Quinn, who is not quite 3, riding his bike!
We have been having a great time getting reacquainted with Quinn and June. June is just 10 months old and has been making strange, she seems to have gotten used to me but still has some reservations about Barry. Today he fed her some lunch and after some initial reluctance that was a downright refusal to open her mouth, she decided that if Grandpa held his mouth open perhaps she could as well. She has a beautiful smile and a mischievous personality is starting to assert itself.



















Today we were had hoped to go skiing, but with the possibility of wet snow, rain and winds forecast up to 30 knots we decided we would head to Radium Hot Springs instead and soak out the kinks we have accumulated from driving over 3000 km. June seemed to love the water, not objecting to having her picture taken under water. Quinn was learning to navigate with his life jacket on and happily jumped in to chase a floating toy. The harder he splashed his hands the further the toy got away, but he would persevere and nab it. We hope to go skiing tomorrow, in the fresh snow that is visible on the mountain tops.

We are now in Invermere visiting Trish, Graeme, Quinn and June. We did get to the page playoff game at the Women's World Curling Championship in Swift Current on our way. It was a really close game and we had great seats in the front row,
unfortunately the Canadian Team lost after she went for it in the 9th end and ended up giving up 4 when her last rock missed by a millimeter. I don't think anyone in the building thought her rock could go through the hole it did. Barry got some decent shots of the team.

Here is the German skip relaxing between ends. She was kind of scary to look at on TV but she wasn't so bad in person. She was definitely the BOSS on her team. She won this game and went on to defeat Scotland in the final to ascend to her second World title, she won the first once in 1988, pretty impressive, 22 years between championships.










PROOF POSITIVE THAT I WAS REALLY THERE!

On the ICE ROAD crossing the Mackenzie River
We are safely in Winnipeg, visiting with my Mom. The drive down was not uneventful. The first day we left Yellowknife early in the morning and headed to Peace River, AB. The roads were good until about 2 hours outside of High Level and it started to snow. There was about 10 cm accumulating on the roads and I was driving and had to slow to about 80 km/hr. That was painful to a speed demon like myself, but every once in awhile I could feel the car start to slide and I knew it would be really dangerous to speed up. We changed drivers in High Level and it was crazy as soon as we left town the roads were dry, not a bit of snow, it was great driving the rest of the way to Peace River.
The next day we had a lovely drive to Cold Lake AB, close to the AB/SK border about 100 kms north of Lloydminster. We had a great visit with friends we had met sailing on Great Slave Lake when they had towed their boat up to Yellowknife to compete in the Commissioner's Cup. The next day we once again left before dawn. I was a bit worried about driving in that country in the dark. Barry was tooling along and a couple of deer leaped out in front of the car. We clipped the hind end of one of them at 100 km/hr. Fortunately, we only caught the end of it and all that was damaged was our front signal light. The headlight was fine but the right signal light did not work any more. We saw quite a few more deer but they were smart enough to stay away from the road while we were speeding by. We arrived in Wpg. about 9:00 P.M. and were very happy to be here without any more incidents. Barry is off at the moment at the auto wreckers trying to buy a new signal light.
Barry had suggested before we left Yellowknife that we would be driving by Swift Current SK, while the World Women's Curling Championships was on so we should see if we could get tickets. I went online and sure enough there were some tickets left, we are going to see the 1 - 2 page playoff game on Friday night. I guess I should figure out how far it is from Wpg. so we will know when we have to leave on Friday morning.
Mom had a big dinner planned tonight, my uncle and his new wife will be here as well as Bill, my Mom's friend. All I have to do while I am here is buy a team Canada hockey jersey so my buddy in San Franscico can wear it around the airport, to pay off a bet we made about the results of the Olympic hockey game.

We took Cassidy and Elijah out ice fishing today. We found a hole that was already open and stuck our lines in. There was a net down the hole and the first thing Elijah caught was the net, then when I went to investigate another possible hole he hooked a jack fish. It is a pretty good size and we were so happy that Elijah finally caught a fish when we were together. He pulled it out and we took it back to the car so his Dad or Grandpa could clean it. I am sure they will have a very tasty supper tonight. YEAH ELIJAH!!

Yesterday Barry and I went out cross country skiing. He came into the store on Sat. at closing and suggested that we rent some skis. The kids are in Edmonton with their Mom on spring break so we had the day to ourselves. It was great. Barry probably has not skied in 10 years so it was wonderful to get out.

We went and visited our friends Ian and Helen and saw the progress they are making on their Liberty 45. They have stripped their teak decks and are getting it ready to put a fiberglass deck down. They have made a lot of progress since we last had a look. They are going to be very comfortable on their lovely roomy boat. They told us there was an ice road going down the lake, so we headed out with our skis.
We stopped at the fish plant, a favourite sailing destination and skied around. They had Bombardier's outside the plant that they use for ice fishing. We skied over to the marker at the corner of Yellowknife Bay. We have never been that close before!!

It was a gorgeous day, bright and sunny, with temperatures close to zero Celcius. We ended up driving almost out to Moose Bay, I thought about skiing in but the ice had frozen very uneven in that spot and my heel had been rubbing in my ski boot so I decided to just look. It will be a long time until we see that again. We have less than 2 weeks to stay in Yellowknife.