Road Trip Anyone?

I'm not even quite sure how to begin this entry as my brain's swarming with so many things, particularly this week. I don't even have a title as I write this so be warned, there's bound to be extensive babbling broken up by some pictures.

I think the reality of being a 30 something singleton in a small, sleepy community that they have the nerve to label a city has hit home. From comments I've heard back, some of you didn't realise that Scott and I have been broken up for a couple of months. Don't worry, it's a good and mutual thing, we make better friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. But his leaving has made me realise that life as a single person on the Miramichi leaves something to be desired. Let's see, my options are; 1) Young men that like to play video games, 2) Married men or those that are in a relationship, 3) Someone who's gay or bi, 4) Someone that's strung out on drugs and spending their spare time at the methodone clinic. Needless to say, none of the above are relationships I'm interested in persuing!

I know I've spent five years travelling abroad but being back home has brought the reality back as to why. I've spent the last week trying to get some brainstorming done for a roadtrip. Thoughts of a trip to Ontario to get to see Matt, Brian and Brent seemed like a great idea until the voice of reality (otherwise known as Darcy) intervened. Yup, it could get a little costly 'cause no matter how much we kid ourselves, we're not going there without wanting to do, "things." We're also working very hard at getting a trip in to Gornish to see Coll and Dan but storms and days off keep rearing their twisted heads. We thought that during a trip to Gornish we could head over to Crabbe Mountain to participate in a little bit of skiing but Liss and her fear of heights don't make for a good ski trip. Of course, any time I'm ever skiing it's take a couple of runs then head to the lodge for a few cups of courage. I don't think Liss'd be real happy about being abandoned in the lodge all day by herself though. Wanna keep her company Coll?

So the best I could come up with was Italy. Needless to say, my friends won't be accompanying me on this, ummm, roadtrip but it's somewhere I've always been drawn to. My dating record has paired me up with three different Italian men (love them) and I love the food so no major culture shock. Not to mention the beauty of the place. It's a win-win situation, right?

Please don't get me wrong, I love all my friends dearly and any girl would thank her lucky stars to have been so blessed with such a wonderful motley crue for entertainment. But there has got to be more to life than this. I've come to the conclusion that we're going to have to take all the single women on the Miramichi (belive me, with the Alberta exodus, there's lots of us) and meet the Anchorage men somehow. I guarantee you, the ratio's got to be similar.

What does one do in the meantime for entertainment? Well, I do manage to find some but winter on the east coast can leave one limited which is why not so many blog entries in the last few weeks. One thing I did manage to do last weekend (even though I was feeling a little under the weather) was have a party with my friend Caprice whom I met while working at ICT. She's having a breast reduction surgery on the first of february so in true Caprice fashion, she had a going away party for, "The girls."



Another thing that has given me a great source of entertainment is the Skidd's animals. I've always tried taking pictures of their cat Teddy but my focus would never work on him, probably because of all his hair, where does it begin? My new camera finally enables me to get decent pictures of him. So now I present to you, the many faces of, "Teddy..."

In this first one, Liss opened a can of tuna. I like this one 'cause it shows how truly big he is...



In this one, he's examining the contents up close...



This one he's rolling around and half hanging off the chair. He's so social and loves sitting at the kitchen table with us...



Here all he wants is food and he'll even take it out of the dog's dishes. Poor starvin' thing....



And of course, no Skidd pet pictures would be complete without a picture of Jake. When we say he's a lap dog, we're not kidding. Here he is in my lap...



Just for fun, I thought I'd include some videos as picture don't truly capture the essence that is, "Jake." In this video, Jake and Kate have to go pee. We know what they want but it's still fun torturing them. Jake's so vocal when he gets all worked up. Even Kate's carrying on but I love how they're both jumping around. In this video, we're torturing Jake over the squirrels. Yup, he is a bird dog but he seems to like squirrels too. I love how it sounds like he's answering me back, you can almost hear the words.

