Seasons Greetings to All:

Well another year has come and gone and all in all this has been a relatively quiet year for the Boyle clan.

Christmas last year was spent in Red Deer with Deb’s sister Gail, her husband Randy and various members of all families.  Their big house was full of many people, young and old, and we got to spend time getting to know Randy’s family.  Needless to say there were a lot of laughs, good food, Christmas sing a longs (Randy’s family not Debs) and some great games of “Murder”.  New Years was spent with our friends in Creston and more great food and cards and a 50th birthday celebration.

This year saw some new additions to our family.  After two unsuccessful attempts at being able to ensure the longevity of felines for Keelan, Dad found at a garage sale an indoor alternative – two young female ferrets.  These two (Harri – short for Harriet Potter because of the mark on her forehead, and Abby – short for Abby Normal from Young Frankenstein) are highly sociable, energetic and love to be let out to play: chasing remote control cars is a favorite pastime.  When Harri (aka Houdini) breaks out of the cage – she does not hide, or create a mess – but rather runs upstairs and scampers down the hall wanting to play.  This could be amusing – except that it usually occurred in the middle of the night.

As you may have remembered, Mickey got involved in Archery last year – and has continued this year – after convincing Mom and Dad that he needed a new compound bow.  This resulted in Keelan becoming interested and taking it up with a recurve bow (had to be different).  For Valentine’s, Mom got a Compound Bow (yeah Dad is turning more and more redneck as he gets older) – and later in the summer with some new parts Dad took over Mickey’s old bow.  Archery has become a true family affair.  We did a couple of 3D shoots together and had a lot of fun.  However, most of the chuckles seemed to have come at Dad’s expense, as he had to shoot from the furthest distance with the least experience.  When it costs more to replace dad’s lost and broken  arrows from one shoot than the entrance fees for the whole family you know that everyone was yucking it up.  It does Mickey good to be in the position to be “teaching” his old man something.

Grumpy (or which ever other dwarf Dad is aspiring to be these days) is grousing that he didn’t make it south of the Mason Dixon Line this year (after his three road trips to the South last year).  It does not help Dad’s mood that other members of the clan have got to wander further a field than he.  However, he is actively recruiting buddies for another trip to Bristol for NASCAR in the spring.

Deb traveled to Roatan, Honduras and loved the time spent with her sisters and brother in law Randy. While there she challenged her fear of heights and went on a 12 stage Zip line from the center of the Island to the seashore.  She finally got to try her hand at snorkeling on a reef and drank a little sea water as she giggled and kept dropping her jaw in amazement under water. Scuba diving is definitely a goal for the future.

Our summer vacation this year was to take our new to us, used tent trailer, and travel via our Holiday Resorts membership campgrounds to the lower mainland and Vancouver Island.  The plan was to do some “closer to home” site seeing and geocaching, and to check out some upper end music stores for a new Tenor Saxophone for Mickey. (Something about his ability outgrowing the $3.00 garage sale sax that Dad picked up several years ago).  The first part of the trip went well, with some exploring around Christina Lake, (we didn’t find either the bears or the grow op they protected) and trips into and around Vancouver from our campground at Bridal Falls.  However, at the start of the August long weekend, we heard from our house sitter that she had had a severe allergic reaction to our ferrets and could no longer stay at the house.  At 3 pm Friday, Mickey and Dad took a quick trip into a Music Store in Downtown Vancouver and picked up a nearly new professional tenor sax (a B&S Medusa) we had seen earlier in the week.  The next morning we packed up and headed for home.

With having to cut our planned trip short, Dad started fantasying about being able to able to take the family on a road trip to the south.  In an effort to ensure that the family did not get dragged through many miles of the deep south in the middle of August, Deb contacted her sister and made arrangements for us to travel down to Randy’s family in Idaho Falls and use their driveway as a base camp.  The Harrison / Boice clan live in a large old farm home and a converted barn on a small farm just outside of town.  The place is absolutely gorgeous, and we all had a great time visiting and touring around.  Even our dog had a great time, as there was an irrigation stream running through the property that he would wander through for hours and lots of people to throw toys.  While in Southern Idaho, we toured through the Grand Teton’s National Park, Jackson Hole, City of Rocks (with some unique geological structures) and Craters of the Moon National Park.  We really loved climbing around in the lava tube caves at Craters of the Moon and the kids (albeit a bit old) completed the Junior Ranger program as they had done at many national parks during our major trip.  They officially became Lunar Rangers – although Dad managed to trade one of them for his badge as he has always wanted to add a “space cadet” badge to his backpack.

