recent occurrences

we spent the weekend in princeton, a nice little town between hope and penticton. thanksgiving was sunny in the interior, which made the chill at elevation a little less shocking.
these are old tunnels from the kettle valley railway

niko settled right in to our fully (if sparsely) furnished complimentary home complete with ballet/martial arts room in the basement.

there was a bear wandering around our back yard and through the hospital parking lot. at one point a nurse and i were watching it from about 6 feet away through the glass storm doors of the hospital. afterwards she tried to get us back into the building proper, but her pass wouldnt work! good thing the automatic doors didnt open after hours. i tried my temporary pass and got us back into the hospital. i had my camera and tried to get a picture of the bear as it ran across the parking lot and stood up against a tree, but in the few seconds i had i wasnt able to adjust the camera to be able to shoot from a lit room, through glass to a dark exterior, so the pictures i got were pretty useless. it was a small brown bear with really shaggy fur.

can you see the bear heading to the tree?
(hint - no, you cant see anything)

we were having a beautiful sunny drive back through manning park and sunshine valley, marred only slightly by turning the corner into the smoggy fraser valley, when we encountered a yellow xterra on hwy 1 with a 17 year old holding his entire body out of the driver side rear window at 120 km/hr. at first we were just annoyed at his disregard for the safety of others, but after the fourth time he leveraged himself out the window i was ready to run him over and keep driving. he was standing on the seat and either had someone holding his ankles or had his feet wedged against the door (i guess he trusts nissan's latches). we expected a vehicle full of teenagers, but as we drove by (so i wouldnt have to stop and/or get rear ended if he fell) kylie noted that the driver was a lady our age or older... who was laughing.

now we are home, and though thanksgiving day saw us eating grilled cheese sandwiches, granola and oreos, kylie just tried out shareen's delicious pumpkin cake, as well as chicken beside walnut stuffing with sage and little bits of italian sausage. mmm....

finally we will turn our attention to a shirt my mother gave me a few months ago from pioneer ranch camp. i worked at pioneer ranch for 2 summers (the place i sharpened both my orienteering and kayaking skills used recently) and thus i obviously carry a fondness for it, but that doesnt account for how much i like this shirt. i just really like it. i love the kid ripping it up in the sunshine.
after seeing pictures of me windsurfing in egypt last night our friend nolene commented "everywhere you go, you are always looking for something to do. that could be your motto... go play outside!"

thanks for the great shirt mom.