We've also had a co-op student that joined us from MVHS. Sherrie usually takes one kid in a semester. Katie, our girl this year, really hit it off and has actually gotten accepted to hairstyling this fall. Our association makes tough regulations, so tough that we couldn't even let the poor girl do shampoos. I'm sure the days got long for her as there's only so much hair you can sweep, towels you can fold and observing you can do. I asked her if she actually learned something. She said she learned that it was something she'd like to do for a living. That's good enough for me. She was so sweet and funny to have around, miss you Katie...

l-r- Me, Katie, Ashley



I would have to say, the most entertainment I've seen the last few weeks was a curling funspiel that Marybeth got Liss, Darcy, Kari and Nick signed up for. I'll let Liss give more details on it but I know one thing, I sure wish I didn't have to work that day as it looked like lots of fun. Instead I got to see them play their last game, go back to their place while they got freshened up and go witness some of the most *ahem* interesting karaoke I've seen in a long time. The Dawson boys had nothing on some of these numbskulls.

Before karaoke could get under way, we had to sit through the awarding of the prizes. Marybeth did a great job as MC (think we have some video of it on her camera, wonder if she found it yet?) and everybody got to go home with something. Nick practically got a standing ovation at one point. They drew names out of hats for the remainder of people and his was one of the first names drawn. After twenty more names were called and he still hadn't found anything, we began to wonder. Finally he trundles back over with a $5 gift certificate for Tim Horton's, proclaiming he already had everything else. By this point, everyone else had noticed his lack of decision making as well.

The rest of the crew got some interesting prizes. Liss came back with a hot pink rubbermaid container that may be the first thing that Darcy doesn't initial, "D.Skidd." Good thinking Liss. Kari and Darcy also come out with some cool aluminum stools. You can never have too many places to cop a squat, I guess.

"Gordioke Karaoke," was in town to put together the entertainment portion. I must say though, I have to agree with, "Garioke Karaoke," -Kari as it seems to roll off the tongue so much easier. With such hits as, "Staying Alive," (don't worry Liss, vid's deleted) and, "Twist," it was almost like I was at a wedding. But when three doctors got up there to sing, "Summer of 69," totally out of key, we knew it was time to go home. Thank goodness Mark (Liss' Dad) arrived when he did as I think I would have been walking home from French Fort Cove. Hey Mark, have I said, "Thank You," yet?

A few random pictures as we're sitting around the table. I had about 5 seconds to prepare for this picture Darcy took. I'm still trying to heed the warning, "Don't forget to smile," which is the warning I got after posting the last few blackmail pictures of them. Future note to self, don't take it to the opposite extreme...



Not sure if Marybeth finally discovered all the pictures/videos on her camera here or not but I like how her and Darcy are framing the dancefloor...



I must say, Nick has now become my favourite candid subject as it seems that every picture the boy takes is hilarious. In this picture, Kari's in the middle of telling him something, "naughty." They still won't tell us what it was though...



I can't for the life of me remember what song was playing here but with this picture, I don't think it really matters...



With this next picture, upon review later in the evening, we've now dubbed Kari with the title, "face of vogue optical." I love this picture of the three of them as it sums up how good of a time we had...



This next picture we tossed around whether to post or not as we don't want to hurt anyone but it was a big thing for all of us so I feel it should be included. Winston did this in memory of Marilyn and it was beautiful, as emotional as it was. Every time Liss threw her rock, she did well with it...



I guess when you put it all out in words and pictures, life on the Miramichi isn't totally boring, definately monotonous by times yes but life is what you make it. I guess I'm just going to have to suck it up for awhile and hope that maybe it's just the winter blues as it's definately winter here now. We've already gotten more snow now than we had all year last winter. I love the snow though so that's not it.



In the meantime, I'm going to try going back to volleyball on mondays and wednesdays in hopes that it'll get me through the dolldrums.

At least Newcastle's closer than Italy and I don't have to pack a suitcase.

'Til next time...

Human Projectiles and Other Camp Zaniness..

