60th Wedding Anniversary Party

Sitting here at Sun Peaks watching the moon drop into the western horizon after 3 days of family reunion celebrations. There has been hiking, fishing, eating and drinking into the wee hours and lots of new stories created which I'm sure will show up at future reunions. Mom & Dad and Jean and Bill enjoying their 60th anniversary is a rare event these days, so all the more reason to celebrate. It has been fun to visit with cousins, aunts and uncles and significant others and learn about their recent experiences and future plans. Lots of funny stories and it bods well for the future watching the enthusiasm of the kids coming up.

Celebrated the dinner at a local restaurant and returned to one of our 4 houses for the presentations and celebrations. Great meal and there were cakes that we had specially made for the occasion. Lots of toasts and stories were told all night and there were presentations afterwards supported with libations!

Mike and I decided to walk back to the house afterwards only to be caught in the middle of a very violent thunder and lightning storm. We had to cover our ears a number of times as the explosions occurred directly over head. It was pretty amazing and definitely an adrenaline rush! For the first time in my life I was pleased that Michael was taller...figured the lightning would hit him first! We were soaked to the bone and even though we knew it was a risk, we continued to run onwards for 20 minutes until we reached cover...pretty dumb, but we survived! Sure woke us up though!! There were 2100 lightning strikes that night with over 100 fires started. The forestry choppers were out early this morning and you could hear the water bombers making their runs. Apparently it was the most violent storm of its type in 3 years!

The storm event delayed Erin's return from Europe. She was to have arrived late on Friday night, but lightning storms over London forced the plane to divert and when she finally reached Heathrow her flight had departed. She was put up in a great hotel and all was covered, but she was late arriving. New plans had her arriving the next day and she made it as far along as Vancouver, but again the storms in our area Saturday night stopped her from getting to us and she spent another night as a guest in the airport hotel. Caitlin & Bryan were caught on the road that night driving to meet her (an hour away) and were pretty well overwhelmed by the storm, but they made it safely back once they figured out that the plane wouldn't be coming.

While away we had fun exploring the back roads and the mountain lakes. Lots of flies and mosquitoes, but beautiful scenery and excellent vistas from up high. The homes in the village are huge and quite the places, but noticed considerable property sales with Sothaby International signs at the front...a sign of the world economic times! The strange thing was that other homes continue to be built, so the trickle effect is taking its time.

The whole weekend has been a pleasure and I return to home tomorrow and to work Tuesday. Road trips are always a good time...get away again in less then two weeks for a weekend and next weekend is a long one as well! Weather extremely hot and the fire risk is as high.