I'm Back

Oh my...has it really been since August that I was on here. I apologize to those who are not on Facebook because that is where I am these days. I forgot that some of you don't go on that site so I will try and keep this site up also. What's going on? Well....Ralph has decided to retire next June, Trish is coming home on December 18th for Christmas, and we have had two major snowstorms already.
The picture is of my Christmas Cactus that is in bloom now...just a bit early. I got this plant for Mom the Christmas that she went into the hospital before she passed away. It had not bloomed since she told me to bring it home until this year. So I guess I will call it Mama's cactus from now on and watch it as it grows bigger and more beautiful.
It has been mild here the last few days so it has taken away a lot of the snow that we got...yeah! Picture of what it was like before it melted.
Ralph finally gave in and went to the Doctor today. He has had a "cold" for five weeks so finally went in. Actually what he has is sinusitis (spelled right?), and they gave him some nasal spray. Can't wait for it to clear up as he has really been snoring :-)

Talk to you again soon, I promise.

A Sunday in August

Here I am taking way too long to update this blog. Now that I go on Facebook I tend to put my pictures, videos etc. on there because it is so much faster and easier. However, not all of you are my friends on Facebook so can't see the pictures.. Therefore I must be better about keeping this blog updated. The group shot was taken on August 17th at the cottage in Beaver Dam where Ralph and I stay when we go down that way now. The people are all relatives of mine and of course Jake and Buster (my sister's dog), got in the picture too.

Ralph and I have been off on holidays this week and the weather cooperated mostly. Back to work tomorrow and it is going to rain but that's okay. The other picture is what we have been doing today (mostly Ralph I must confess). This is the million dollar relish and the beets and he is up there now getting ready to jar trout.

I am getting ready to work out and I expect San and Andrew anytime now. San had the Rav for her trip to Shelburne this weekend so is returning it today. Take care everyone. Have a good rest of the summer.

Murphy Family Reunion 2008

Just back this afternoon from the Murphy family reunion. We got rained out yesterday and today but we had fun anyways. Our theme this year was Easter in July. We had an Easter bonnet contest, egg coloring, road rally and we played washer toss. Lots of laughs for sure. Here are a few pictures.

Friday, July 18 2008

Doris is celebrating today because she got through to the box office when Elton John tickets went on sale this morning. Myself and my sister Velvet will be setting in the Metro Centre on Friday, September 26th when Sir Elton makes his way out on stage. Very excited. Tickets sold out fairly quickly.

How do you like the picture from my trip. I think that this sign is from the beach area in Patong Beach, Thailand. Lots of young people, bars and drinking. We could probably use a few of these signs in downtown Halifax on the weekends :-)

Family Reunion

Hope this doesn't happen at the Murphy Family Reunion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8KYxtWhdV0

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

I tried to upload this video the other day but it did not work so here goes. I put it on Youtube instead. Hope it works.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmkNtHz9MEQ


So Velvet, Donna, Ralph and I went to Flo's cottage last Friday. The weather was great and we had a wonderful time. The four of us have been going over for a weekend for the last five years and this is the first sunny weekend we have caught in four years :-)

Last night Ralph and I were happy to accompany Sandra to the Halifax Club.

http://www.halifaxclub.ns.ca/index.php where we had a reception to celebrate the passage of the bill in the Nova Scotia Parliament that protected the name Naturopathic Doctor.

http://www.nsand.ca/ Check out this site for more information.

It has been really humid and hot here all week. The weather network is saying that it is going to cool off tomorrow which will not be a bad thing. So that is it for now. Will try to update sooner next time.

Getting back to Normal

Well almost back to normal. It is 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and I am in the basement writing this blog so that is not quite normal. I can fall asleep at the right time now but I still am waking up way too early! Here are some more pictures. The one on the left is yours truly on the Great Wall of China. That was quite an experience. It was just last Sunday that I was standing there. It is high noon and the temperature is about 37 degrees Celcius. The climb was quite steep but four of us made it up the wall to the seventh tower.

The middle picture is of the wonderful group of students that I worked with for the entire week that I was in Shizazhuang. They are all very sweet kids. The picture on the right is taken in the Forbidden City which is located next to Tianeman Square in Bejing.