Ah what a great weekend. Then again, any weekend back the camp's better than no weekend at all. It was a weekend of surprising firsts as well. You guys might want to write this one in on a calendar 'cause on saturday, january 13th, Liss actually caught something for the first time I can remember. Her catching's so bad it has been a big ongoing joke for years. I lost all train of thought when it happened too, it was like a freeze frame moment out of, "Chariots of Fire." I could even almost hear the music. Another first? You know he's exhausted when Mitchell goes to bed last night at 8:30pm. Mind blowing, that is!

I'll leave the details as to who got where at what times up to Liss on the camp blog but there was one detail in particular that has to be left up to me as it was another, "life flashing before my eyes," event. Well, not quite that bad but lumber was definately flying before my eyes.

Winter time at the camp's always lots of fun. The sixteen layers (eh Scott) aren't always as fun or the trips it usually takes to get everything back there by sled (attached to bikes or snowmobiles) can be a little trying but when you have a great weekend that allows you to drive right in to the camp, anything's possible. Friday night was just such an example.

Since it wasn't snowy enough to need the snowmobile, the bike was brought. The Skidd's have a sled that allows you to stand on the back, like you're driving a team of dogs. I love getting on that thing even though it's not as much fun with the runners on it, ya can't quite, "crack the whip," like you used to. We loaded up with Darcy driving, me on the back of the sled and Scott and Liss on his bike.

We started out leading but of course, a bike pulling a trailer goes much slower than a bike not pulling a trailer. First opportunity, Scott had enough and passed, laughing the whole way. This is an ongoing battle between Scott and Darcy. Personally, I think they do it to see who can get the other riled up more.

Going, "Round back," seemed like such a good idea at the time. The trail's weren't overly broken but the bikes were pulling along fine. With Scott and Liss further up the trail, we were climbing speed and going along at around 40km/h. I know I've had a couple of posts on here about stopping in the blink of an eye, well this is right up there with them.

Everything's going splendidly and I'm having a blast until, "Ka-pow," we then came to a dead stop... well, the sled did anyways. As I was flying through the air (a la Superman) wondering where the hell the sled is... in front of me, all I see is the bike going with the bar that hooks the sled to it and a few bits of lumber. After Darcy and I laughed 'til it hurt, Liss and Scott came back across the brook to find that all hell had broken loose. I don't know how they didn't hear us howling like buffoons. Needless to say, the sled wasn't moving for the rest of the weekend.



Unfortunately, the cold weather we were supposed to get on sunday, settled in saturday evening. So fortunately for us, that kept outdoor activities to a minimum, which was probably for the best anyways. We migrated indoors and had a dandy time with some sing alongs and preying on the innocent. We had Andy (Tracy's man) join us for his first camp adventure with us. Hopefully we didn't scare the guy off too bad with our vulture ways. He seemed to be having a good time. Even while sleeping he kept us entertained with the loudest and craziest snoring I've ever heard. I'm glad I no longer hold the title... thanks Andy!

On to some random pictures of the weekend. This one was taken for Dean who always asks how the camp road was. Even used my new tripod for ya, good buddy!



Now this thing's really strange. This isn't the first time we've seen it. It takes on a humanoid shape. Dunno, must have something to do with the drafts along that outer window or something.



Some party pictures. This one's of the girls who were the official, "Shaker and Woo Woo," section. Jake was there, even though you can't see him. He wasn't much for the party after the guitar took over his bed...



I love this picture. I have no idea what song we were doing but the girls really do seem to be getting into it...



Now this next picture's not supposed to see the light of day and I'm quite sure I'll be made to regret posting it in the future but hey, it's too funny to not share with the rest of the world. Check out the look on Darcy's face...



Darcy decided he wanted to have a go at the shaking and that's just what he was doing on either side of my head as this picture was taken...



Of course, no camp weekend would be complete without pictures of the most photographed dog in the world. Those Weimariner dogs got nothing on Jake. Here's Jake all peeved that the guitar's on his bed. It was too funny, he wouldn't even look at it...



