to the Gimli area and one of our “homes away from home”-Aaron’s on the Lake, Bed and Breakfast, where we occasionally help out as Guest Innkeepers.

Since D works remotely and can work anywhere in Canada, he is able to work after we feed the guests breakfast. I assist him in the kitchen and serve the guests. We have met so many amazing people. But there actually weren’t many guests booked and some days felt like a winter vacation.

Bekah and her “littles” came out to stay with us a couple of nights because when we are innkeepers we get the whole house to ourselves. I think Bekah enjoyed the break as husband Seb works shifts at his job with the Winnipeg Police.

As the house sits right on Lake Winnipeg (right across the lake from where our place is at Lester), we watch amazing sunrises.

The rest of January and the beginning of February we celebrated Doug’s, Josie’s and Seb’s birthdays (the latter in advance).

For J’s birthday D often takes the grandkids for a night in a hotel that has water slides. They look forward to the weekend all year.

Maybe this year, this Wee One will be able to join them.

The grandkids love to do activities together. L and F took the same creative movement class last year.

Beautiful J is taking after her Mom with her long, lean body just made for dancing.

Speaking of beautiful, this was J & J’s youngest at Seb’s birthday party.

By mid February, I was off to meet friends and family in Isla Mujeres.

D joined us in March as well as his sister Deb and her fiancée Joe. Together we had an amazing and restful time.

Before and after Isla Mujeres our city house was occupied by a family moving to Winnipeg from Vancouver Island. We stayed at K and B’s homes

and spent some time at the lake while this occurred.

We wanted to be in the city in May this year. I planned to redo a couple of my city gardens and besides Mother’s Day, there were six family birthdays in May

including the first birthday of the newest family member which was combined with her brothers’. B celebrated hers as well, along with starting a new job with an all female owned brewery.

K and T don’t get out to the lake very often but they did come for May long when we celebrated J’s bday.

Then we were back home and in our lovely yard in time for my birthday.

We also tried to beautify LIG (Life is Good) -our beach house. D put in grass seed so we could try to keep the sand out of the house (it may be a losing battle). We purchased a new barbeque/grill/pizza oven and do most of our cooking outside. D hopes to add a sink and canopy this year.

Beautiful B takes after me, and her Auntie K and always has her nose in a book, often under an umbrella in the shade on our deck.

J and J sold their lake house and moved their hot tub onto our deck.

We also spend time at Sister #2’s pool as she and her husband M have a permanent home at Lester Beach.

Sister #3 often comes and joins us at the lake. She too is fond of K & M’s pool (and us of course).

Poppa is always dreaming up things that the grandkids would get a kick out of like letting them sit in the box of the truck

or making donuts.

We love everything about our inland sea

but especially that the “littles” get to experience lake life with their cousins.

In mid summer, we were once again obtained to be guest innkeepers at Aaron’s on the Lake. We invited Torontonians Richard and Melinda to stay with us. Doug’s brother David (another Torontonian), sister Lori and his Mom also paid us a visit.

Shortly thereafter, we joined Laura and Derek (pictured here) at Richard & Melinda’s Willard Lake house for our annual visit.

D and I love the chaos of everyone at the beach house at the same time, but we love our alone time and watching sunsets too. This evening was on the occasion of our 40th wedding anniversary. That’s a lot of sunsets!

Once back in the city we host Sunday suppers now that we have an expandable table that seats 14! As you can see, a lot of our family time is spent breaking bread together.

In late September, D and I spent 24 days in BC staying with friends and at various Home Exchanges. We had a wonderful time enjoying the area when D completed his remote work days. I wrote a lengthy trip report on the blog that you may want to check out.

And now we have come full circle and it is Christmas again. Here are J and I recently at her first Jets game.

We had our first of many Christmas get togethers last week. It reminds me of all the wonderful people in our life whom we love dearly. If you are reading this, you are one of them too.

Kath’s quote: “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.’” —Luke 2:10

Love never fails.