I have lots of pictures that I am going to put together into a slide show and will show at the Murphy Family Reunion in August. Speaking of the Murphy family, we just found out yesterday that Leonard Wilcox, (Ralph's cousin, Aunt Esther's son from Stewiacke), passed away Thursday night. The funeral is tomorrow and we will go up. Flo is coming over from the Island for the funeral also. I think that she is going to stay over Sunday night with us.

Saw San and Andrew's new flat yesterday. Very nice. Nice big rooms, lots of storage and a working fireplace. Lots of nice dark wood and plenty of windows to let the light in. She loves it as well she should. It is very convenient to work for both of them.

The sun is slowly rising here so I guess now I can go put on the coffee, haha. Ralph is going fishing with Doug up in the Branch today. He is leaving on Thursday for his annual fishing trip with the boys to Deer Lake, Newfoundland.

Talk to you soon.

Hello from Hammonds Plains

Well it is 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday and here I am down in the basement on the computer wide awake. I think that trying to adjust to the time change is going to take me a little longer than I thought. I forced myself to stay awake all day today and when I went to bed at 10:00 I fell right asleep. Woke up at midnight and here I am, still awake. I decided to be productive with the time and have downloaded all of my pictures and will put some up here. The top picture on the left is one of the signs that was posted all over the beach on the little Island called Koh Pu that we went to for two nights. The middle picture shows the "cabin" that we slept in on the island. Note the open windows. They stayed open like that all night for the air because it was so hot. I think that I had a visitor on the second night that came through the window or maybe over the wall in the bathroom. I think that it was a monkey. When I heard the noise in the bathroom it woke me up and it must have scared him away. I found my watch on the bathroom floor. I think he may have been carrying it off. Yes, I was scared!

The next picture shows the bed with the mosquito netting and the final picture is the bathroom. Note the lack of real walls. The next picture is of the beach on the Island. We had it completely to ourselves and it didn't rain until the second day. Fun getting out over the muddy roads to get to the wharf to get off the Island. The next to last picture is of a restaurant in Phuket where we stopped for lunch the day we did a tour. It was raining hard so we could not eat out on the patio we had to eat in under the roof. That day one of the dishes we had was deep fried seaweed. Not bad actually. The last picture shows the boat we went in our first day in Bangkok for a river tour of the city. The engine on these boats is a truck motor.

Okay I must go to bed and try to get some sleep. Will update more later.

Last Post from halfway around the world

Hello everyone,
I am writing my last blog from Bejiing. What a whirlwind the time here has been. We have walked and walked and climbed and been out in 34 degree temperature. We saw Tianemen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall. I climbed the Great Wall at high noon in about 36 degrees Celcius. That was quite a day.
We dined on authentic Peking duck yesterday. We went to see the Bejiing Acrobatic Show on Sunday night. We have seen some of the Olympic venues. We saw the Olympic stadium where they will have the opening/closing ceremonies. It is called the Bird's Nest by the locals because of its' shape.

Gotta go now. We are leaving for the airport in an hour and a half. So we are leaving here at 5:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, Nova Scotia time and will arrive in Halifax at 11:00 p.m.

