Real Nice Visit With My Sister

 

I have said before there is nothing better than spending time with your family. There are friends that we spend more time with than family; however, still there really nothing better than family.

My sister Barb came to town from Quebec this week. She actually a day late on Tuesday because the plane she was taking from Calgary, Alberta had technical difficulties so the flight on Monday was cancelled. She actually lives in Quebec over the river from Ottawa, Ontario so she took a flight to Toronto then to Calgary. Going back home she went to Vancouver then onto Quebec. Though it doesn’t happen often the chances are greater that a flight could be cancelled. On Tuesday she was quite lucky because a flight three hours earlier in Calgary to Seattle was delayed to fly as well because of technical problems and they were waiting for parts to come in for the plane to go onto Seattle. Don’t really know if the flight actually made it to Seattle or it was cancelled. The passengers were OK; however, they had their patience on trial. I know with my experience always a trial to work with your patience.

Actually quite some time back my parents and I took a vacation to visit Barb and her family in Quebec at Christmas time; however, the flight was cancelled because of fog. We actually spent three days at Sea-Tac airport. I can say not a good experience to live through.

Anyway back to this visit with Barb she arrived on Tuesday at around 2 pm so when we got to Gig Harbor it was after 3 pm. The drive time on a good day is 45 minutes; however, this day is more normal these days so with heavy traffic before Federal Way and again around Fife took longer than one hour. Actually that is not that bad it could easily been a longer trip for us. Arriving at my place in Gig Harbor we relaxed for a couple hours along with our mother than went out to dinner at a local restaurant.

On Wednesday we started the morning going out for breakfast because our cleaning woman arrived at 8 am and we wanted to be out of her hair. After breakfast we did some errands and then home for a short time before heading out to see our old neighborhood along with other spots.

On Thursday we out to the Mall in Tacoma for some shopping and lunch. On Friday we went to Seattle and had lunch with our cousin Jennifer.  We had a nice meal at a local Greek restaurant before returning back to Gig Harbor.

Saturday was more of a relaxing day before going to a Halloween party in early evening. The weather was a lot of rain during her visit so we didn’t get out to as many places as we would have liked. The most important thing though was spending time with Barb. It is the best thing to spend time with family and not what you actually do with them. Good conversation is important thing to do as well. We talk about the past including the time as children. Also, we talked about her two sons and what they have been doing as well.

See Barb is almost eight and half years older than me so her childhood time was before mine so her experiences was much different than mine. I grew up mostly with my two brothers Dick and Jack. She was there for almost the first half of my childhood; however, some of that time I do not remember very well.

Barb talked about her early years that she remembers anyway before I was born. See Barb is actually half-sister and so she had another father who she never saw again after the age of three. Anyway she spent some time with my mother’s parents in the early years before my mother and father met. At that time our grandparents were living in Edmonton, Alberta so she actually spent half a year there in first grade before finishing school year in Tacoma. After that with my parents married at that point she went to school in Gig Harbor. Just like myself school was not a happy place for Barb a good part of the time. She had some but not a lot of friends. She spent most of the years in public schools; however, her last two years of high school she went Annie Wright school for girls in Tacoma. When she finished high school she then went on to college at University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. When she finish school in Oregon she then went onto to graduate school at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma where she met her husband.

Most of her adult life including raising two sons was in Canada. She has always enjoyed living in Canada including the early years of childhood. She has lived in Quebec for almost thirty years. She will be looking to retire in a couple years; however, her plan is to stay in Quebec where her two sons live nearby.

I look forward to in the future to travel back to Quebec. If you have never been there it is a lovely place to visit though the winters get some snow and gets quite cold.

Though I do not see Barb as often as I like it is always enjoyable to see her and I look forward to our next visit. Though our childhoods didn’t come together at the same time it still good to call her my sister and family; I have seen friends more often than Barb there still nothing like the closeness of family.