We had to start winding our way back home, so we left Victoria with the assistance of our dear Brett who drove us to Swartz Bay to catch the ferry. When we arrived in Tsawwassen, we grabbed an uber for a one night stay at a cozy little spot nearby.

When you are a member of Home Exchange you can either swap homes as we did for this sojourn or “pay” with points that you accumulate by inviting people to stay in your home. This stay was the latter arrangement. In fact, this person operates her home as an Air BnB and it was the very first time “exchanging”.

The BC lower mainland was hit by an atmospheric rain “bomb” in time for our arrival in Tsawwassen. We were in time for tea so we fixed a pot and sat here while we listened to the rain on the acrylic sunroom roof.

We had found ourselves in so many beds over the trip, that we truly didn’t mind sleeping in these singles. The bedding was luxurious and that is the most important thing in a home exchange anyway.

The bathroom was enormous with a multi person soaker tub under a moon roof. Just outside the bathroom door, this hallway had been converted to a cozy library and TV room. Since it was a Sunday, D had to get caught up on the NFL. We ordered pizza and continued listening to the pouring rain.

The next morning while we waited for our cab to the airport, there was a brief break in the rain. We were able to imagine what a longer stay would be like in Tsawwassen in the comfortable garden and outdoor space.

The cab took a bit of time so I wanted to see what was at the end of a short path, across the street. Much to my surprise, it was an expansive beach and the ocean! Who knew?

Thank you so much to our wonderful Home Exchangers and to Nancy Milner and Brett Cane for being amazing tour guides and in Nancy’s case, opening her home to us. And to Rebecca Ifland and the entire Ifland family who were our hosts in every way in Seattle. We love you all so much! We live in an amazing part of the world! We are already planning next fall’s trip to the Okanagan and our first Home Exchangers arrive in 2 weeks!

If you have been reading since the first day, you will see that our experiment worked!

Kath’s quote: “If you go anywhere, even paradise, you will miss your home.“-Malala Yousafzal

Love never fails.

The day prior, our tour guide Brett tried to get us into Government House. He pulled in and told the parking valet that we were going to just nip in for a quick look. “Oh no you are not”, said the gentlemen. They were hosting a VIP event and wondered how we even made it onto the property. On this last full day in Victoria and with our own set of wheels, we revisited the grounds. I most wanted to see the gardens, which were exquisite.

Prince William and Princess Catherine have been over night guests to the BC Lieutenant Governor’s home.

Government House gardens were still green and lush, even without the peak of the summer’s blossoms.

We had also driven by Craigdarroch Castle the day prior, but I had not been able to capture its slendour with my camera. That morning provided a second look.

It is said to be “Canada’s Castle”, trumping Toronto’s Casa Loma, I presume.

It was a short drive, but a long search for parking at the Empress Hotel. Their flowers were still at their peak. We walked passed the former lobby which now houses the tea room where an extravagant tea spread is served daily. It was tempting but not worth the investment (IMHO). I have a good friend back home who is British and who I could have High Tea with, any time.

The Empress is certainly a grand hotel though.

So too is the provincial Legislature, just kiddie corner from the hotel on Victoria’s renowned harbour.

While we visited the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, a gentleman conducting a private tour, was listing the accolades of Canada’s David Foster who not only produced albums for Celine Dion (that is who accompanied her on piano at the closing ceremonies of this summer’s Olympics) but also Michael Bublé, Bryan Adams and (not a Canadian) but my fav singer in the world-Josh Groban and my second fave male singer-Kenny Loggins.

We found Oak Bay’s Snug Pub were Happy Hour was well underway. It proved to be our last indulgence of truffle fries!

D had indulged me all day with destinations and stops of my choosing so I asked him to decide about our last visit. It was across town, to Driftwood Craft Brewery. Being a Crat Beer aficionado he had heard of their delicious offerings for a number of years. We enjoyed a second snack of yummy dumplings and called it a day.

Kath’s quote: “Don‘t cry because it‘s over. Smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

Love never fails.