Hello from Shijiazhuang, China

Hi Everybody,
It is a bit difficult to get access to a computer here in China. The hotel that we are staying at has about 20 floors and only one computer for our use. It costs 5 Yuan for 15 minutes . Six yuan are worth about $1.00 Canadian.
We have been a bit taken aback by the treatment we are receiving here in Shijiazhuang. They treat us like we are very important people. Even the people in the street all stop and stare at us, especially if all eleven of us are together. Apparently they do not see many 'foreigners" and are just fascinated by us.
We have gone to the local college every day this week and met with a class of about 50 students. Each of us has a small group of six students that sit with us and we help them understand what is being said in English during the lecture. The English names of some of my group are quite interesting. I guess that they were allowed to pick the names themselves. I have a Blue and a Spring and there is a Zero in the class. Too funny.
They are the sweetest kids you could ever meet. Keep running to get us Canadians another cup of tea or trying to sit right beside us. They are very curious about Canada. They were fascinated when I showed them Canadian loonie, toonie and a five dollar bill.
None of them have ever been on a plane or outside China. It has been very hot and sunny here everyday but we have not had much of a chance to go outside so no chance of getting burnt. We leave for Beijing on Saturday . We go by bus and it will take us five hours to get to our hotel. We are going to see things such as the Forbidden City, Winter Palace, Tianemen? Square, and the Great Wall and of course do some shopping. Trish, the mascots for the Olympics are all over the place and they are the cutest little things.
One week from today I will be safe and sound in N.S. again. We are thinking that we should get t-shirts printed up for us and call ourselves the "Dodging Disaster Tour of 2008". China is still in its three days of official mourning for the earthquake victims. All flags are 1/2 mast and on the t.v. in our room we can only pick up CNN> The other channels originating from the U.S. have been taken off the air during this time of mourning. No entertainment channels are showing during these three days. Every channel has only news of recovery efforts or other news of the day. Little strange but that is how it is when your Government controls all of your media.
Gotta go, we have rare time off this afternoon until 4:00 p.m. so think I will take the opportunity and go to the hotel pool. Talk to you all at least once more before I leave for home I'm sure.

Doris

Friday, May 16th about 4:00 p.m.

Hello everyone,
First I want to acknowledge that today would have been Mama's 80th birthday.

Well, we just arrived back in Hanoi to the hotel after our overnight trip to Halong Bay. Check it out at http://wikitravel.org/en/Ha_Long_Bay. It was just incredible. We anchored about six o'clock in an inlet with all these other boats and just sat up on the deck in the beautiful warm night air looking at all the twinkling lights on the boats anchored around us and breathing the relatively clean air. Let me just say that I will never again take clean air and water for granted.

The food on the boat was incredible. When we first got on the boat it was about 1:00 p.m. so they served what we thought would be a light lunch. Instead it was a four course meal starting with crab in the shell (which tasted exactly like our lobster). I ate only the legs and our tour guide ate my body. She said I should eat the eggs (roe) in the body and I said no thanks but she was happy to get it. The second course was whole shrimp, take off the head, tail and peel off the shell and away you go. My God they were so good. The little frozen ones from Sobeys are just not going to cut it anymore. Third course was Squid. Yeap, squid and not breaded and deep fried. I don't know how it was cooked actually as I did not try it but those who did said it was not as rubbery as that at home. The fourth, and final course was a baked whole white fish ( all that Mia our tour guide could tell me was that it was a sea fish). Anyways, whatever it was it was delicious too. Rice and spinach topped off the course. For dessert, fresh fruit. I had orange slices, the first oranges I have seen since I arrived in Asia.

Speaking of that, what I would give for a cup of coffee and a real American breakfast. I am eating very little at breakfast because it is not food that I want first thing in the morning. This morning I sure should have eaten more as right after breakfast we sailed to a cave in Halong Bay. We had to climb 90 steps in the heat and then walk through and climb some more through three big caves. Quite a site but I had to set down a couple of times because of dizziness. I know it was the exertion, the heat and not enough in my belly as I hadn't eaten much for supper the night before either. Not losing any weight though. We manage to find western snacks here and there.

Drinking lots of water and Diet Coke. Not having too much alcohol as what is readily available is beer and of course I don't like that. I think I have had about three glasses of wine because it is very expensive here.

Okay,must close. We have a class here in the hotel in the morning and then a free day until 6;00 p.m. at which time we are going to go to Bill's friend Bruce's house for supper. Then early Sunday morning we are off to China.

We are going to name this tour "The Dodging Disaster Tour" as the typhoon in Myanmar hit when we were in Thailand and Myanmar is just north of there and now the earthquake in China which is just north of us here in Vietnam. However, not to worry. We are all safe and sound so far and starting to look forward to coming home. Take care everyone, will check in from China.

