Monday was Thanksgiving. We both went to work.Marsha does not normally work on Monday's but since she would get time and a half for the holiday she also went in,After work we went over to Barbara's for the real Thanksgiving dinner including pumpkin pie.  Tuesday we were back over to Barbara's for leftovers.  Now we just have a month to recover before we have another round of turkey in November.

Tuesday was the Canadian election.  Steven Harper is still the prime minister. The big news is that the New Democratic Party (NDP) took a number of seats from the Liberal Party and Stephane Dion is scheduled to step down as the head of the party.  So we have a few local elections left but the big one is done and over. YEAH!!  Oh, Doug and I have already sent in our absentee ballots for the US elections.

In fact we helped Barbara sign up for an absentee ballot too. She had not voted since she arrived here. At that time you apparently had to have an official address in the States.  Things had changed and so when we signed up we asked if she wanted to, she said yes and so we did.  She mailed her ballot on Tuesday.  She asked the clerk to make sure there was enough postage because she wanted to make sure her vote for Obama made it to Oregon in time. Everyone in the post office cheered her on, so I guess you can tell who Canadians (at least on the Island) would prefer to have in the White House.

Last weekend when Ed and Pat came to visit we had stopped in Chemainus.  We had a newspaper waiting for us when we returned and it had an article about a new mural being unveiled on Wednesday. It is to commemorate Emily Carr a very famous Canadian artist from Victoria, BC.  We mentioned this to Barbara and decided we would drive down on Saturday to see it.  The weather was rainy almost all of the week, but come Saturday it was in the 50's and sunny.  Barbara had put in her order for good weather and she did real well.

It turned out the mural was not done. Yes, the unveiling took place on Wednesday, but then it was covered up again with plastic to let the artists finish.  So we just walked around town, did a little shopping and had a nice lunch before driving home.  We will just have to make another trip later once the mural is actually finished.

The big news, (for me anyway) was that Apple introduced some new models of Macbooks. We ordered two of them . Marsha's iBook had passed away several months ago and my PowerBook is obviously nearing the end of its life so we decided to get a new laptop for me and a new one for Marsha so she wouldn't need to share mine. We (OK just me) are very excited about them and have been watching the tracking as they come across. The strange thing is that Marsha's MacBook is coming to us from Cupertino California. However FedEx has routed it via Tennessee. That's direct. As of this moment it is in Calgary Alberta. My MacBook is coming from Shanghai China. It was loaded on the plane yesterday, but I just checked again and apparently the airline offloaded the shipment while still on the ramp in Shanghai and it has just been sitting since then. We will see what happens.

The camera was found so here are pictures from Ed and Pat's visit. The house was originally built for the Lever Brothers of soap fame who owned it for many years before they washed their hands of it (cue laugh track). On the way up to Nanaimo  we stopped at a great scenic overlook near the top of the Malahat Pass, so there are a couple of pictures from there too.

PIX
The really cool house owned by the Lever Brothers in Victoria
Two pictures from the overlook on the Malahat. It was a bit hazy but you can just see Mt. Baker.
Moose and Squirrel
Ed, Doug and  cousin Mike
Ed and Pat on Lantzville Beach
An odd house we saw near the beach in Lantzville. We don't know why they did this with the shingles. It just struck us as a bit strange. If anyone knows why they might have wrapped them around the facia and soffit let us know. This is the only house we've seen like this and this is the only place on this house they did it. The rest of the rooflines are normal.

PIX from the Chemainus trip
Fall leaves
Emily Carr mural - isn't it pretty?
Marsha and Barbara in front of some multi-coloured ivy.



Doug and Marsha.