He finally gets the bed to himself...



This one we were trying to get him off the bed and he really didn't want to come so he was crawling along. The look on his face is such a typical Jake look, he's so expressive...



Apparently we weren't exciting enough for him...



After all the blackmail pictures, I thought I'd include a nice one of the girls even though Tracy thought she looked like a floating head I think we look just fine...



This picture's just too funny, sorry Andy. Needless to say, Tracy wasn't in bed and Andy rolled over to find Jake in her place...



That pretty much sums up the weekend's events in a nutshell. We finally figured out how to get our breakfasts. Take advantage of the drunks with the munchies the night before. Thanks Darcy, it was delicious.

'Til next time...

Comment Relocation Program...

On my way in to work on tuesday I noticed something that I was very surprised to see. Since coming home I noticed the river's finally frozen so I thought for sure that would put an end to my eagle sightings. Surprise surprise, as I'm going through Douglastown, right by the marina, there's a mature bald eagle soaring away.

I'm really amazed as I thought for sure they'd follow the river freeze out towards the bay as the river's their primary food source. Yaayyyy for me, I may get to watch them a little longer yet. I do know the bay's not frozen over yet though as I had a client in from down there yesterday. What a weird winter. It's like the coasts have shifted. I know we got a freak storm here yesterday that hammered Chatham and Newcastle (about 9") but then as I work my way home to T'aintville, they only got a couple of inches. Go figure. Must've been another one of those crazy cyclone bomb things again.

On another note and as the title says, we have a game that's in need of relocation. It's waayyy down in an old topic and is about to drop off with any of the new posts and also has a few in between that have ended. It's a game that seems never to die and potential to live forever. It's not fair that we should kill it before it's time, is it?

It's the, "Guess the song game," and you'll now find it in this comment. Man, ya know I'm lazy when even scrolling's too much work.

'Til next time...

My Own Dyslexic Ways...

I was contemplating how to start out this entry and in light of recent developments in the comments, this only seemed fitting. The title of this blog is rather misleading in the sense that it's only my friends that are dyslexic (even though they're really not) but I'm here today to fess up. I'm the queen of dyslexia but the fact that I'm the holder of said list means that my entries conveniently get left off of it. My friends are very aware of this convenience and have started making their own lists. One of which I found sunday morning, stogged in my purse. Thanks Liss!

It all started out rather innocently. Saturday night was sorta my welcoming home party since I missed Festivus festivities and got home through the week, it was our first opportunity. Liss and I had discussed that night and thought it would only be us but we were ok with that. Of course, things naturally snowball with us and what started out with Liss and I, turned in to us being joined by Scott, Mary, Chris, Tracy and her significant other that we finally got to meet... Andy. The more the merrier. Good thing there was lots of company as I turned out to be a lost cause and was in bed by... hmmm, I don't think I made it 'til 12. Just so everyone knows, I had a great time up 'til then and thanks for the entertainment.

Try as we might, we could not get Darcy to play the guitar for us, (too sober? too on call? both?) even though he took the odd stab at the electric. There's not much singing along you can do to the electric guitar though, particularly since Christmas as it's now hooked up to a Marshall amp that rules out any chance of thinking, let alone being heard. Acoustic guitar or no, we carried on anyways, singing familiars and we somehow got on to that song, "Delta Dawn." You can only imagine what came next. We may have gotten one verse out of the normal version but the bad version quickly took over. I made the mistake of being overheard singing, "Porcelain Penix," - Me, and it was all downhill from there. Will we ever learn to keep our mouths shut when preying vultures are perched waiting for fresh kill? We are slow learners, that's for sure. We still haven't learned not to believe drunken promises of breakfast or from friday night camp syndrome, just to name a few.

