Things are not so quiet lately

Life seems to have got somewhat busy since Christmas.

We have been busy planning our trip to Europe. Takes a lot of research. We are going to go on a tour from London to Vimy Ridge. They ask on the registration form if you have any relatives buried over there so I went on line and found the details of our great-uncle's burial. They try to stop at the graveyard if it works out.

We booked an apartment in London, a much better option than a hotel I think.

We went to Edmonton a couple of weeks ago to the symphony (as Jude has said), a gift from Sam for Christmas. It was pop music from the sixties. I suspect I was not the only one singing along. It was enjoyable, as was supper at the Lignan beforehand.

Back to the city last week to see the David Francey concert that had been postponed from earlier in the month. We stayed at the Union Bank Inn, a very nice boutique hotel downtown. Had supper at Grace's one night with Sam and Nancy.

On Thursday we flew up to Yellowknife for Barb's funeral. We went with mixed feelings. We wanted to be there out of respect for her and how important she was in our lives, but also knew it would add a lot of extra work for the family up there, having us hang around. It was good that we went, though. You can't really mitigate the stress of a time like that and it is good to be together. We stayed at Barb's house which is just across the road from her daughter. Barb had been in an apartment since last fall and her house was not occupied so it worked out well and we were out of the way a bit more than if we had been staying with someone. John and Heather stayed there too and we enjoyed our time with them.

The church funeral for family was on Thursday, then there was a public memorial on Saturday since Barb was so much a part of Yellowknife. We had to leave the service on Saturday early to catch our flight home. It was live streamed and Grace said she saw us leave!

We went out one night on the ice road to look for the northern lights. Did not see any but it was cool to drive on the lake in the dark. We also went to see the ice castle that is built every year. It wasn't open yet to go inside but the outside was quite amazing as were the ice and snow sculptures.

Tim and Courtney have gone to Mexico for a week so we have the boys. They make life much busier than we are used to. Good thing there are three of us. I was feeling worried because Grady will not eat. However, I googled it and apparently it is normal for toddlers to eat very little. I seem to remember that Grady's dad was like that.

In between bouts of playing superheroes we are trying to decide how to do the rest of our trip.

Jude and I went to see The Imitation Game tonight, very good. It's nice to have a movie buddy.