Long time - no post

I guess we must have been busy.

Marlan was out here for a week with his friend Mitch and his family. He mixed his time between them, us and all of us. They had their boat out here too but didn't use it much because I think they liked ours better. The boys spent as much time as they could manage about 55 feet behind our boat. They are both really strong wakeboarders so it was fun to watch them doing their thing on the water.

Marilyn has also turned into a wakeboarding fool. She gets out every chance she has and doesn't want to come out of the water once she gets over the initial cold shock. It hasn't been really warm out here until the last week or so which leaves the water temperatures a little below what we are used to out here. The river is also still higher than usual for this time of year but it is starting to drop fast now.

Last week I went back to Saskatchewan for a few days to meet with some FCC clients in SW Sask. I had a quick visit with Mom & Dad at the same time. Marilyn took me to Kelowna and picked me up there. We had supper with Fred and Shawna when I got back. We hadn't seen Shawna for several years but we did see Fred at Anne's 100th birthday last summer.

Jorgito has a new friend. There are a couple of families here now that we know from previous trips out here. They have a collie pup - maybe 2 months old. It is an absolute cutie and I think George even likes it a bit too. Despite the fact that its favorite thing to do when they get together is chew on George's tail. He puts up with that for a while and then smacks it but I'm sure he realizes that it is a puppy because he is pretty gentle when he disciplines it. Last night I was over visiting the pup's owners and their young daughters took George and the pup for a "walk". It was a walk in name only because George really only walks for me and the pup clearly doesn't have a clue about walking on a leash yet. I think most of the time both of them were getting carried except for when George thought they were headed for the bus. On those occasions he led the way.

Our days are full - we try to work a full day on Sask. time and then play well into the evening on BC time. Yesterday I took a couple of hours off in the morning to take the puppy's owners and girls out on the river. We got mom up on skis and the youngest girl (6 maybe) up on skis. Her older sister and cousin got up on the boom but couldn't master the short line so the little girl was pretty proud of herself. I'm always surprised by the difference in what kids master and at what speed. Before we went on the water I would have bet that the little girl wouldn't even get up on the boom. The smallest skis we have are clearly too big for her and little kids usually don't have the coordination to manage floating in the water, controlling their legs and skis and keeping their arms out for long enough to get started. She did that with flying colours while her older siblings just couldn't get it all together. I told them we would take them out again on Thursday so that they can practice what they learned. I find that kids generally do much better the second time out. It seems as though sleeping on the new skills allows their brain to process what they are doing and the second time out it becomes much easier for them. The little one is convinced that she can get up on the long line now and she may just be right. We'll see. Meanwhile mom is hooked on skiing and can't wait to get out again despite getting two big bruises on her thigh and somehow managing to smash her knuckles between the ski and the handle - I'm not sure what was going on there - she was explaining it to me last night but I still don't know how she did it. It certainly hasn't dampened her enthusiasm so I guess it can't have been too bad.

It sounds like we will be changing our travel plans. Mom & dad are going through a bad spell so we will likely end up back in Regina for August. We're are still semi-expecting RJ out here for the August long weekend but after that our plans are fairly flexible.