At some point during the night, we started noticing these strange flashes. Darcy, just having returned from an emergency trip to Carter's, came in explaining the crazy thunder and lightning storm going on. All of us had heard of this phenomenon but none had witnessed it. It's very rare to have a winter thunder and lightning storm. The flashes of bluish purple reminded me of seeing a squirrel being fried on a transformer oh so many years ago or the guy that tried to cut the live electrical wire at the substation, but that's another time, another post.

Next thing you know, it's jackets and boots flying everywhere as we're all now going outside in the rain to see it, putting the Skidd deck to it's maximum occupancy limit test... which it passed with flying colours. I, of course, grabbed my camera to get some video. With video now rolling, we're all standing around waiting for the next flash. Listen closely as I find this rather amusing too. The video's only 1:43min. long but it seemed so much longer than that. Right after you hear me asking to see another flash, Liss proclaims, "It's probably over!" Ask and you shall receive! We got three cool shots of lightning (second one's the coolest) as well as some great thunder, immediately after that, which literally shook the deck. It really is a neat phenomenon and I'm glad I got to witness it as it's a very rare occurence. To check out the video, click here...

Last night I also got to see another rare occurence. Not necessarily a world-wide phenomenon but one that occurs regularly in our own little world. Anybody who knows the Skidd's dogs, also know how much Kate and Jake detest each other, well mostly it's just Kate detesting Jake, well, everyone for that matter. But you know that it's crammed for space in the livingroom when you see this occur...



This next few pictures are carrying on with the couch potato theme. Geez I love the focus of my new camera. Here's Jake taking a nap...



This next one's of Meg and Kate. I love the expression on Kate's face in this one...



I did manage to fire off a few pictures before going to bed saturday night. There's people missing from them so for those, we may have to get some pictures from Mary.

This first picture's of Liss. Not quite sure why she felt the need to strike such a pretty pose but I like this picture and after the pics on Matt's blog, I felt sorry for her, hahahaha...



This next one's of Scott. You all might want to save this to your hardrive as I think this is one of the few normal pictures we have of him without a beer or some other crazy thing to screw up his picture...



And of course, another close up of the most photographed dog in the world. This was funny 'cause he kept trying to sniff and lick the camera. He's such a sniffer so it's only appropriate that we get an extreme up-close of his nose. I apparently thought it very funny, judging by my expression in the background...



Ok, these are totally out of order and backwards yet but these pictures were taken saturday day which later turned into the crazy thunder and lightning storm. I thought this all so weird and cool as well that I decided to snap a few pictures of it. It was so foggy later that night that when I was trying to drive to Douglastown for my mix, you couldn't even see the lights until you were almost across the bridge. You'll hear Scott saying in the above video that it was like driving off the edge of the earth. It was...



I love the way this picture turned out...



Needless to say, it's been pretty eventful since I got home. We woke up this morning to a heavy snowfall warning and the radio has been announcing cancellations all day. Mitch'll be happy as he got to extend his Christmas vacation by a day, even though it wasn't even snowing when they cancelled it. Probably a good idea though as the roads would have been messy for them coming home as we've now got about 3" accumulated. So far no rain as it was predicting but hopefully we're on the cusp enough that it'll just stay snow.

This could make things interesting for travelling up to the camp this weekend though. I can say I'm not feeling quite so invincible about travelling through the Plaster Rock highway after the last trip but surely I've significantly decreased the chances of hitting another moose. Here's hoping the camp roads will be ok as I'm not going to be making it out there 'til saturday and of course everyone will be arriving friday so please have the search party ready. It will be fun but sad as this is going to be Scott's going away bash. We're going to miss you Scott but you'll have a great time.

This'll be my last post 'til I have more blackmail pictures of the camp this weekend. Those always produce blog worthy entries. Liss came up with a good game idea for the comments so feel free to jump in one and all!

'Til next time...

Home Safe and Sound... Kinda!

Well, we made 'er back to town after a wonderful trip to TN. It's hard to believe the trip went by so fast. It didn't seem like enough time as there was still things I wanted to do but yet in other ways, it was long enough and good to be back.

