The long planned and much anticipated trip of a life time to Canada and the Canadian Rockies has in the blink of an eye become a distant memory… here is that story in several parts…

Allow me a moment to back track… Linda my wife and Dave (her brother) were brought up in Canada. When Linda was about 14, the whole family up sticks again and returned to England. Then about 35 years ago, her parents split up. John (my father in law) moved to San Francisco and Dave when he was old enough emigrated back to Canada. Although contact was regular, if it was only cards and occasional phone calls and the time between contact often stretched to several months. Visits from Dad were rare until a few years ago, and never with Dave. (Could not afford do both!)

3 years ago, Dave’s family grew with the quick addition of Cody then Mikey . When I mean quick I MEAN QUICK! Mat my sister in law, (Mat is short for some longer Scandinavian sounding name I can’t pronounce!) went to work one Friday and said

“I am sorry but I will be leaving this afternoon, I have a baby on the way…”


Congratulations was the cry, when’s it due?

“Oh… About 5 o’clock…..this afternoon”

The long process of adoption had suddenly and dramatically come to a great result, and it had been understandably kept quiet in case something went wrong.

Last year we realised that May 08 would be a great time to arrange the BIG holiday. A massive join celebration, 2 of my children were engaged, my youngest was to reach that magic age of 21, Linda was also going to be 21 later in the year (that’s not true! but multiply 21 by 2.380952 and you will know why she wants it kept secret!) Two new additions to the family and John was going to be 70 during the trip.
Finally…
the desire to get father, son and daughter in the same place and in the same time zone for the first time in 30 years.

Much planning (including some very special secret surprises for John), growing phone bills and at last we had it all planned. Itinerary set out almost by the hour.

My wife and I, three (Chris, Kathryn and Nicholas) children with 2 fiancés( Mike and Angela) and not forgetting Mr Punch jumped on the plane just over 3 weeks ago for the holiday of a life time. We were on our way to meet up with everyone in Edmonton Alberta, 12 of us all together or 13 if you include Mr Punch.

John had flown in from San Francisco, the week previous, and was part of the welcoming committee along with the two little people Cody, now 6 and 3/4 and Mikey 3. This made up the full party.

The holiday had begun!

Next time… The reunion…

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