Jagger at Big White

Jace on Christmas Day

Jace likes playing with his new lawnmower; but the toilet is fun too!!!

Scenes of the Holidays

Kylie finding her gifts at our house. The little tree is in our condo at Big White.

White Christmas

With all this snow falling, Gord has had to buy a good shovel! Need more of this white stuff on Big White.

Countdown to Christmas

The boys visit Ogopogo.

Gord, Decoa, Jagger and Jace Christmas tree hunting!

Jagger-James on skates

See, I can stand up and put my arms up in the air!

Jagger-James and Grandpa on skates

To encourage Jagger-James to skate, Grandpa challenges him to a race. Being quite competitve, Jagger starts moving and Grandpa "just can't quite catch up"!

Decoa, Jace, and her cake

Decoa and her men

Decoa's birthday-Nov 19

Jagger helped me decorate the cake - licking the beaters is a very important job.

Girls night out

To celebrate our girls birthdays, Val took them to see Colm Wilkinson at the Kelowna Community Theatre, Sunday night. The guys stayed home. CW is a great entertainer. Originally from Dublin, Ireland, he now makes his home in Toronto. He was a story-teller and a joker, often interacting with the crowd. He sang, Music of the Night from Phantom, some rock'roll, some jazz, some Leonard Cohen, the Peace Song, Bring Him Home from Les Miserables and more. Great back-up orchestra with him, too. We were impressed to have someone of his calibre here in Kelowna, 20 minutes from home.' We were drinking 'mocktails', honestly!!

The Dinosaur cake

Jace wasn't too sure he wanted his photo taken with the cake - he would rather attack it! The green stuff he is eating was cake.

Jace's birthday bash

Jace is One Year Old

Nov 1, he was almost a Halloween baby. We decided to make him an Oiler fan.

Happy Halloween

Jace wasn't sure about that lion on his head.; but if mom and big brother were close he was happy. He's not allowed to eat chocolate, but he sure makes a cute little lion. Tomorrow, Nov 1, is his first birthday.

Boo! to you

Big boo, Jagger-James and Little boo, Jace Branson

Hills are alive with color

Although we have been having rain, cool, cool weather and a lot of cloud, the colors are a joy; this is the views from our deck.

Inside our house

We now have our living room furniture; a theatre sofa, big screen TV above the fireplace and two recliners.

Little Boo in the Pumpkin Patch

When we visited the neighbors pumpkin patch, Jace, our little Boo, gave the pumpkin a big kiss! Maybe he was being a guy and thought he’d found himself a big boob!!!

Jace started walking Oct 1, loves being outside and when he wants out he takes my little finger, looks at me with his hazel grey eyes and points! Of course. we have to stop to pick up sticks and stones.

My Garden

This is the lower deck with stairs to the upper deck. My garden has been a challenge to GT and 'the boyz'. I have everything in containers this summer. Last week when I was in Edmonton, they watered too much on the same day and then forgot for two. This week while we were away at the lake, I left instructions to water everything on the upper deck - they didn't water anything . I said 'only the tomatoes and sunflowers on the lower deck'; everythig else was watered. Almost everything survived.

Our new boyz!

We now have two men boarders staying with us until they find some housing/rental. Faizal, from Malayasia, is 48, married and has two daughters 19 & 21, and Anwar is from Bangladesh, 29, married with a 3 yr old and new baby due in December.
Like much of Canada, skilled labour is needed in BC. Our son-in-law manages a boat manufacturing factory and has finally got permission to import five fibreglass workers that he worked with in Malayasia in 1999/2000. Once all five get here, they will live together, but rentals are hard to find. For now, one sleeps in the downstairs spare bedroom and one in my sewing rooom (who would have thought??) so that we could keep the upstairs bedroom for company.

Faizal had his wife send a beautiful batik dress as a gift to me. It's one size fits all and quite big. When I tried it on Faizal said it was too short and that I was a big woman - making it sound like a complement. My daughter explained that in their culture being big is a sign of prosperity!! Well, not so with us. We just eat too much.

'The boyz' find it very cool in the mornings, especially at 6 am when they are getting ready to go to work. Anwar celebrated his 29 birthday on July 30. Another cultural adventure for us.

Our little clown

Not sure why but Jase loves to perform with a spoon in his mouth-even if it s wooden one!

Jase on the move.

This was Jase today on the stairs. He squeals with delight when he thinks no one can catch him - knows he shouldn't be on the stairs. He has 4 upper teeth and 2 lower and chatters especially to Jagger and his mom & Dad.

Gone Fishing

View of Wood Lake on left and kalamalka on right from above. Mike boated everything across the lake . Rita was Gord's fishing guide.

Oyama Lake is only 20 km from our front door high up in the hills east and north of us. While the temp was in the mid 20's all week and sunny in the Okanagan, we felt a definite chill all day long at the lake. GT caught 3 fish so he came home happy - I was happy to be home and warm.