We are now only one week away from D-Day. That's Drive day, I guess? Or DestinationOntario day? Anyway, we leave Vancouver next Friday and as such, Suzanne and I don't really talk about anything else. We discuss what we're packing, what the drive will be like, how living at home is going to be, and what we'll be doing for work. We're really in the thick of this major move now, and it's weighing heavily on us. We keep the pictures up on the walls until the end, because looking at empty bookshelves is depressing enough, and blank walls always remind me how much I hate moving. The packing is a lot of work, and there's a lot of cleaning, which we don't find fun, but it's the saying goodbye that really sucks.

On Tuesday, Suzanne and I went for dinner at Stan and Elise's house in North Vancouver. It was Pork Tenderloin and that strange Vancouver Island beer that they get and it was just the four of us for the first time in a long time. The Shepherd's have been so fantastic to us from the day we got here, and I wouldn't be overstating it when I say that getting to know them has been the very best part of my time in Vancouver. Without the home away from home that they gave us, we would have gone crazy in the first six months. It seems like we'd been pining for back East from the moment we arrived on the West Coast, but right away we knew we had family nearby. It was a diffcult two years for this family, losing John, but my favourite memories of Vancouver will always be of him, and Ellen, and Ernestine and Norman and Reinhardt, and Rhys and Lea and Sadie, and Robin and Nadia and Ajna, and Stan and Elise in the backyard on Edgemont Road. Whether it was trying to master the Diablo with Ajna or splitting the croquet winnings with Ernestine, my happiest days of our time out here have been spent with this family.

After dinner on Tuesday, Stan and Elise took us down to see their boat. We lamented the fact that we hadn't gone out on the water while we were here, but I will definitely be holding them to the open invitation I made for myself. I was very serious when I said I would be welcome anytime. For the last two years, the Shepherd's have tried to sell us on BC, bewilderdly wondering why anyone would want to leave it. They've done an admirable job with the pitch, and while the reasons to go back are legion, the home they've made us feel a part of, with the extended family they centre, is the best reason we can think of to stay. We'll miss you very much, but we'll be back. And I'm going to practise my croquet so that when we are here for a vist, I'm getting my name on that Cow!