Mickey has put his musical interests to good use.  He traveled to Disneyland with his school band and over the summer, he went to the farmer’s market and tried his hand at busking.  He was overheard by a local band leader who has a band and asked if he wanted to join.  Mickey agreed and then they informed him that they needed an Alto Sax player as they had enough tenors and provided him with an Alto Sax to use.  This did not faze him at all and he now plays in a 15 member Swing / Big Band called The Notables.  The next youngest person in the band is probably about 40 years old.  They have played a couple of gigs and Mickey seems to be really enjoying it plus making money doing it.   Mickey is taking an extra credit Jazz Band, plus the regular band program and continues with his private lessons on his tenor sax.  Dad thinks his home practice time is so much better than the original dying moose sounds of a couple of years ago.

Keelan continues to be involved in whatever sport is in season.  He played recreational soccer this year, and has been on the school volleyball, basketball and badminton teams.  We are beginning to learn about frequent tournaments around the region.   He decided to learn to snow board last year and got a good handle on it even though there was very little snow – this year looks much better.  Always the social one, he is always ready to help out, jumping in and caring for friends children and is looking to make it a job babysitting.  He is becoming a good cook, often starting or preparing supper when he gets home.  He continues to take guitar lessons, and to play trombone in the school band.  His band group went to an adjudicated performance in the Okanagan.  Both boys went to Rock Ridge camp outside of Princeton this summer and reported having a great time: zip lining, swimming, blobbing, and knee boarding, swimming and just plain having fun.

At the end of last year, Pat was reassigned to a new management role and the Quality Improvement Team he built and led over the last 10 years was assigned to someone else.  Things did not go well, and over the course of a year he watched the team being downsized and the standards that he had set being ignored.  By summer, his long-term colleague and friend left the Ministry to pursue other employment as she could no long abide by the situation.  Both report it is a little strange – as they had saw each other almost every working day for 10 years, and now we have to plan to keep in touch.

Over the last year and a bit, Pat helped out his uncle in Biggar, Saskatchewan.  Walter passed away in the April, and Pat spent several weeks going through his small rental house and cleaning it out.  This involved two U-haul loads of tools and furniture, and four waste hauler dumpsters full of various items that needed to be disposed of.  In the cold of February, Pat stayed in the house sorting out and then moving stuff out to a garage so that we could come back and get it later.  Even now, Pat is still sorting through the tools and taking the things of value into a local second hand store.  The boys are the heirs to the small estate and there will be a little money for them in the form of an educational trust.  Deb sort of hopes that this experience will keep Pat from continuing to frequent yard sales and auctions – whereas Pat feels that maybe he can have more of an impact on his family if he collects so much stuff that it takes them months to get rid of it as well.

Deb continues to work in Elderly Mental Health and some days wonders if it’s contagious – both being older and having trouble remembering.  Joking aside she still loves what she does and has a great team to work with.  Interior Health is once again changing focus and organization and there is always some stress with that but for now she’s taking a wait and see attitude.

As usual, there have been a few home renovations this year.  The most notable was that Arlene and Ross offered the hardwood they had extra and after some hunting, we were able to match it up and we just finished installing it in the living room.  It looks gorgeous and for 5 days straight, when Keelan walked into the room, he said Mom, I love this floor!  We also resurfaced the large deck at the side of the house with pressure treated wood and installed wrap around seating and a new set of stairs. Pat also bought a used hot tub from a local store in August, on the understanding that it needed to be serviced and that would not happen until the store completed renovations.  Unfortunately, it took them until last week until they delivered it.  So on the coldest day of the year they delivered the hot tub.  As it had some water in it, Deb hooked up the 220 wiring we had installed 2 months earlier, the service guys left and at 5pm, Deb filled it up.  We flicked the switch and nothing happened.  A little bit of research showed that the 220 wiring was not connected to the service.  An emergency call to our electrician brought him out in 25 below weather.  He hooked up the wiring but again nothing worked except the light – the lines had frozen.  Try as we much there was nothing more we could do except hook up a bunch of heaters around the pump of the hot tub and see if we could thaw things out.  In the morning, the jets worked but there was no heat.  A quick call to the shop brought out the service tech who found a tripped internal breaker and all is now hot.   (Note to self, do not buy a hot tub in the winter)!

Have a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!

Pat, Deb, Mick, Keelan … Daman, Harri and Abby