Wild Times

We have returned from our west coast travels and while it was not a hiccup-free trip, we had a great time visiting people and places. Seattle, as most of you know, has been experiencing wacky weather, which naturally derailed holiday travel plans for many folks headed out there (including all Doyles who had planned on making the trip although we all eventually made it). After not making our flight on Monday, and learning that there were virtually no free spots on any flights until after Christmas, we snookered our friends at Southwest into giving us a spot... or maybe we were snookered. Excited to learn that there was a flight that left early Tuesday morning (and thankfully abandoning our plan to fly to San Fran and then drive up), we quickly rebooked on that one and showed up for our "direct" flight to Vegas where we would connect to our "direct" flight to Seattle. It turns out (and I'm sure everyone else knew this) that direct is not the same as non-stop. So, after taking an almost 20 hour tour of this great land of ours, we arrived in Seattle sometime around midnight (Seattle time) on Tuesday. We were greeted by Nana who, after she and Grandpa encountered their own travel tales of woe, was still up making soup and generally being a Christmas elf. Undaunted, the gathered clan Christmas-wrapped our little hearts out on Wednesday and had a great celebration with everyone on Thursday and Friday. Santa (and UPS) found three excited Doyle girls peeking under the tree with lots of presents winking back at them. Christmas is about 1000 times more exciting with little ones around, getting into mischief, emitting high decibal squeals and playing with all their new toys.

We had a lot of fun with everyone there (thanks to Eric and Mary for hosting all of us and providing great food and drink) and especially loved watching Katy, Molly, and Emily play with each other. Katy runs a tight ship out there and is full of all sorts of antics and imagination. Just don't try to pull a fast one on her because she will put you back on the straight and narrow before you know what hit you. Emmy is about as cute as can be with her new teeth and sweet-as-anything grin. She's laid back and so full of love that she didn't even mind when Molly patted her head for the 20,000th time. Or sat on her.

Christmas morning and Molly's new seal (currently dressed in a pig costume).

Wee ones in their Christmas finery.

Molly had her first taste of Chinese food on New Year's eve. I'm not sure who won that battle.

After Christmas, before we wore out our welcome at Eric and Mary's too much, we headed up to British Columbia for some job scouting and to get a look at the area. Without reservation, BC has some of the most stunning and gorgeous landscapes around. And they are scary as hell when you're driving through them in a snowstorm and it's getting dark. I've decided that I really, really, really like plowed roads, salt and sand trucks, sunlight, my life, civilization, and benign highway signage. John masterfully piloted our little rental car through some treacherous driving conditions on some pretty high mountain passes. Below is a little taste of what we encountered up there (these aren't my pictures. I couldn't take pictures when I was white-knuckling the door handle). The highway sign shown is one of the nicer ones we encountered. We passed others that wanted us to make sure we had enough gas to get through the next 100+ km, told us that major highways were open (which means they can be closed, which means the weather gets really, really bad), last U-turn for 100+ km, delineated critical accident zones (20km long with no cell service), described something about rapidly changing weather in high mountain passes... in the end, though, if we hadn't gotten out on Tueday, I'm not sure when we would have gotten out. Washington state passes were also intermittently closed throughout the next several days because of avalanches and snow and all that fun stuff.

This sign is really so kind compared to others. In Canada, I think they decided if they put up a sign and warned you then they are off the hook for things like plowing.

This is a good picture of Coquihalla Pass, the easier of the two we encountered, in slightly better weather than when we went through. The roads are clear-ish in this shot. The avalanche slides are ahead but more gut wrenching is the slope of the road. These aren't any wussy American descents, these are "let's save some money and pave straight down the side of a 1200 meter mountain" where breaking is for losers.

In any event, we are back in our little house, happy after a great trip and excited for all that is ahead in the new year. We hope everyone is comfy and warm and had very merry Christmases. I promise that the next post will contain more updates about Molly's new tricks and antics. To preview, she's becoming less hair challenged, she's walking around lots and navigating obstacles well, she's is talking more (it was good that she can say fishies since we went to the aquarium and saw a billion of them. She may have pointed them all out, too. She also loves to say Harry and missed her buddy a lot), has added some new dance moves, and continues to love all the positive reinforcement she can get her mitts on.