It has been a few weeks since I last updated, but we have been very busy. Miyuki now has a job. She was hired last week by Sterling Shoes - they are opening a Shoe Warehouse in Duncan and she is one of their first hires. She is thrilled. That girl is all about shoes, I must say! She has also started a small business making toques with animal ears. She has her first 4 orders and she is very happy.

We have had more couchsurfers come to stay. The last couchsurfer was an amazing man from Germany - Wolfenbuttel in Lower Saxony to be exact. His name is Klaus and he is 65 years old. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year and in February had surgery. His surgery was successful but his cancer had spread. He decided to postpone radiation and go travelling instead. He stayed with us for 5 days and one of those days he hiked the Cowichan foot path - a 20K, 7 hour hike! He has been travelling pretty consistently for the past couple of years and off and on for most of his adult life.

We also hosted a girl from Germany - Caro. She is 22 and was doing a year of study at UNBC in biology. So, we had to take her to the Pacific Northwest Raptors! She was finished her year at UNBC and wanted to do a little travelling before she went home.

We also continue to be "under construction". The siding has been going up on our house for the past few weeks. Actually, it is pretty much all up now and there is only a few clean up things left to do. Once it is all done, I will put up pictures of the finished product. It has been really stressful for Nick - I know he just wants to have it all done but renos take time.

We have started planning our trip to Italy next summer. We were initially thinking that we would only go to Sicily, but now we are thinking that we will fly from Paris to Trapani, travel through Sicily, take the ferry to Calabria, and take the train up through Italy stopping in Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan before we go back to Paris. We are all pretty excited about this and Nick and I have been working hard on our Italian! His, of course, is MUCH better than mine.

So, all is well - busy but well. When I have more pictures I will do another post.