As soon as D was finished work, we set out on foot to discover a bit of our downtown neighbourhood. We were delighted by the many bookstores and cafes. In fact we thought the two bookstores that we dropped in at were a couple of the best we have visited across Canada. Bookstores are kinda our thing. When we had a young family and were always broke, we would go on bookstore dates, where we would spend the evening browsing the shelves, making notes and then ordering reserving them at the library. Likely the oldest and most popular cafe was the Dutch Bakery where we didn’t linger but shared a Nanaimo Bar. Because? We were on Vancouver Island and just a drive south from Nanaimo, BC where the bar was invented. But in truth, I find every reason I can think of for a Nanaimo treat.

Victoria very much reminded us of our European travels. The locals do their daily shop from specialty to specialty store. They were wrapped in cashmere, Irish linen and smart looking hats. It made me want to buy a hat, which I did the next day (from one of their many wonderful thrift shops).

We headed home for a late lunch and then were picked up by a dear friend, formerly of our home town Winnipeg. He escorted us on a hop in, hop out tour that was magnificent. He had all kinds of stories and anecdotes to share with us.

The photos above were from his historic Parish Church in Saanich-St. Stevens. If he hadn’t escorted us, we would have missed it because it was at the end of a lane in the rural area of Saanich adjacent to a beautiful Indigenous property.

One of his stories was that when Harry and Meagan first made their escape from Britain, they stayed in a home just further up the road.

Every place I caught a glimpse of water and mountains (I am a prairie girl after all), I took a picture. Later when sorting through, I couldn’t really tell where I was, except for the four pictures above, which were the 360 degree view from Mount Tolmie.

As we toured the beautiful homes of Oak Bay and the Uplands, we often ran into deer that seemed quite content in this “urban” setting. I say urban in quotes because there were permanent residence communities but they were surrounded by pieces of forest and the ocean, so it didn’t feel urban all the time.

We walked a little at Cattle Point where the clever sculpture (above) was located. The sun was setting and we had dinner plans with more former Winnipeggers, so we ended the tour not because we had seen everywhere that Brett had on the itinerary but because we were all getting hungry!

We dined at a very old and popular Italian restaurant. D and I had baked spaghetti. But our friends who dine there often, chose nachos and burgers.

It truly was a perfect day-being in the company of old friends and seeing a city in our own country that we have long admired. We had both been to Victoria before, but felt like this was the first visit where we really got to know this amazing city.

Kath’s quote: The key to a wonderful life is never stop wandering into wonder.”-Suzy Kaseem

Captured this while when we slipped into a little shop on this day.

Love never fails

The day commenced with D at yet another remote work station.

I busied myself with laundry and leaving the house exactly as we found it (the Golden Rule when you are a Home Exchanger).

Then enjoyed the sun until it was time to head back to Victoria.

Once again, the journey was as wonderful as the destination.

We had lost count of the number of different beds that we had slept in. Oohh, poor us….

The weather had turned and was cool and rainy for the first couple of days of our stay. When the weather improved, we went on a whirlwind tour of Victoria. Either way, we never got to sit on their cozy outdoor space.

Do you remember my saying that everywhere I go, I find a favourite seat to perch in with my coffee, reading or journaling. The chaise lounge in the upper corner of this room became “my” place.

Even though the kitchen was beautifully equipped, we decided to order in that evening. What I really mean to say is….we decided what we had a yearning for and then D went out on foot to make that happen. Did I mention that there was a Craft Brewery that he was aware of in the vicinity?

We researched where you could find Victoria’s best fish and chips. We were thrown off by Trip Advisor and D ordered at Red Fish Blue Fish instead of heeding a friend’s advice and checking out Barb’s. Deemed “the best fish and chips in Victoria for 40 years”, how could we have been swayed? Red Fish Blue Fish’s were good but I prefer fish and chips with pickerel that I can have at the lake, much, MUCH more!

We discovered that their entertainment choices included Apple, so we cozied up for a Slow Horses marathon. That came very close to what we would have done had we been home. And that is the way we like to travel.

Kath’s quote: “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old familiar pillow.”-unknown

Love never fails.