Hello from Hanoi

Hi Everybody,
It is now 9:00 p.m. on Monday, May 12th. We have had a full day here in Hanoi. You would not beleive this city. We arrived here yesterday at about 1:00 p.m. That would have been Mother's Day by the way. We stopped at our hotel, dropped off our luggage and then went on a quick walking tour. Honest to God I cannot explain to you what this traffic and this city is like. I was so completely overwhelmed by everything but am feeling a bit better today.

Two of us have been sick already. We have to be really careful here, there is cholera going around so we brush our teeth in bottled water, wash our faces in bottled water and drink bottled water only. When we eat out we get only well cooked food and no ice in our drinks.

We were out all day today in the heat so we are pooped tonight. Toured Hanoi in a bus with a travel guide. Saw Ho Chi Minh square http://beifanchina.com/hanoi/01hanoi-hochiminh.html and the Temple of Literature http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/vietnam/hanoi/templelit/templeoflit.html. Then on to the Hanoi Hilton. Don't worty I have pictures of all of this and will bore you all with them when I get home.

After the tour we had a 1/2 hour rest back here at the hotel and then it was off to supper, and a drink at the pub after. We have all checked in with home and now everyone but Jodi and I have gone up to bed. I have to finish this then check Vietnam Air to see how much luggage we can take to China. I may be buying another bag.

Because of the exchange rate I am carrying around about 4 million dong in my purse. To put that in perspective, a 20,000 dong note is worth about $14.00 Canadian. Sometimes it is a little tricky to figure out what something is really costing you but it is cheap we know that ! Ha Ha.

Bye for now everyone. Have to get to bed as we are doing another tour tomorrow and the guide is picking us up at 8:00 a.m.
Take care, miss you all. I am staying safe and well by the way.

Doris

Last Day in Phuket, Thailand

Hello Everyone,
I am writing this from the hotel lobby in Phuket as the rain pours down outside. Yes...it is a warm rain but it is rain nontheless. It has put a damper on what we are doing today. Laurie and I were going to go downtown for a bit but it was too wet for us.

We just got back at supper time yesterday from our little wilderness jaunt. We drove four hours from here to the other side of the Island and took a long boat to the little island of Koh Pu. I think that if you type in Koh Pu, Thailand into search there is a webpage. It was quite an experience. It was like camping at Kejii only the bugs were bigger, it was hotter and damper and I think we had a monkey in our cabin on the last night. Only had electricity from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m.

We have to be up and on the way to the airport at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. We fly back to Bangkok and then on to Hanoi, Vietnam. Hope that it is not as rainy there. I am waiting for my laundry to come back here to the hotel. We all sent some laundry out to be done as our clothes were in bad shape from Koh Pu.

Gotta go. I try to stay in touch by checking the weather on the weather network and the Halifax herald site. Hope everyone is staying well. I am so far and things are going well. Feeling a tad homesick today and I think that it is because I have not been busy enough today to keep my mind off it. Bye for now.. Next update from Vietnam. Have lots of pictures by the way. I am going to do up a presentation and will show at the Family Reunion in August.

Just a quick checkin

I am currently in Phuket, Thailand. We flew in here Sunday gone by, stayed til Wednesday and then drove for three hours to the Island of Kohpu. Boy, do I have stories to tell about that place but I will wait until I get home. We are back at the hotel in Phuket until this Sunday and then off to Hanoi.

It is raining a lot here and really not as hot as we thought it would be. The people here are wonderful and a lot of them speak English. Gotta go, there is a lineup for the computers.

Will try to find an internet cafe tomorrow and write a longer blog.
Doris

Hello from Baghdad

Hi Everybody,
I made it! Safe, sound and hot in Baghdad, Thailand. What a trip so far. Our very first flight from Halifax was cancelled so we ended up losing a whole day. Had to go Ottawa - Chicago-Los Angeles. Stayed overnight in L.A. Left there Thursday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. (L.A. time) and on to Tokyo and then on to Baghdad. After changing many time zones and crossing the International Date Line we arrived here at our hotel at 1:00 a.m. Saturday. Yes, I was a little beat.
Today however we got up and had a free breakfast, took a boat tour of the city, (no life jackets, a rickety old boat with what looks like a car engine on it) but it was fun. Strange to see some of the sites.
We went to a little market after we got off the boat and I got my "rice hat". You know what I mean. The kind that the rice farmers in Vietnam wear. Love it! We were going to tour the King's Palace but the King's sister died today so the palace was closed. However, we did luck in and get to tour the King's temple. This is the Royal temple used by the Royal family for all state occasions and is only ever open to the general public one day a year. Today was the day, how lucky is that. This nice man took us around, let us take pictures of everything, even in the main part of the temple where the Big Man sat and had services (that is what he called him), he meant the head of the Buddhist religion here in Thailand. He said that the "Big Man" is equivalent in status to the Catholic Pope.

