After returning from Christmas, we returned to find it VERY cold here. Coldest in over 50 years! We actually broke down and bought a little electric space heater. I know you are thinking that 10 degrees is not cold, but with humididty of 90%+,no central heat anywhere, and no chance to ever warm up, it feels much worse than -40 back home.

The office staff

We moved into Chinese New Year, which of course is huge here. The mandarin teachers organize school concerts the way that we would have Christmas concerts. These come complete with the dragons and traditional Chinese "cracker pops" (firecrackers). Everyone dresses in traditional Chinese outfits and it is quite neat to see. You can see that we got into the spirit as well.


We then had an emergency trip home. Ray took a turn for the worse and unfortunately, passed away on Feb 7. It was a tough couple of weeks, but also good in that we were all there with him and were able to say our goodbyes. Gloria had come up from Georgia as well and Dan and Cathy were back and forth from Cochrane. Marion is really strong, but having all her kids there seemed to help make things a bit easier. As hard as it was to leave, I do think she appreciated a bit of space once we all left.


Feb 7 was also the day for Sandra's hip surgery. It went well, and after a rough week dealing with pain meds and all that kind of stuff, she was released to begin the long recovery period. You can link to her blog page from our blog or use the URL below. (http//tragicallyhip-sam.blogspot.com)



That should bring us pretty well up to date, with our next trip in March to Singapore and Lombok (Indonesia) for some relaxation and diving.
See you then!!