I remember those long trips fondly...although the girls may have less benign memories of being stuffed in the back seat of a Honda civic, or driving through the night in a cold trailer, sleeping in a tent through a Nashville tornado and various other adventures more pleasant in the retelling. In those years we went to New Orleans and Lafayette and Myrtle Beach and Austin and Nashville and Hot Springs and stayed in state park cabins and cooked shrimp and fish and ribs and listened to music and drove around the back roads and the girls danced the fais-do-do at Mulattes in Breaux Bridge....lots of good stuff...even though our lives were all a bit strange trying to rearrange various families after marital separations and after Matti died.

Hard to believe that it's ten years ago that we spent Christmas day in our ShadowCruiser fifth wheel in Guadeloupe state park in Texas. Christmas Eve we went into San Antonio where there was absolutely nothing happening...everyone being home with their families and the famous Riverwalk all quiet and deserted. The weather was lovely...warmish and later on we spent New Years Eve in Bandera Texas camping at Jellystone RV park...before the long trip home again...via Hot Springs Arkansas.

After a roast beef dinner with chocolate cheesecake for dessert, we sat around finishing the wine and talking about future plans...Robin is applying to grad school at York University...Gillian and Kate are between educational opportunities at the moment...

And for Tom, a warm plaid farmer-hunter-lumberjack insulated shirt...perfect for carrying in wood, snowshovelling, various outdoor country tasks.

They give us great stuff every year...books and music. Here I am ever so happy to receive the latest Emmylou CD...the one with Mark Knoffler, as well as a music DVD. There was also Margaret Atwoods' new collection of short stories and for Tom an Ian Rankin mystery and a biker t-shirt!

We gave them sensible gifts...new sheets for Gillian and Andy Cameron who are living in North Bay this winter between Brinkman tree planting projects...towels for Kate who has an apartment in Little Italy in Toronto with Neil (Sky King) the helicopter pilot in training, and warm fleezy pj's for Robin who is in dampish Halifax teaching a video course and editing her documentary. Come spring, they'll all be back in northern Ontario in the bush with the blackflies.

We had a lovely Christmas with Gillian, Kate and Robin on boxing day. Here they are, doing one of the things they do best....taking pictures of themselves as a threesome....and now with digital cameras they don't have to cram into a photobooth in a shopping mall as they used to in earlier days. We have some really bizarre pictures from those photobooth days!!!

This is Tom doing what he usually does when he isn't working, which is to read a book. This is our winter house where we live when it is too chilly to be in our summer house at the other end of the property. The summer house still has only minimal amenities and so is suitable only when we are very busy at the inn and don't spend much time there. The winter house has hi-speed internet, satellite tv, a telephone and a woodstove and so we live in relative luxury enjoying hockey on TSN and the CBC news almost every evening. Small luxuries perhaps but very enjoyable.

This personal blog begins, as a good blog should, with a picture of a favorite pet...this is one of our two favorite pets...the other is Spook who is a striped cat. This black creature is Stacia Stella Theresa Loretta Etmanski. She is named for her relatives on the maternal side of the family and her homestead is up on Dam Lake...on the other side. She came to us in a laundry basket along with her brother Stanislaus, who was a foolish wandering kitty and came to no good on the highway, as did his predecessor Aloysius. Now we have only girl kitties who are good and stay home.