Finally Thawed up......

The reason I have not posted any entries over the past couple of days has been because I've been trying to regain feeling in all my limbs after spending 5 days in below freezing temperatures........ and also because the jet-lag finally got a hold of me too..

Back where we left. After Stratford I headed out to Oakville (outside of Toronto). It was snowing hard as I left town but fortunately it stopped about 40 miles out.

Picture of the Canadian scenery between Stratford and Oakville:

Meet Los Chicos



In Oakville I went to visit Los Chicos, who are amongst the nicest people on this planet..... Los Chicos are Jorge and Carmen Laura, we met them back in 1979! Jorge and Carmen are cuban, they left Cuba back when Fidel moved in. Carmen is from the Bacardi (yes THE Bacardi) family and Jorge works (or worked, he just retired last month) for Bacardi. My dad was working for Bacardi in Mexico and J&C came to Mexico so my parents hosted them. They told us one night that some cuban friends were going to come to dinner that night. Obviously my brother and I had no clue what a "cuban" was. So when J&C came home that night my brother and I were anxious to meet a "cuban". When they arrived the said in that very merry accent and tone that all cubans have (or at least all of the cubans I have met)"

-" Hola! Como tu tas chico!?"

My brother and I looked at each other, then looked at my parents and asked them what language where these people speaking?

Anyways, since then they have been very close family friends, so I had to stop and visit. I spent the night at their very nice house, went out for dinner, hung out with them and had a wonderful time! More Family!

From Oakville I went to Buffalo where Charlotte's sister Kelly and husband Eric live (for now that is, because they are actually moving to Stratford to open a Bed and Breakfast, so stay tuned because in the near future there will be a post on this blog featuring the grand opening) to meet them for dinner. It was great seeing them. I had seen Kelly a couple of times over the last 10 years, but the last time I saw Eric was back in 94 when Charlotte and I visited them in our honeymoon (the first one) in their house in Portland OR.

Brought them some beer from Oakville from a small micro brew which we thoroughly enjoyed before heading out for dinner. We drove to the restaurant and parked where Eric told me to and then we walked about 35 blocks to the place (or at least that is how far it felt in that temperature, must've been somewhere between 0-10F!). Great dinner in great company!

Sunday morning heading to the airport the temperature was 14F (-10C)! Don't know how people can live there.....And as we get on the plane the pilot said that we were leaving a nice warm place and headed to Chicago where the temperature was -4F with a wind chill of -20F!......

But, now I'm back home, monday was a holiday and was able to go SURFING!!!!!

Sunday night our friend Howard from Tucson came to visit, he is staying with us this week while he tours the big island and gets interviews to try to move here (or one of the islands).

A Hui Hou