The trip home went uneventful and perfectly smooth, for the first 3/4ths. of the journey. All layovers were caught and luggage arrived in one piece. All hell broke loose though just as we were about to land in Presque Isle. Now I've done my fair share of flying and Dad's done probably double that again. We were on a 45 seater and for those of you that don't know much about planes, that's not very big and are known for their turbulence on the best of conditions. Yesterday was far from, "Best conditions," with extremely high winds. The whole trip was rougher than most I've seen but I love the bumps and jolts, that cool butterfly feeling you get, borderlining on weightlessness beats driving really fast over a bump in the road any day. There's bumps and jolts but this was something else!

We were about 20ft. over the runway, just about to make contact when this huge sidewind comes along and threw us at about a 45 degree angle from the runway. I felt like I was in a toy plane in some kids hands. The crazy part is I was taking a bunch of pictures and some videos for Ashley and Cole. They've never flown before and I thought it would be cool for them to see as you can't quite describe flying to someone who has never experienced it, let alone to a 6 and 7 year old. Well, that landing was one of the videos I took. The video's rolling, you can hear me commenting a little as I wanted to explain to them what it was all about. Right after you hear me say, "Here's the landing," you'll notice a big jolt, the runway practically disappears and you'll hear me saying, "Oh my!" Oh my was an understatement but I now have two things going through my head, "We're going to die or at the very least become a plane crash statistic," and believe it or not, "Try not to sound too scared so you won't freak Ashley and Cole out while they watch the video."

I've since determined not to send them this video. Needless to say if I do, they'll be walking to Canada when they come. I will however put it up here for your perusal as I finally have a video that I don't have to worry about passing Darcy's inspection. Obviously none have passed inspection before... you've likely noticed there's none on here! For the video, click here...

We finally get off the plane, gather our luggage and then head for the border. Had I known that cigarettes could only be purchased at customs, I wouldn't have drug along the two cartons I did from TN. Future lesson learned there, the $21/carton ended up costing and extra $15/carton Canadian at the border. Other than that, all was cool, no strip searches.

We're cruising through the Plaster Rock at a very reduced speed and in four wheel drive as the roads are an absolute nightmare. Made even worse by the fact that we'd already seen 2 deer and four moose. We're just about to the Half Way Inn when we come around a corner and there in the middle of the road, about 20ft. ahead of us was a cow moose and her calf. It was one of those situations that happened so fast that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it yet was totally slow motion, almost like a freeze frame movie.

Dad slammed on the brakes but the joys of a truck, it just started fishtailing. The cow would have been on the yellow line (if you could see it but it was snow covered) with the calf on her left. There was enough room for us to squeeze between the cow and the ditch on the right and we would have made it too but moose being as stupid and blind as they are, she took one step to the right at the wrong time. POW! It's the only word I could use to describe the sound of us hitting her. It was like hitting a really large rock.

Her shoulder slammed in to the bush bar on the front of the truck and her head hit the windshield. She put some not so nice dents in the door and somehow took off the handle which is really odd as the handle barely stuck out. She hit that bush bar so hard that it slammed it back in to the front quarter panel of the truck leaving a perfect outline. We pulled over once we could get stopped and I hopped out to assess the damage. I looked back and couldn't see her or the calf on the road and Dad really didn't want to go back. I feel bad for that but being the animal lover that I am, I will forever have that image in my head that I'd rather take a big ol' eraser to. The main thing is, nobody was hurt and the truck, although sustaining probably close to $5000 in damage (by my estimates) came out of it remarkably unscathed. Gotta love those Chevy Silverados, they really are, "Like A Rock!" I just shudder to think of all the trips we made through the Plaster Rock with our Trans Am with the T-bar roof. We're extremely lucky. Matt, I'm also some glad you took the other way home. There was no blood (a few hair clumps) so I hope her and her calf are going to be ok. I am stiff today though, I must say!

The bush bar, notice the perfect outline on the quarter panel...

The door, cab and edge of the bed with some hair...

