A Family Time

We’ve been coming to the valley for five winters and never had a visitor from back home.  That all changed last week when we had an influx of Fishers to the Rio Grande Valley. My brother Ed arrived from Newfoundland with his girlfriend Julie and within 24 hours sister Jan arrived from Calgary.

Yours truly, Sister Jan, Brother Ed

Neal. Bernie, Jan, Julie, Ed

Coincidence ONE. Both Ed and Jan decided, with no consultation with each other, on the dates they would come down. After flights were booked they happily found out they would be here at the same time.

Coincidence TWO. They both decided to stay, without talking to each other, at a neighbouring resort called Victoria Palms.

Coincidence THREE. Brother Ed and Julie stayed with her Uncle and Aunt, while Sister Jan stayed with friends, who live just around the corner from each other.

So figure out the odds on this. In Canada they live 3500, maybe 4000 miles from each other, and end up in the same resort, at the same time, within a few doors of each other. I think the odds of winning the lotto are higher than that.


Dinner one night with Julie's Uncle, Aunt, and friends.

In Front Julie, Ed

Standing, Sterling and Joan (Newfoundland,) Bernie and I, Sherry Skippy, (real Texans - born and raised here)

Julie and Ed cooked us a Newfie (Newfoundland) dinner and we ate WAY too much. A Newfie dinner can mean different things depending on what part of Newfoundland you come from. I had fears of some kind of a fish boiled in a big pot with ?  :-)  As a very pleasant surprise it was a roast beef meal, great food, not unlike what a prairie (heartland) boy like me was raised on. The problem was, as usual, I ate way too much. We might have to get a bigger truck to roll me out of the valley this year.

At the time I’m writing this Jan has headed back to the “cold” North and Ed is still here for a few days. The cold North??????????? Figure this out - it’s warmer in Calgary than it is here today???????

BUT - life is good in Texas.

Plans are well underway for the trip back North. We were planning to leave here on the 15th of Feb., but are setting it back a week for another visitor (more on that later) and will now leave on Feb 21 or 22. The plan is to push pretty hard to Tucson. We’ll spend a week or so in Arizona, and then head over to Las Vegas and Death Valley for a few days. From Vegas, a good steady trip North through California, Oregon, and Washington.  We plan to be in B.C. about March 15th. We plan to spend a month with our kids/grand kids/friends in the lower mainland before heading to Calgary for a few days and back to Winnipeg for May 1st.

Everything is pretty well set. We still want to get an oil change on the truck before we put all those hard miles on her, and Bernie MUST get over to the Outlet Mall once before we go. Other than those two “must do’s” we’re good to go. I’m kind of excited to get back on the road. We’ll miss our friends here but something in my old body likes to keep moving. I blame it on all of those years I spent tied to a desk. More likely it’s a flaw in my character but we’ll blame it on the desk.

So that’s it for today, we’re off to a dance lesson, then a dance and then to dinner with friends. Tuesdays are fun days.

Thanks for stopping by and please do leave a comment when you can.

Neal and Bernie