Another Christmas

Christmas in Victoria is about as close as we'll ever get to Christmas in England - and it's only 20 miles away, as the crow flies.  Too bad there aren't enough crows to carry us.  So with Laurie and Kent, Laura and Bill, we loaded onto the ferry and sailed to a foreign land.

Of course it's usually all about the food and here are just some of the desserts in the Dining Room at Butchart Gardens. Santa whisked all the calories away and dumped them somewhere over the ocean.

 The snow began to fall just as we entered the Gardens, and this is what we saw when we left the restaurant.  Hard to get good pictures with the white stuff, but it was magical and glorious.

Happy Birthday to Canada.

Christmas morning from our hotel balcony.  Nothing exciting for you in the real snow, but unusual for us out here on the edge of the continent.

British Columbia Parliament 

Our front yard.  Nobody wanted to build a snowman.  Darn.  And it's all gone now.  

   Maybe I can get the neighbor kids to build one next time. 

Merry Christmas

 This tree is just the right size, doncha think?    Turns out this is the total decorating I've done this year, unless you count dragging all the boxes down from the attic and stacking them nicely in the overflow room.  I think that's a real good start. We've been to countless (well, countable, but I don't want to) plays and performances and concerts and dinners, but none of them at home, so those boxes might just stay right where they are until next December.  Bah-Humbug.

Al harvested his first garlic crop, thanks to the generosity of Paulette who shared her starters.

 I discovered a lazy way to make peppermint bark.  Much less messy than trying to break up an entire pan full of the goodness.  Drop a blob of melted chocolate, sprinkle some crushed candy canes (the hardest part is unwrapping the canes, the messiest part is crushing those sugary devils), then drop a glob of melted white chocolate, a bit more candy cane and that's that.  They look kind of funky but taste just as good.  A few of them fell into my mouth before I had a chance to get them bagged for gifting.  If only my mouth could stay closed more often.  For many reasons, but let's not go into that right now. 

This idea came to me in a dream.  Or was it online?  Yeah, that's it.  

Thank you, paint department.

Not a very good shot, but when I found out that Toys for Tots accepts scarves along with the baby blankets, I got busy.  Anything for the privilege of hugging a Marine!  Or Army, Navy, Coast Guard, cop, fire fighter.  Stop me before I hug again. 

Okay, that's enough silliness for now.  See you next year! 

Lost in the Patch

There has been such a frenzy of activity in the Patch that I don't even have to clean away all that fiber dust; it just gets caught in the whirlwind.    Not just mine, but Carol and Laura (Paulette left early) working on their projects, too.

 Teri sent Golden State Warriors fabric for bowl cozies and the leftover fabric just jumped into an apron.  Kind of makes your eyes cross, doesn't it?

 Nicole is going for her second hip replacement next week, so some of Paulette's wine fabric scraps found themselves in a tote bag.  And I learned how to print on fabric.  Stand back!

Al's final pepper of the season.  Kind of funky, but he did have fun with the Mr. Green Jeans routine and is still harvesting kale and potatoes and looking forward to putting his new knowledge to work next year.  I just read an article about a trend of young professionals moving to the country to become farmers.  He has always been ahead of the times.

The most recent needlepoint belt returned from the finishers.  Some Euler (who?) math equation I don't understand, even after hours of stitching all those numbers.  The only math I need to know is how many stitches per inch and how to get it charted on a spreadsheet,

 then hope I follow it correctly to the canvas.  Who would notice if I missed a number? Would you?

Luke and Kellan are finally getting their ornaments.  Sorry it took so long.  

And I finally got around to dying some yarn that has been patiently waiting for a few years.  The peachy one was done with Kool-Aid in the slow cooker,  the blue with food coloring in the microwave, and the tan with coffee on the stove.  It was fun but mostly what I learned is why it's worth it to pay extra for yarn dyed by the expert$.

Hot potato

 Al dug up a few potatoes and was pleased with his harvest, even though some of them were a little bit distorted.  They tasted fine,  just fine.    

Aren't these pretty?  There weren't enough to share, but they look so handsome.

The sad news.  A huge wind whipped around us for hours and hours,

causing the flag to suffer a broken collarbone.  It might be out for the season.

Lolling

 Where have I been?  I would tell you if I knew, but suddenly the time had flown by and here we are.  There was a quick weekend trip to Portland to visit Giano, Gary and Helen came to visit, then Al went back to Portland with Homer, leaving me home alone.  Oh, poor me!  Endless hours of quiet - what a calamity.  Poor, poor me.  I don't even have any good garden shots to share.  What a dolt I am turning into.  Or have I always been a dolt?  Don't answer that.  

 

 We did go to Chihuly Garden and Glass, which is just as gorgeous the hundred and nineteenth time, so I'll give you a bit of that and promise to be more interesting next post.  Really. 

Canadian Rockies

 Just a bunch of Canada beauty.  They are celebrating their 150th anniversary, doncha know. 

 Come on, people, don't I deserve a whole city?  At least a village, but, okay, let's  start with a street. 

 And a plaza. 

There is always a party, this time at our RV site in Jasper  National Park.  

Teri, Julie, Al, Robert, Willie.

 Then we got visitors.

Like good Canadians, most of them waited until we had tidied up our space.  The most I saw in one spot was nine, but there seemed to be dozens, wandering freely all around the park, apparently not bothered one little bit by all the people.  Food will do that.

A little update

We're now all the way to Banff but I'll be showing you the journey later when I have a stronger connection.  To tide you over, here is proof that Al is Al at every Costco in the world.

North again

We hauled Homer to the SEA airport to pick up Teri and Willie.  That's an interesting experience.  Have you ever seen RV parking at Arrivals?  

Lunch in Everson - doesn't it look like the entire city was waiting for us and saved a huge parking space right in front of City Hall?  Obviously they know who we are.

Back to Canada, but this time the border crossing was easy.  The officer even complimented Al on knowing the routine so well.  Thank you.

There are 126 wild fires burning in British Columbia.  126!  With heavy smoke everywhere, even in Sequim.  finally, just before Kamloops, it cleared, but the people tell us it's the first time in a month, so our timing is good.

It was amazing to see just where the smoke gave way to clear blue skies.  Yes, that is the sun, working so hard to cast a few rays.