Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Life is Short - but it Could've Been Shorter!

Four years ago already.

That's a third of Acacia's life. For me parts of February 14th, 2011 seem like yesterday, but for the most part, it's as you see in these photos of this past weekend: A sidebar to a life we're still creating.


Valentine's in Phoenix.



Nicolas and Cayenne cooked an amazing meal.



While Acacia worked on her own fun feats.



 Good times at Goodwill...


...and not-so-good times in a dentists' chair. 
But she was being seen by the best in the profession and it really was a good thing. 
More to come on that, I'm sure!


And Ilona & Michel joined us for a warm night and cool drinks.


Our favourite picnic spot, halfway home.


Life is good.



Friday, February 13, 2015

A Family Christmas

Sometime in November my nephew Sam wrote a letter to Santa. He stuffed it into an envelope, put a 1 cent stamp on it and mailed it to the North Pole. Then he waited.

My sister-in-law Sophie had peeked at it, as is usually necessary to make such dreams come true, but this year the magic happened all on its own.

Right before Christmas a package arrived from the North Pole (and Sophie had nothing to do with it!). Sam had asked for one thing: A book on making paper airplanes. What Santa sent him was two books, paper, scissors, colored pencils and all sorts of other goodies, and this handwritten, personal letter:



Clearly this Santa not only gets joy out of making children happy, but also has a sense of humour. How awesome is that?

(The post office offers a program where people can pick up letters to Santa and fulfill wishes. Love it!!)

The rest of Christmas was filled with wonderful surprises as well, including finding out that my brother Jarrett and his family from BC were staying 1 mile away from our Cofman gathering in Palm Desert, CA. The whole scenario was a recipe for fun times, great food and long-overdue reunioning.



Alan, Greg (Rose's brother), his friend Star, my brother Jarrett and his Rose, and my Nick.



Eric

Rose 

 Sophie

 Moi






 Jellema siblings and their broods

Happy Cofmans

More happy Cofmans!



The accommodations were not bad. Thank you Ilona & Michel!



I'm detecting a theme here...


So long!


   

Monday, February 2, 2015

Shangri-La - Final Bit on Nepal

One of the first people Nick met when he moved to Nepal more than 20 years ago was Allan Christensen, the only foreign pilot in the country. He's Danish, although for some reason it's a joke between them to call him Dutch - something in which I fail to see the humour. Just saying.

They became fast friends and housemates, and share many adventurous Kathmandu memories including mountain biking, momos and meeting Parmila, the love of Alan's life.


Married 20 years ago today. ♥
Happy Anniversay!


Decades later these boys' wives connected through facebook, which is how Parmila and Alan in Hong Kong learned we would be in Kathmandu. Their HK flight landed not too long after we returned from our trek, and we had a blast zipping through Kathmandu's memory lanes and dusty alleys.



"Mike's Breakfast"


No more tuk-tuks in Kathmandu (bittersweet news, that was), so we settled on this tuk-tuk-like bus.


A large number of us fit in there, especially considering a number of us were large!



We found Allan's old house, and then his old landlord who remembered them both.


On their old porch.








The shop where they used to buy their tankas. Same artist was still there.


Lunch above Durbar Square






Nick and Allan were regulars at this momo restaurant. It was yum!!
Pretty fun to come back 17 years later and people still recognize you.















Kathmandu occupies a special place in my heart, and the new memories we made with Allan & Parmila made that place even sweeter.


Happy Thanksgiving! :)



Au revoir, Nepal!