Only another 364 sleeps to go !!!

1st Christmas in our own house

Walking the dog at -20, remember to dress warm

Gizmo with his Christmas bone

No more turkey sandwiches for us, its all gone in the curry

Oh well the big day has come and gone, Boxing Day is here and its time to start eating turkey salads and try to walk off some of that Christmas dinner from yesterday.

Luke has been keeping hisself to himself, testing out all his christmas prezzies, hes now got is own fancy digital phone in his room that he can even send IM and IV across MSN, he's been running round filming everything with his video camera and it took both of us to set up his new telescope with its equatorial mount, barlow filters and other thingamywotsits.

Tonight we are setting it up outside and doing a bit of star-gazing, we got all the star charts ready and using Google Sky so hopefully we should know what we are doing.

I have heard there is a particlarly strong solar wind coming out of Uranus at the moment.........

Must have been too much Christmas pudding Muhahahahahahhah !!!

Anyway its pretty much cloudless at the moment and its just dropping dark, weve just come back from walking Gizmo, there is a fantastic path towards the south end of town and thats the one we normally use. Trouble is though not many people have used it recently so it was a case of trudging thru snow about 2 feet deep, we marched a mile out towards the resevoir but when we got there we were all exhausted, even Gizmo was knackered and covered in snow, in the deep bits he completely disapeared, he absolutely loved it. Anyway we decided to use the roads to come back in and i think even Gizmo was glad.

Gizmo is on the sofa at the moment cuddling his Christmas bone, i dont reckon he will move now for the rest of the night.

Winter freakin' Wonderland

Okay thats it i am officially bored with the snow, can somebody please now take it all away. Its 10:00 in the morning and i have managed to get the car stuck in 3 snow drifts. The first time was when i dropped Jan off at work, i tried to take a short cut round the servicing bay and hit some deep snow, i thought if i hit it at a bit of a run i could just slide thru it. This worked fine for the first 6 feet then i ground to a halt.

Luckily a bit of deft direction changing, waggling the steers and some swearing did the job and about 5 minutes later i got thru it. Trouble was i was now on a good piece of road but with deep snow in fron and behind.

There was only one thing for it, i hit the gas, there was a spinning of wheels, a big cloud of powdered snow and as the cloud cleared i was miraculasly on the other side of the drift.

The second time was back in Raymond, there was a bit of deep snow between me and where i wanted to be so i over confidently hit it fast and again ended up stuck in the middle. This time i knew excactly what to do...............

Rock the gears, waggle the steers and swear really loudly, and yes it worked again.

The third time was on purpose (okay more on purpose) i was helping out a friend by giving them a boost, the cables were only 12 foot so i had to get right up their drive, and there was a snow drift either side. The plan was to stick my car in the snow drift, boost his truck and he pulls me out, excellent plan eh?

Well i must say i did an excellent job of getting the car stuck again, right up to the headlights. This time it took a few swings of a snow shovel and a bit of a shove to get me going again.

Now i am back a home and enjoying a bacon sadwich and a french vanilla coffee.

The Cup 'n Saucer

Met up with Steve W today and went over to the Cup 'n Saucer for a coffee and a bite to eat.

This quaint little coffee shop is owned by Marga, who is Steve's better half. Anyway, in we went and sampled the culinary delights within.

I was amazed with this place, its got a sort of European theme and seems half English and half dutch, which is hardly surprising since Steve is English and Marga is Dutch.

If you go in there try the Italian coffee, it is beautifully presented and tastes great. Marga makes all the food herself, try the garlic dip it is superb.

They do a fantastic English breakfast too so why not get yourselves down there and give it your support.

The Cup' N Saucer
309 - 7 Street South
Lethbridge

AB T1J 0P1

Canada

Snow Banks at Walmart

Got Snow ???

Accepted For Permanent Residency

At last, just got an email thru from CIC, our application for PR has been accepted. This is a huge weight of our shoulders as it means we are good to stay in Canada. Up to now we have been on Temporary Work Permits which means you can only stay for 24 months then you have to leave for 4 months.

There are also other implications if we didnt get accepted, like when our present visas run out, jan would lose the right to work, we would not get permenant SIN numbers which makes obtaining credit difficult.

So thats it the waiting is over, all we got to do now is send our passports off to Seattle and when they come back we have to take a little trip down to the border, go round the flagpole and re-enter Canada to be welcomed back as Permenant Residents.

Gizmo in the snow

Goldfish funeral - enjoy