We have decided to not fly for holidays anymore and to make do with less because after all, more isn’t the path to happiness anyway! I do believe the simplest life is the most environmentally friendly and least expensive too. Just as buying organically grown food that isn’t processed is better for our bodies, it is also more sustainable and better for the environment too! Okay, that is enough of a minor rant and expression of opinion to suffice awhile.

This next year we are hoping to grow most of our own food, and perhaps have some to share. Family time is going to take a priority. And we will see where that all takes us. Small steps we know, but still better than pretending nothing is wrong in this world.

After our move south, we are also quite happy to be in one piece and alive! We got caught in a snow storm on Pink Mountain and that two hour drive was extremely scary. Lawrie did an amazing job of driving and luck was with us to be sure! Then driving into Calgary we got caught in another snow storm and barely avoided a collision next to another accident scene, whew that was very close too. After two days in Calgary we left for Medicine Hat and what we thought was the safest route to Saskatoon. Unfortunately there proved to be blizzard conditions that way and not a lot of fun, though no near accidents this time. It did take us 12 hours to get to Saskatoon, about double the normal time! A trip to remember …

After a month at our new home in rural Saskatchewan, we are settled in and have our garden mostly planted. It was lots of work, but we are comfortable and don’t need for anything though Lawrie thinks he would like a television station or two in the winter. Right now we are able to watch DVDs and that is it. Somehow we didn’t manage to connect the VCR up correctly and so that doesn’t work just yet. There aren’t any radio stations getting picked up on the stereo system either, but we are sure that is a misconnection rather than an absence of stations.

The Os are very happy with their new home. They do have a great time chasing each other around the yard. Grass is very good for this activity. They still love to hear us suggest it is walk time though, so we aren’t off the hook for that activity.

I’m having a hard time blogging these days but I would like to work at photography and this is a good way to archive some of it. Maybe I won’t worry about having anything significant to say? If that was ever important it wasn’t stated, so no real change there I guess! If you are looking for photos and they are a mess, it is because we upgraded WordPress and now Coppermine (the photo plugin) coding is all wrong. My website guru (son Chris) is looking for time to fix all this, so patience is the order of the day.

This wonderful quote comes from having dinner on Sunday night at Foundations, a vegetarian restaurant in Vancouver. I guess I should back up and say why we were there, otherwise the point of writing this entry will be for naught!

We have been looking for some time now at the possiblity of joining an ecovillage when we finish working at our current jobs. This comes from a whole-hearted agreement of the principles of the ecovillages we have researched. So long story short, we went to Vancouver and then on to Chilliwack where there is the Yarrow Ecovillage Society. We met with their spokesperson and had a tour. We think we may have found our future!

The rest of the weekend was spent with Ruth and Doug (sister and brother-in-law) who live in Mission. We had our very first Wherry rowing lessons and generally enjoyed every minute of our weekend away. Including a trip to MEC, Kidsbooks, and Foundations, which is where I started! Do put this restaurant on your to do list … I’m certainly looking forward to my next trip to Vancouver.

I just had to share this, it resonates with me!