Family In British Columbia

I have to say that I am very blessed to have the family that I was born into. I not only speak of my immediate family but my cousins as well on both sides.

I believe we should cherish our families very much; but I do know not everyone has the kind of family that I come from. I don’t see any of them as often as I would like. Most of my family are scattered all over the globe especially my second or third or whatever. So I have relatives in France, England, Australia, South Africa, and Canada that I know of anyway. You can see that I could do some traveling and stay with relatives.

My first cousins on my father’s side all live in Washington State while on my mother’s side live in British Columbia, Canada. They are the ones that I will write or speak about today. I will mention the other ones at another time.

I have three first cousins all by Uncle Bob and his wife Aunt Joan. Like most of my first cousins they are older than me. The oldest Rob lives in the eastern part of British Columbia, and he has two grown sons. He works in real estate but should be retiring soon like his two younger sisters. He spent many years living in England before returning to British Columbia. The one trip I took to England I was able to visit him and the family on the weekend. They lived way out in the country so he had a long commute while working in Oxford. The house and the area lived in was very beautiful. The boys were young at the time so they probably have little remembrance of me visiting them. So with that time in England Rob has a British accent mixed in with his British Columbia accent. I would say he sounds very distinguished. Rob is about a month and half older than my sister Barb, and makes him just over eight and a half years older than me.

The next one in line is Susan who lives in central British Columbia north of Williams Lake near what is called Big Lake. She and her husband David have and run a large ranch over two thousand acres with cattle, horses, logging, and growing vegetables. Susan is a retired school teacher while David once worked in British Columbia and Canadian government. So they lived in Ottawa, Ontario the capital of Canada for a few years, and still have friends back there as well my sister Barb. Susan is about a year and half younger than Rob. She has three sons, and the two oldest have a business together. She and David have five grandsons I believe and a granddaughter who is the oldest. Susan was so excited when she was born since they had only boys and so does Rob as I mentioned and younger sister Christy. Susan and David have done some traveling to Europe like they did earlier this year and to Mexico as well.

Christy is five years older than me and her husband is David as well. Like Susan she is a retired school teacher, and so is David. Their home is east of Williams Lake about a thirty minute drive. Also, they have a second home in Arizona where they spend November and early December usually before returning to British Columbia for Christmas holiday with family along with skiing. Again they return to Arizona in late February until late April. March of 2013 I visited them in Arizona for a week, and went to four Mariner spring training games. David is a big baseball fan like me so he goes to several spring training games every year. Christy sometimes tags along as well. She is involved in pottery as well which she does back home in British Columbia too. While down in Arizona they took me to my first hockey game as well. Being Canadian of course they are big hockey fans. When I was ten and Christy was fifteen she spent the summer with us taking care of my brothers and I while my mother was away taking some college courses at Lewis and Clark College. So we got to know Christy quite well that year.

Growing up they all lived in Vancouver, British Columbia while Uncle Bob worked for one of the local newspapers. Now they are all country liven people. Most of British Columbia is a lot like Washington State without a lot of people not counting Vancouver area. So we visited Vancouver quite often to see our cousins.

Uncle Bob and Aunt Joan had property at Lake Sheridan in British Columbia. We visited the lake one year right after school was let out in June. I don’t recall whether Rob, Susan, or Christy were there, and I was in my early teens.  My brothers and I had our first experience water skiing. It took me several tries to get up, and the water was still very cold from the winter snow fall. My older brother Dick his experience skiing was very funny because he did not want to stand up being afraid that he would fall over during the ride so he went around the like on his rear end. I have to say quite the funny site.

So like I say there is nothing like family, and I think about all of them on both sides almost every day. What a joy to be part of this family.