Blog Spot of the Barber Ousey Clan

So....a year in a nutshell.

Adam and Colin graduated highschool. Yeah... Adam is working as a cook/dishwasher at a local restaurant and saving tons of money for college in September. Colin is at college in the Electrical Engineering program. He grew another inch or so and is now gotta be 6'4".
Adam took this of himself sitting in the doorway of our house. He's almost smiling....
Rachel got accepted to the Nursing Program at Camosun College....for the 2008 intake! She is on the waitlist for 2007 so we're hoping that loads of kids go somewhere else so she can start in September 2007. At the moment Rachel is taking a few courses just to keep her student status and benefits. She's missing her boyfriend quite a bit as he is away in Rossland snowboarding and won't be back til March. His name is Saul and he's from New Zealand. He extended his work visa for another year...guess he likes it in Canada:) That's Rachel on the right. Rachel is going to Cornwall sometime in the latter part of January to visit her Nana (her father's mother). Nana is very excited and this will be the first time Rachel flies solo.

Ellie is in grade 11 and doing well. She is working as well and enjoying her spending money. She's also learning to drive. She's out with her dad right now having dinner. They go out once a week just the two of them. Alan loves it.

Here is our cat, Toby. Toby is well loved especially by Alan. He's more like a dog, really. He follows us around the yard and drinks out of the tub. He used to drink out of the toilet. I'm glad he switched to the tub although he hasn't learned how to turn the taps off yet.

I had a very busy year....took a course (aced it), organized a convention (success!), and got a raise (not a huge one but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick). I've been riding my new bike. Alan sold two guitars and bought me a brand new Fuji. Fits like a glove and rides real nice. Got a lot of toys for it now too. Alan gave me a bike computer for my birthday that tracks mileage, speed, cadence and the like. For Christmas, he gave me a wind trainer. see picture. I can now ride nowhere really fast in my TV room. I can pop it on and off quickly. We had a very nice Christmas. Managed to make all the kids happy and each other. We had Christmas dinner at Noni's. Excellent as usual. Noni and John are learning to share the kitchen and appreciate each others special cooking skills....
Alan and I hosted the Barber family dinner on Boxing day. It was a lovely and much quieter evening. The next day Alan and I took off to Pender Island for 3 days and enjoyed the much needed downtime.

We had a very special visit this year from Aunt Catherine. We went out to view the Christmas lights around town. We managed to find some really well down houses. We toodled around looking for one house that we eventually found that wired up his lights to blink with music. You tuned to a fm frequency and he had 5 kids carols playing. It was cool. Then we went for drinks at a local pub. Another day we spent shopping , shopping, shopping and on her last evening with us we all went out to dinner and then some dancing at Swans. We had a wonderful visit and I'm really looking forward to this summer when she's moved out this way. This is a lousy picture but it was the only one from our dinner night that was close to okay. The really blurry face between Aunt Catherine and Rachel is Saul.

Well, I'm done for tonight. The BarberOusey Clan wishes all our loved ones a wonderful 2007.