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.

Even though we were three provinces away, it was the home opening of the Winnipeg Jets. Wherever we go, we are Jets fans. This is In spite of the fact that when we met our Home Exchange hosts, they showed us the Canuck jersey hanging proudly in their front hall closet. The Jets won that evening and as I write this, they have set a record winning 14 out of 15 games at the beginning of this NHL season.

We were really feeling like locals that day. Doug was hard at work but when done for the day, we collected more provisions to enjoy the game with.

That evening as we were settling in, I notice pinks in the sky to the north. I hustled downstairs as fast as I could in my flip flops and Jets pajamas, to this glorious sunset!

We imagined what fun it would be to stay for longer visits at our fabulous home exchange condo.

Kath’s quote: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky

Love never fails.

It was our last full day and there was another gorgeous sunrise to get it going.

D made a sensational breakfast. He is a trained but uncertified chef. What he is particularly good at is repurposing leftovers in fresh and novel ways. Good thing, as we had a fridge full of food that we needed to use and distribute. He learned this when we owned a number of buffet restaurants back home.

I was glued to the suite. I wanted to soak everything in and bottle it up until our next travels. Plus, I only had a 1/4 left of my book and I wanted to finish it before we left.

During our twnty years visiting the island, I was always told to stay out of the ocean on the east side. I spotted someone enjoying the crashing waves that day. Joe had great water shoes to protect against the coral and enjoyed walking into the surf too.

We walked into Centro for our last sunset. I am so blessed that D and I love so many of the same pleasures in life. He is the reason we get to travel as often as we do. His hobby is finding affordable airfare, packages and offers and he has us listed on Home Exchange now, so we are trading our city and lake homes with other folks wanting to do the same. He is not yet retired, but can work anywhere in Canada, so we have a fabulous west coast adventure coming up this fall.

I always seem to take more photos closer to departure day. I guess it is my way of storing up these memories. I must have 1 Zillion sunset photos but it is never enough. I am always on the search for that “not to be missed” shot.

Many years ago, we made the mistake of not taking food with us to the airport. We paid a fortune for a ghastly pizza and so now we always plan ahead. We had declared Sonny’s was our favourite pizza on this this trip so we returned for dinner that evening.

We met my sister Sue for good byes and ice cream at Cafeteria Juanita la Bendicion , the blog link is attached.

We savoured our last glass of wine under the stars. Isla you give me so much. Each and every time.

Departure Day: I am never sad when I have to leave the island because I know that it will always be part of my life (in some way or another).

Our normal routine was followed that morning- D at tennis, me putskiing ( a made up word) and enjoying my last coffee while gazing at the turquoise sea.

After another yummy breakfast, we divided the spoils of our bar and kitchen and took 2 cabs in opposite directions.

Joe and Deb to join friends at Punta Sur and us to the ferry.

It was a rather uneventful way home.

What did I come back to? My D (husband for almost 40 years), my six wonderful kids (including 2 SILs and a DIL), my five amazing grandkids, my enormous family (50+), two homes (one in the city, one at the lake), my one church, two gardens to tend, satisfying work to do and hundreds of Isla pictures and thoughts and a thousand precious memories. There, I counted my blessings….

Kath’s quote: “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”― Terry Pratchett

Love never fails.

We stayed in bed a little late but the sunrise was later too. I couldn’t believe that all three of these images were of the same sunrise. I was particularly enamored by the bottom one-there is reflection on the sea but where did the light come from?

After coffee we headed into town for Island Church at Jax and then stayed for breakfast. I love Jackie’s glassware.

D put down those overflowing breakfast burritos and I went for more traditional fare. Jackie tells us that this would be a typical breakfast back home in Texas. I loved the crispy bacon and perfect home fries.

We visited Jax on our very first trip to Isla some twenty years ago. I mourn the loss of their view, when the day tripper place was built across the street and sits virtually empty when I am in the vicinity. But it still is one of the best places to wait for sunset.

We headed home for showers and a snack, then were back in town to visit Marina Bartolome for an early dinner. We were blown away! If you follow this link you will see that my friend Valerie and I connected years ago when they had 1000 Tacos, which was my favourite taco on the island, pre-Covid. https://foodmusings.ca/isla-mujeres/isla-mujeres-2024-restaurant-features-marina-bartolome/

Valerie’s husband returned from fishing as we were eating dinner. The guys headed to the dock to see his haul.

We have on occasion watched sunset from Marina Bartolome. It was just beginning to go down that day.

I captured the end of it from our deck at home. I was excited to “try” to watch the Oscars from our place but after an extended struggle, I gave up. Oh well. I had a lot of writing to do that evening anyway.

Kath’s quote: “Every sunset is also a sunrise. It all depends on where you stand.” – Karl Schmidt

Love never fails.

Another beautiful morning from the balcony.

My time wandering the shoreline wás disrupted by this poor turtle. At least it appeared to have lived a long life.

This morning’s reflection was of deck and the sea.

The pool was a lovely cool temperature but even that didn’t do the trick for me.

It was very humid and I felt a little off. I napped in the hammock with a fan on me. But then I had to start my day all over again with a shower and coffee!

D had a hankering for Happy Hour so we headed to Centro and our favourite spot. Can you tell where we were by this floor at its entrance?

My guy at El Patio. He fits right in on Isla because there are so many mid-westerners and he was born in Minnesota.

We love the party atmosphere at El Patio. I am sure glad that they worked through the noise issue because we have spent countless hours there over the years.

We love their HH for lots of reasons. Three are pictured here.

Had we stayed home for Happy Hour, this would have been our snack. We are crazy for these and we can’t buy them back home. Maybe I will see if we could order a case on Amazon…

We left in enough time for our other favourite Happy Hour. We love catching Ken W when he plays at Jax. It was packed, so we offered to share our table with a couple from Virginia. They are friends with my friend Mary from Cape Cod. How can this small island hold so many connections?

We met up with Karen and the rest of our gang for her last night on the island. She choose Adelita’s and we loved our dinner there!

We walked Hidalgo and then cabbed home. We were up later than usual.

Kath’s quote: In the grand tapestry of life, people are threads that weave in and out, creating a masterpiece of memories.” -Jonathon Rivers

Love never fails.