After that we went to the Royal Jewellery Warehouse which is also only open a couple of days a year to the public or so they told us. Some of us bought some jewellery. I bought something but don't tell Ralph :-)
Then it was back to the hotel, a drink in the outdoor bar, a swim in the pool and now getting ready for supper. By the way the temp today was 35 celcius. It was not as bad as that may sound. Only a couple of times I thought, Holy God what have I done :-)

Gotta go, leave Baghdad tomorrow for Phuket. Hopefully there will be internet access there also. Take care everyone.

Doris

Goodbye my Blogger Friends

So, the time has come. I leave in 36 hours for Asia. I can hardly believe that it is finally here. I must tell you this funny thing that I did tonight. I had it in my head that I could only have 15 pounds in my one piece of checked in luggage. So, I came home tonight, put everything into my backpack ( a big one, the one San took on her European tour), and put it on and weighed myself. It was 20 pounds. Panic city....what to do. I started taking out what I thought I could possibly live without. Still .5 pounds over. Now I am really panicking because there is no way I can live on any less for a month.

Then, finally my brain kicked in. It is 15 kilograms not 15 pounds. 15 kilograms is like 30 pounds. :-) I was one happy camper let me tell you when I figured that out. Now I am busily looking for more stuff to put in.

I will be posting on here as I can . Take care all of you. I will be safe and I will be back in Canada on May 27th. Stay tuned to this blog for updates . I found this on youtube and decided that whatever side of the street our hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam is on is where I will stay..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC4BN9kInXg

See what I mean. :-) Take care all, I will be in touch.

Doris

Farewell to Nova Scotia

So to all my faithful readers,
I know that I have not been a great blogger. I let days go by and do nothing on here. I am pretty sure however that most of you have better things to do than keep checking to see what Doris and her family have been up to :-)

Time is getting short until my big ADVENTURE!!! I got the plane tickets delivered yesterday so I guess that it is real. The only thing that I was concerned about was my seating on the 13 hour flight from Washington to Tokyo. I have an aisle seat! Yes!!! Why is that so important you may ask? Well....it means that I can get up and walk around anytime I want without having to climb over people and also to go to the bathroom will not be a problem. I have had a problem with air sickness in the past but I have been wearing the pressure point bracelets for the last few flights that I have taken and they really seem to work.

Just to orient you as to the time frame, I leave Halifax on Wednesday, April 30th at 9:00 a.m. and we get to our first stop, Bangkok, Thailand at 11:00 p.m. on May 1st! That includes a four hour stopover in Tokyo.

I am going to be updating this blog when I can so stay tuned. I would really appreciate it if you guys would call or email Ralph while I'm gone just to let him know that he is not all alone in the world :-) Flo, I know you will but would the rest of you check in on him too, I would appreciate it.

Had a great time last weekend. Didn't fully realize how much I had missed seeing family until a bunch of them showed up this past weekend. We had a wonderful time. Played pictionary on the blackboard in the basement and my, we had a few laughs.

Rainy and cool here today, I don't even want to type the next few words but Peter Coade (our local CBC weather forecaster) is saying we probably will wake up to a couple of centimetres of the white stuff. Oh well....it was 30 degrees celcius in Bangkok today.

Bye everyone. Nice talking to you :-) By the way I really appreciate hearing from those who take the time to comment back to me on my blogs.

