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Well, we made it safely back to Canada… even all our baggage made it!! We spent most of Thursday flying from the Virgin Islands to San Juan, Puerto Rico, then on to Miami and then arrived at our ultimate destination in Toronto, Canada at about 6:30pm… the same time their biggest storm of the year decided to hit! It was freezing rain like crazy and the plane was slightly delayed in landing so they could clear the runway. We landed no problem and then were warned by the flight attendant to watch the ice on the step as we de-planed… nice… welcome to Canada! Lol The ride back to Barrie from Toronto was a slow one, my parents had picked us up at the airport and brought some warm winter clothes for us… believe me, we needed them! The first thing I thought when I stepped out of the airport and felt the cold air on my face was, “hey, this feels like when I reach down into the freezer on the boat getting ice for a drink!”, and “wow, no problem making ice here!”, lol… ice is a little more difficult to make in the Caribbean on a sailboat! We made it back to Barrie after a slow drive up the highway in slippery conditions and that’s when the freezing rain changed to rain and it started to thunder and lightning… that is completely weird for Ontario in February! That was the cold front going through pushing all the remnants of Barrie’s warmest winter in years out of the way in preparation for the next foot of snow that was about to be dumped behind it. It was kind of funny actually, we were getting together with our family and kids to celebrate a late Christmas with since we missed the actual Christmas day with them so Friday was like our ‘Christmas Eve’ and it was snowing like heck outside kind of like it had been specially ordered just for us to have a white Christmas, lol. It was great to see all our kids again, I had picked up my boys on the way up from the airport so we could have a long weekend together, and Terri’s daughter Madison was coming up on Saturday to be with us all for the weekend. Madison had an unfortunate incident where she was halfway to Barrie on one of the Bus Coaches from Toronto when they decided to cancel the rest of the buses due to the weather which left her stranded in a deserted terminal all on her own… not good! Having not driven a car for six months, let alone in winter storm conditions, putting one of us behind the wheel to go get her could have been disastrous so my father Jack volunteered to take Terri and go get her… they had quite a ride but ultimately returned successful and we were finally all together! We had a great weekend with everyone, had a great ‘Christmas’ dinner, watched some movies, hung out with friends… all those things you do in Canada when it’s freezing cold outside! Lol I dropped my boys off last night and they asked me if I wanted to go ice skating with them tomorrow… that should be fun… haven’t had a set of ice skates on in some time! Now I just have to figure out where they are, lol. Terri’s off to Toronto for the week to spend some time with Madison then they are celebrating Madison’s birthday this weekend, they are celebrating it early so they can do it together as we’ll be back in the Caribbean on the actual day. They have a room booked at a ski resort for them and some of Madison’s friends to go and hang out for a girls weekend… should be fun! This week for me will be spent catching up on computer work and production of our new promo DVD… we have 2 DVD authoring computers onboard ‘Sophisticated Lady’ but the problem is there’s been no time to work on them, lol. Hopefully I’ll get caught up this week or early next, but it’s going to make for a busy week! Terri and I have been looking forward to getting together with everyone upon our return… we actually went to a winter gathering of sailing friends from the Kempenfelt Bay Yacht Club here in Barrie on Saturday night and it was great to see some familiar faces that we’ve missed for so long. Our good friends Brian & Janice have helped out by finding and reserving a party room at one of the local pubs here in town where we can have everyone meet for a few hours one evening and hang out to swap some sailing stories over a drink or two… could be fun! We’re trying to set it up for Friday, March 3rd at 7pm at Wickie’s Pub on Yonge St in Barrie… they have a great room out back where we used to have our yacht club get-togethers in the winter time and they even have a big TV that if I can get my butt moving, we may even be able to play some video of our adventures in paradise for you! Let us know if you can come and as the date gets closer we’ll send out some directions of how to get there. Hope this finds you well, and we’ll look forward to seeing you soon! Take care till then. Cheers,
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