The windshield and mirror. Thank goodness she didn't smash out the windshield or driver's side window as we only passed a handfull (6 actually) of cars on the way home. It could have been so much worse in so many ways than it actually was...

Leave it to the Dickson's... we don't do anything unless we go out with a bang! Other than that, the vacation was a blast and couldn't have gone better. It was really great to see the kids again. I can't believe how much they've grown and how much they've learned since I've seen them last which was only 1.25yrs. ago. It was really tough parting with them, goodbyes are never easy. Sheesh, you'd think I'd be used to them by now.

Now, I finally got everything installed and uploaded from my new camera. I still have a ton of unpacking to do as it looks like my suitcase has exploded in my bedroom. I probably should get back to that but I'll most likely be going up to the Skidd's tonight as I probably wasn't making too much sense and definately wasn't taking in too much while there last night. 2.25hrs. of sleep the night before and a few naps on the plane, not to mention almost dying twice will do that to you. I know I still have to get caught up on stories that can't quite get summed up on e-mail. Apparently one story provided me with further dyslexia blackmail by Darcy (surprise surprise) blaming it on being tired, coming up with, "Tomorrow we're turkin' a cookie." - Darcy. Holy frig that's funny. That's up there with my favourites.

Since I got more pictures uploaded (not to mention video) I'll use this as a chance to put up some more. Enjoy...

I know I've told some of you about the cat my friends Jim and Cathy in TN have. For a refresher, just in case, he's hairless, just to prepare you. He's so cute with the most amazing personality of any cat you'd meet. His name's Ptrinko (a Russian breed) aka. "Trink."

This next picture's in a Harley Dealership in Murfreesboro. It's only a few years old and I always loved it there as there's a ton of bikes. I got myself a really cool camo hat there but this is what I really wanted...

A bike that was used in WWII. It was this that helped bring Harley Davidson back from the edge of bankruptcy...

Some of the Harley Dealerships have really cool diners in them and this was one of them. I loved these stools so thought it would be cool to compose a picture of them. Notice how they look like bike seats...

You may remember, "Princess," stories. If not, she's this cat that's not even theirs but has adopted them even though she already has a perfectly good home. Santa had to bring her something too, of course...

As promised, more pictures of the hockey game. This one's of a mad scramble, almost fight in front of the net...

This next picture's of the scrap that Tootoo was front and center for, notice the officials trying to break it up...

I took this next picture just a moment too soon, this goal actually went in...

This is a picture I got of Tootoo on the jumbotron when we thought he had the goal, turned out he didn't as it was deflectected by another player. He still got third star of the game though which I got on the jumbotron as well. That was a great source of entertainment. Being in the nose bleed section at center ice, it was right in my face...

This picture's of the sea of people or at least that's what it looked like when looking around...

Now, this next one is a video I took for the boys. The Nashville Predators Cheerleaders, click here... Sorry so short but I started recording, they finished... doh!

Some flight pictures. The clouds are always great entertainment for me, particularly when you get to watch a sunrise come up over them or fly through them...

This was just plain (or plane, either way, pardon the pun) too pretty to not put up with the fuselage, engine, blue sky and mountains in the background...

The clouds as we're starting to come through them...

And a cool video of coming down through the clouds. Click here...

And last but certainly not least, a family picture of us the night before we left. I thought it turned out pretty good considering I'm not really in to portraits. I prefer things that you don't have to worry about making sure they're looking at the camera, have a cool pose and are smiling niceley...

left to right, front to back: Cole, Ashley, Cindi, Mom, Me, Dad and Steve (Cindi's hubby to be)

Hopefully you've all enjoyed the pictures and it's made up for lack of updates while I was gone. It's great to be home again as I really did miss all y'all.

Ya know, it's really nice to be able to put up as many pictures as you want without having to worry whether each picture you add's going to take or not. Particularly when you have this many to put up.

As for the game, you'll find it in the comments section, as always. Feel free to throw out new ideas for games too guys as I'm running out of 'em. Off to visit Liss now!

'Til next time...