More on my trip

Hello everyone. Hope everyone is doing well. I had to send this internet site along to you and tell you the story behind it. We got an email from our trip coordinator today and he told us that he had just found out that we would not be able to stay on the local university campus in Phuket, Thailand where we had planned to stay. We will be there for one week. We would have been staying in a dorm like room and shared bathrooms. Instead, now we are staying here.
http://www.phuket.com/absolute-patong-ville/index.htm

What a shame....I will really miss the dorm room :-)

Cool today but sunny.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

This morning when I went to get the paper this is what it looked like. The paper was laying on the ground by the way as the carrier wouldn't turn into the driveway because the snowplow had gone through :-) As you can see, Jake loves the snow. He laid there and watched me get the paper and take some pictures.

Ralph and Jake are out now shovelling. We are going to the home show shortly. Take care. Don't forget to turn out your lights for one hour tonight for Earth Hour.

Hey, it's Spring outside. Someone forgot to tell the weather Guys!

I took these pictures from the back door and the front door just now. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT! We have officially had 5 and 1/2 months of miserable, nasty, snowy, cold, dark, dreary, mind numbing, horrible, winter. But...I am not bitter.

I spent the day with the group from the Asia Field School. We spent the day talking about Thailand, Vietnam and China. The hot weather, the beautiful things we would see and the great food we would have. All that time I am stealing glimpses out the window at the snow that fell from the time we got there until I left at 4:30 p.m. Ralph, of course being Ralph, worried himself sick until I got home. Lots of cars off the road but I went slow, have my snow tires on and didn't take any unnecessary chances. Can I go to Asia tomorrow???? I am so sick of this winter that I can't tell you.

Anywho....on to more news. Ralph has his "Easter Bonnet" done and has told me that I might as well not bother to do one as I will never live up to his. We'll see about that. We were at Flo and Fred's on the Island for Easter. Still lots of snow on the ground there but the Easter Bunny still made it through.

Sarah May has started an Esthetician course (pedicures, manicures, facials etc.). I told her that she should set a booth up at the reunion. She could make a few pennies and get some good practice. What do you think???

I am going to a conference in Ontario next week. I leave Friday, the 4th. The conference is from Friday - Sunday in Hamilton. Sunday evening I will go to Tricia and Joe's and stay until Tuesday when I fly back to N.S. Can't wait to see Trish.

San is in Shelburne tonight. She had her clinic in Barrington today and has a clinic in Shelburne tomorrow. Thankfully, the snow is to stop at midnight so she should be okay to drive back tomorrow evening.

Ralph and I are going to the "Ideal Home Show" tomorrow at Exhibition Park. We need to get some ideas and make some decisions as we have set the date of Ralph's retirement and our move to Barrington for summer of '09. We have a lot of decisions to make about what we are going to build for our last retirement home. We change our minds every week it seems.

Well, that's it folks. I am going to put my pyjamas on and try not to look out the windows.

What a difference a week makes.

So I just wouldn't listen to that voice telling me not to brag about finally seeing the grass on my front lawn, especially since Ontario was getting pounded with snow at that same time. I went ahead and put the picture on here and today when I got up here is the same area of my front yard this morning after the whole day yesterday of "light snow". We didn't go to supper and the casino last night as planned because of the snow. So, we are going tonight.

Oh my God will Spring ever come this year. It is supposed to be spring on Thursday but I don't know..... We are going to the Island for Easter. San will babysit Jake. Hope there are no storms to worry about. Well, must go, I have to leave for my volunteer job shortly so must get ready.

Thirty-four Years ago

Ralph and I were married 34 years ago tomorrow. March 16th was on a Saturday in 1974. There was not as much snow on the ground in Nova Scotia on that day in '74 as there is today. I was 20 years old and Ralph was 22. We thought we knew everything and had done everything and had seen everything :-) Funny, now that we look back on it. We were just kids.

Thankfully the kids made it. Lots of times it doesn't work this long. Now we have been together so long that I think we both can't remember what our lives were like without the other in it. Thank God most days that we know each other so well. We are becoming so forgetful that we are finding that between the two of us we do remember most things :-)

What else is going on....well, we are going out to to supper and to the casino tomorrow night. You may recall that last year on our anniversary we did that and both Ralph and I won around $600.00 each. Maybe we can repeat this year.

