After a too-brief, but amazing trip back to Ontario for Christmas, we came home on December 28th (miserable trip, thanks Air Canada). We had a ferry booked for New Year’s Eve, as we wanted to be there for the Lane Party to ring in the New Year. We were mid-renovation (I’ll try and do a proper post on that once we come through the insanity and the place is back together), so our home was a bit of a disaster. Still, there were some things we could do to start to get organized. The ferry over was on time for a change and it was nice to be back!
We had come over on the morning ferry to give ourselves as much time as possible. As it ended up being such a nice day, we decided to head down to Montague to do the walk around the point to see what we might see.
The map of our walk.
It was a beautiful day, and one of the great things about that hike, especially in the winter, is how tropical the water can look. Today was a great example of that. The arbutus trees looked amazing in the sunshine, and we had quite a good bird count for the walk.
We did the short walk around the point, enjoying the early afternoon sunshine. I haven’t had a chance to process the photos yet, so I will update this post a little later with some pics. But we had good viewing - 10 species and almost 100 birds. Highlights included kingfishers, a bald eagle and almost 50 surf scoters! They are a favorite this time of the year. But soon enough it was time to head back and get ready for the New Year’s Eve party.
Ross and Sophia were gracious enough to host the party this year. They did a lovely job with food and some very tasty cocktails. We had about half the lane out and it was good to catch up with everyone. We ended up ringing in the New Year twice - once on Eastern time, as a few people had to hear out early, and then again on Pacific time. The party went surprisingly late (last time it was wrapped by 10 pm), and we did not get home until almost 1:30! Very late for us. I won’t post any photos, to protect the innocent, but it was a fun night.
The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxed. We were still very wiped out from the reno and the travelling over the holidays, and so didn’t feel the need to do too much - especially as the rain started back up. We did get a few things done - we planted some trees that I had started on the roof, and got some other small chores down around the property. And there was a fair bit of lying on the couch. And I did manage to play a round of golf on New Year’s Day, which was a nice start to the year.
And the final achievement of the weekend was completing my birthday present from last year…
Justine had bought me this really nice wooden puzzle of my favorite football team. It was interesting as the negative spaces made figuring out the placement a bit tricky. As with all wooden puzzles, it had some very fun shapes in the pieces to add another element to it. It didn’t end up taking too long, and it was nice to work away at it over the weekend.
We were headed back a bit early as I was flying down to Las Vegas for CES next week!