There has been a lot of conversation here in Victoria on the immigration front. I'll post a link to an article I read today. It brings up some interesting points of view. http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=dfb14d71-fb05-4808-87e9-b0f17c5f7b1b

(Belated)Happy Thanksgiving!

Last weekend we celebrated Thanksgiving with our friends Heather and Darren. Darren rotisserie cooked the turkey and it came out fabulous!

We had all the fixings and plenty of wine to celebrate our first Thanksgiving in Canada.

It somehow makes more sense to me to have Thanksgiving before Halloween. You have the cornucopia with all the bounty of the harvest first and then the dead scary bundles of cornstalks later.

These are some pictures of the day. I know you will be able to tell what a good time we had by the laughter and smiles.

Diane had a big important lunch with the owner of her global company. She wore a blue pinstriped suit and looked very nice. She said it was very pleasant and she got on with him very nicely.

We are continuing our 7k walk on a weekly basis. We took Montana and Majik today. Heather brought her boxer, Jackson and Ann brought Westie Maggie and houseguest Westie Wilkie. The weather is beautiful with crisp autumn in the air and maple leaves turning every shade of yellow to red. Some leaves are as big as your head. Ann pointed out the eagles nest on the walk. It looks about 4 feet in diameter. No signs of eagles now, but Ann says they have used the nest for several years.

We bottled wine again last night. This time a California Zin. Right now the wine count in our cellar is about 623 with another 120 in the works. Diane says the goal is to have about 1000 bottles on hand at all times. Okay. If anything ever happens to us, Heather and Darren are directed to come and get the wine first thing. We have a small cellar and a large underbelly in the basement that we store the wine in.

Work is work. Some days are better than others. It is very nice to have a paycheck to help support our house in the States. When it sells, we will re-evaluate the whole working fulltime thing for me. This is a lot of house to try to keep up with on the short weekends alone.

That is it for now. I’m off to shop online with L. L. Bean, who is offering free shipping to Canada for a limited time.

The bounty of VanIsle as in the picture above. Items purchased in the Saanich Market on Saturday mornings. We have soooooo many tomatoes from our own vines that I'm making spaghetti sauce and salsa today to try and use them.

We have been invited to join a group of friends on a weekly dog walk, at a spot we don't want to advertise since it is virtually undiscovered at this point. The walk is about 7k give or take a little. This was our second week of the walk. I thought I would share some of the beautiful scenery that we saw.

The new job is going okay. I still don't know how well I fit in there, so I'm giving it a while to see. Things are done much differently there than I am used to, so I am definitely out of my comfort zone. I will give it my best shot.

I've been reading all the blogs but have just been overwhelmingly busy. I'm hoping for good news on the last of the 'family' to get the green light to move to Vancouver.

Now if all of our US houses/real estate could sell before the Loonie gets any stronger . . .