Countdown is on for my trip to Asia....44 more days. Ralph is getting in his supply of hotdogs and Kraft dinner so that he will be well supplied for suppers while I am gone. Speaking of suppers...I cooked a turkey for supper tonight. I have started cooking my turkeys upside down on a rack in the roasting pan and I cannot believe how much moister they are, cooked that way.

Okay folks, I guess that is all I have to say tonight. Take care, remember Spring is on the way and this long, long, winter is almost over.

Doris

Hello again

Yes, I know it has been a while since I have been on here. I had to update the blog tonight so that I could put this picture up for all the folks in Ontario. Sorry..... here is what we are getting today from the big storm. Rain, rain and more rain. It is taking away every last bit of snow. Thank you rain, thank you.

I took this picture just before dark. We have had a wicked winter also. It seems that we only see the sun for a day every couple of weeks. Thankfully the time change is tonight so we will start getting longer days.

Ralph is up watching the Brier. He has curled a lot this winter. Been in a lot of bonspiels. We have both been well though which is great. No colds or flu so that is good. Jake has fared the winter pretty well also. He did have an issue with his leg (the one he had the operation on) but it is fine now. I am gearing up for my trip to Asia. I leave on April 30th. I fly from Halifax to Washington, D.C. and then 22 hours in the air to Tokyo, Japan. Then we change flights and go to Bangkok, Thailand. Then onto another smaller flight to Pkuket, Thailand which is where we stay for the first week. Here is a website if you would like to see what Pkuket is like.

http://www.phuket-photos.com/

What else is going on....let me think. It has really been an uneventful winter actually. Ralph has been travelling a lot and it seems that every time he is out of town we have a storm of some sort. Oh well Jakie and I manage to make out okay. Picture above is of Jake in October when he had a sleepover with Riley, the neighbour's Golden. Doesn't Jake look huge onside of Riley? What am I saying? Jake is huge onside of Riley. :-) Speaking of Jake, he has just come down here and pushed his nose up under my typing arm which is to say "mom, pet me".

Just spoke with Trish and she is riding out the storm in Oshawa. She and Joe are doing well. Both like their jobs so that is good. San is doing well. Has a new beau, Andrew and is really busy with her practice. Still no grandchildren, but I don't talk about that much....well..I don't. Okay, maybe I do a little bit. Someday, someday. :-)

Okay folks that is it for me. Would love to hear from all of you. Let me know how you are all doing. Oh by the way, for those of you attending the reunion this summer, I just want to let you know that Ralph has already started putting his easter bonnet together for the Easter Bonnet contest.

Almost February

Hallelujah....we are just about one month closer to spring. It cannot come quickly enough for me this year that is for sure. It is raining again now, about 0 degrees. I guess we should feel lucky as the poor people out West are suffering through such a cold spell.
Ralph just got back today from Ontario. He went up on Monday. Apparently Ontario is getting hit today with freezing rain. Ralph got out before the freezing rain started.
I don't think that I have told you on here about my trip that I will be taking in May. If I have, forgive me, if you don't know read on. I am going with ten other people from the Community College to Southeast Asia. I leave on April 30th (3 months from today) and return on May 27th. I will be flying first of all to Bangkok, Thailand then to Pkuket, Thailand for a week. Then on to Hanoi, Vietnam for a week and finally Beijing, China. I got my first round of shots last week and I get the last two at the end of February.
Flo and Fred left for Florida on Sunday. They left just in time. The Island got freezing rain on Monday night and have been without power since. I hope that they did not run into the storm that hit the New England states on Monday. She said that she would email once she got there so I will let you know how she is doing. Can't wait to hear how hot it is and what a good time she is having :-)
Well must go, have to make some phone calls and get ready for tomorrow.

Enough of the Snow...Let's Think about Summer

So, let's talk about the 6th Murphy Family Reunion which Ralph tells me is only about 187 days away. July 31st- Aug 3rd, in South Branch, Nova Scotia. Be there or be square....

So the emails have been flying hot and heavy about the reunion.
Here's what Ralph tells me is going to be going on:
Easter in August.

