It's been a while since I've updated the blog, almost three months. Nothing tragic has happened nor anything exciting, so I guess that's why I've been lazy. Something exciting is going to happen in less than two weeks so that's got me thinking I need to get back in the habit of updating the blog. Almost everyone knows the exciting thing is a trip to New Zealand. Our itinerary is in hand, New Zealand dollars are ordered, the suitcases are on the spare bed and "stuff" is being put in them, the "to do" list and "things to pack list" have been started. A new thing for me is the "fitting comfortably into my travel pants" thing. In the three months since our fall trip I guess I've exercised less and eaten more putting on a couple of pounds, just enough to make doing the button up on the travel pants a little challenging. To accomplish my goal I've upped the amount of exercise I do every day and stopped snacking --- no chocolate, no added sugar, no pick me up cheese and crackers and definitely no ice cream or dessert. Cross your fingers that my will power is strong enough to last two weeks and that I'm doing enough to drop those couple of pounds.

I might have to take back the "nothing exciting" has happened at least for Ed. A couple of days after we arrived home from our trip the US Ed boarded a plane for the Turks and Caicos Islands with our friend Chris. Chris owns a house on Provideniciales, one of the islands in TCI. Chris was going down to do a few repairs and get the house ready for the winter renters and asked if Ed wanted to go with him. Perfect vacation for Ed --- get out of the yucky November weather and get to putter and fix things for six days.

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The man who built this house for Chris and Tina was a local, he told them what kind of house would survive hurricanes, they took his advise and it survived one of the worst hurricanes ever.

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The hurricane destroyed a lot of the vegetation on the island but it only took a few weeks before the vegetation had regrown and plants were flowering.

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The islanders were busy repairing the damage but there were still a lot of tarps covering damaged roofs.

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Spaghetti wires. Ed managed to tear himself away from puttering to find a couple of geocaches.

While Ed was away Victor was volunteered to work on the Airport float for the local Santa Claus parades. When Ed returned home from TCI, Victor quickly recruited him to help with the float.

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I think the guys did a great job. The picture taken in the hanger was much better than the picture taken during the parade (it was snow / raining during the parade).

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What's a parade without Santa.

My cousin's wife agreed to make me a quilt this winter. I finally picked a pattern and her local quilt shop was having a sale so I decided to drive the three hours to her house on the far side of Toronto. Ed hadn't seen his sister for quite awhile so I dropped him off at a subway station near the highway in Toronto and he spend the day with his sister Sonya.

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Sonya's cat Whiskey.

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The airport held it's annual Christmas dance. A few of the pilots are talented musicians so they provided the music. It's been a long time since I danced and I don't think I've ever danced in winter boots but when Mike asked me to dance I said yes --- I don't think he'll ask me dance ever again.

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Every winter Owen Sound has a Festival of Lights. We arrived a little before the lights were turned on so we could look for a few geocaches. One cache was near the Chi-Cheemaun. This was the first time we've seen the new paint job. I think it's amazing.

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This was the most fascinating of the light displays. The light tubes (not sure what they are actually) would turn on, turn off, change colour all to music that was being played. There may have been individual lights in the tubes as one strand could show many colours at the same time. I think we stood there for ten minutes and if it hadn't been so cold we probably would have stood there longer.

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Ed and I spent Christmas Eve at Chris and Tina's house. These are two of their cats, Tony is sitting on the chair and Percy (the kitten) is underneath. The game is to not fall off the chair while swatting Tony's tail.

Christmas Day was spent at my mother's house where we had enjoyed a nice visit and a very good dinner but didn't take photos.

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No we didn't get a new dog. This is Riley who lives two doors down. Normally there is family around to take care of him when mom and dad go away but today the entire family was driving to Burlington for Boxing Day dinner so Riley spent a few hours with us.

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A cool but sunny day, actually quite perfect for snow shoeing at Brant Tract.

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Another sunny day, this time we took a walk down by the river.

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Even though it's been cold the river hasn't frozen.

Happy New Year!!!! 2018 has arrived and brought more snow with it.

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Since these photos were taken the temperature has gone above freezing, it's rained then snowed a bit. We still have lots of snow but definitely less than we had.