Alexandria, Mackenzie, Tammy, Everett, and Shane
Jim and his girls: Alicia, Tammy and Yvonne

We finally made it up to Williams Lake this weekend. We had a whirlwind visit with our girls and grandkids. Our newest grandson, Everett is super cute and getting ready to walk at any time. Alex and Mackenzie are doing well and looking forward to summer holidays. They have time booked with their grandparents and Dad in Alberta during July. We all hope to go to Barkerville in August. Tammy and Shane had a crew of guys to rip off their old deck and build a new one. They got it all done but the stairs and rails, so Shane's got a bit of work left to do. Alicia and Dan tried to stay in a tent on Friday night but got frozen, so they joined us in our hotel room for the rest of the weekend. That turned out nice as we got to spend more time together.

We were reminded of what a beautiful drive it is through the Fraser Canyon. This province is just so gorgeous.

The Anglezi boys fom Bordeaux, France were Yvonne's best friends last week. They all had so much fun together. They spent their days playing in the park, watching movies in English with French subtitles, playing ball, hockey, and swimming. It was an action packed week with kids to play with. It is so refreshing to see that the Europeans haven't succumbed to the North American way of raising kids. These three boys were absolute gentlemen and treated Yvonne fantastically. "Hats off" (salute!) to Natacha and Mark for doing a great job!!! We really enjoyed being neighbours and hope to meet up again. It was a lot of fun watching the kids play speaking half French and half English. Both Natacha and Mark are pilots, so I got to live vicariously through some of Natacha's gorgeous pictures of flying a C-172 over the Bordeaux area. We can't wait to visit Europe!! It was fun to swap flying stories with a fellow female pilot as there aren't many of us out there.

Stanley Park still shows a lot of evidence of the nasty storms that hit Vancouver this winter. Here is a link that has many pictures and a narrative of what happened here. There's some great views from the air that you just can't get during a drive. http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/parks/stanley/restoration/index.htm
We had a nice day to take a drive. It was supposed to be much warmer, but it stayed cloudy all day. We started the day with breakfast in bed for Mommy (and Yvonne). Then us girls stayed in bed to watch the "Little Women" DVD - one of Yvonne's favourites. We spent a couple ours outside painting pictures and organizing the arts and crafts bin. Then we took off for our downtown tour. The amount of new residential highrises around the Bayshore area leading to Stanley Park is absolutely amazing. I remember sitting on Pam's boat about 13 years ago and she got the first notice that all those buildings were in the works. They kicked all the live-aboard people off their boats and built residences for literally thousands of people. We hope that the next trunk of Skytrain will be from Waterfront out through that area of residences and over the area of the Lion's Gate Bridge (pictured above).
We are all well and enjoying being "home". Jim and I are very busy with work. Yvonne is being a great trouper hanging out with me all day and patiently awaiting my attention in between work tasks. She has also spent a few days at Auntie Carmen and Unlce Wayne's place which she is very happy about as she can play with Sarah after school. The difficult thing is trying to get her to come home!!

The bench at Mom and Dad's place, overlooking the pond

Yvonne's 5th Birthday on the Island was full of fun. Grandma did another treasure hunt, so Yvonne had to work a while to find all her presents. This year was a "Backyardigan's" theme. Mom did an awesome job of making a Pablo the Penguin cake. We didn't have the most fantastic weather, but at least it didn't rain on us. We got a glimpse into normal spring weather today (Monday May 7th) with 19 C which is about 60 F.

Yvonne got to have a sleepover at her cousin Marina's place on Saturday. They both had a great time, but woke up a bit tired on Sunday. They were late to bed and early to rise as per the normal excited child. We were treated with a juvenille eagle hunting over the ocean on Sunday morning. John and I got to watch him doing his thing for a couple hours. The kids then came out and did some gardening before the rain started.

As you can see by Yvonne's picture, we had a significant hair cut. Both of us got short at the shoulder bobs because we donated our hair to Locks of Love for kids who need real-hair wigs. Yvonne was so brave to get that 10 inches cut off. She says she will grow it again and donate it again. I showed her the website for Locks of Love which shows kids before and after wigs. It's nice for us as it's a much quicker comb-out every day!!!