Make your own Easter bonnet for the Easter Parade, this includes you males as well. (P.S. Ralph has already started on his you guys so you better get busy).

Easter Egg Hunt

Easter Bunny Hop (3 legged race)

Coloring Contest (Easter Bunny) for the kids, or older if you so desire.

Coloring Easter Eggs (prizes for each category)

Road Rage Rally

Washer Toss Tournament

Golf

And many other activities. And keeping with the Easter theme , we will have Ham & Yams. Pancakes one morning with special homemade sauces contest (prize for the best sauce/syrup).

Gee, sounds like fun doesn't it! All the people reading this blog who are not Murphys will want to come :-)
I will be leaving for my Asia trip in less than 100 days. I leave Halifax on April 30th and return to Halifax on May 27th. I can't wait to blog from Pkuket, Thailand or Hanoi, Vietnam. We are going to Beijing , China also and since they are hosting the Summer Olympics this year that city should be quite exciting. Hope I am able to breathe as I hear that the smog there is pretty bad.
The worst part of this international travelling for me is that I have to go and get shots on Thursday.. Hepatitis, tetanus, maybe typhoid fever and I don't know what else. Oh well, if I have to do it, I have to do it.
Okay that is it for today, talk to you all again soon.

Almost mid January already

Well here it is another beautiful, sunny Sunday in January. This month has been much kinder to us poor snow-weary Nova Scotians, than December was. Here in Hammonds Plains we are almost down to the bare ground in most places. Alas, I hear that we are in for more snow tomorrow. Well what can you do? We do live in Canada and it is January. Could be worse and we could not have a warm place to be in to get out of the weather. Having said that it looks like some people in this province and country are having to make the choice to buy home heating oil or food. No one should ever be put in that position but I know that many people are.
We are paying 1.14 a litre for gas here in Halifax and I know it is a bit more in the rural areas. Told Ralph that we may have to think about getting rid of one of the vehicles.

Read this morning in the paper about the horrible accident in Bathurst, N.B. Seven young basketball players and the coach's wife who was a teacher were killed. The coach was driving the van which swerved on the icy roads and hit a tractor trailer. It just all seems so random and pointless. They were 10 minutes away from the fast food restaurant where their parents were waiting for them. They had made it...almost. Terrible waste.

Been here on the Internet looking for a good Pork Rib recipe. Thought we would have a good feed of ribs for supper tonight. Ralph and I went to a movie last night. Neither of us could remember the last time we went out to a movie. We saw "Juno" with Ellen Page, the actress from good old Halifax. It was really good...funny. We both realized why we don't go out a lot to movies, especially on Saturday. Price of admission, $10.99 @ + about $8.00 for a drink and a popcorn. Total of $30.00 for the two of us and a snack to share. Don't know how families do it? I guess they take their own snacks and go on cheap nights. There were two long lineups to get in the theatre. I had never seen the lines stretched outside the theatre like that before. The security guard said that it has been like that the last two Saturdays.

Happy Belated Holidays

I am getting to be a very lazy blogger. I never seem to get around to updating this Blog lately. I will blame it on Facebook. Since I got active on that I spend way too much of my internet time on it instead of working on this. Well, the holidays have come and gone again. Lots of changes this year. Lost Mom, Joe got a job and he and Trish moved back to Ontario, San has her own place and her practice is doing great and she has a new man in her life. Ralph and I seem to be the only ones that didn't change a lot....too old I guess :-)

Ralph took all of the decorations down yesterday, the house seems so bare for those first few days after everything comes down don't you think? Just got off the phone with Flo. Summerside is socked in with snow. Flo said that it reminds her of the winters on the Island in the 70's. Lots of wind and snow, big drifts etc. She will only have to suffer through it for another three weeks or so as she and Fred leave for a month in Florida at the end of this month. Wish I was going with them.

Tried to make it down to Barrington over the holidays to spend a few hours with my family but on Saturday, the 29th, the snow made us turn back at the Lunenburg exit. We were disappointed but better to be safe.

I've put up a picture that San took at our annual Boxing Day Open House. Good time, good food, good drinks....what more could you ask for. Take care all and I will be checking back soon...I hope.