Must Do Checklist: The Luau

It's one of those extremely expensive tourist things that has to be done, so here we are queuing on the beach, near twilight waiting to get our hands on those free complimentary Mai Tai's.

To be fair, it was a free bar and all you can eat, what else could you ask for?

Here's the pig going into the ground. For those that don't know, a Luau is where they cook a whole pig in the ground before serving it up.

View photo's of the Luau

Flying Cattle

We finally set out from Vancouver airport on 24th October, Gina is pictured above, at the check-in. I guess we were all so excited about going that we didn't think that the taxi ride to the airport would get us there so punctually. As you can see in the picture the place looked a bit empty. At first we thought it was going to be a quiet flight....until we realised that we were about an hour too early. We were there before the check-in desks were even open. Now that's excited.

Anyway once we were finally on the flight we realised that this holiday chartering business was not as comfy as one would like. The 5 hours on the flight with WestJet felt longer than the 8 hours from Heathrow to Calgary with Air Canada. WestJet were cheap, so cheap that they even felt they could charge us extra for in-flight video entertainment. The only problem is if you didn't want to pay you still had to face the video screen that had been installed on the back of every chair, blinking away an advertisement that bragged the advantages of buying the rights to view more then the advertisement itself. In the end the dumb video was out of order anyway and no one would get a chance to sample the fine array of movies they would've had to offer. Gina found a better use for the back of the chair in front of her and simply fell asleep. Nice one.

View the photo's

Uncle Bob and Aunt Dora

Here's a picture of Donna's Aunt and Uncle. Bob even managed to smile for the camera, which I'm glad about, because he truly is a funny guy to be around.

Bob has a dry humour which the Canadians tend to have difficulty with. The truth is there are probably a lot of Brits that would get offended by Bob, but all I could do was laugh.

Aunt Dora is a born again believer, but Bob isn't a Christian, he's kind of anti in a way. So please pray for him everyone.

I've given it a lot of prayer, I'm going to come back one day and bring a missionary team to Trail to stay with Bob and Dora and try to win Bob for Christ.

I know he'll appreciate it once we get him saved... Jesus loves you Bob!

Editorial Correction

Mike Moskal from Cranbrook writes...

Hi Wes, hey one super important thingy that you have to fix on the website.

Erik is with a K not a C. <- that was from Erik.

Cya

Mike and Erik

Wes says...

But does he want it to be a C? that's the question, because, here's a chance to be known as Eric with a 'C' ! Just think about it... that's all I ask...

My apologies to Erik- the site has been updated but really.. you should be blaming my editor- your Aunt! I mean, I've been in this family, what, like 4 months, she's been there all along and she didn't even think to correct me?!

What kind of a family have I married into?? Where you like to play tricks on people so they get your name wrong huh?

Seriously though, sorry Erik!

Saying Goodbye To The Nephews

From the left: Ryan, Kyle and Erik.

Ryan and Kyle weren't smiling, I think they we're sad to see us leave, they were holding back the tears. I must have had such an affect on them. It's ok guys, you'll see us again soon.

Tony (Anton) Moskal Ranch

Donna writes:

I brought Wes to this place on one of our last nights in Cranbrook. No trip to this area was complete without seeing the farm that my Dad built and which was the last place where he had lived. I felt it was a way that I could introduce Wes to my Father because it still bears witness to the perfectionist that he was as well as showing Wes a little of how I grew up on "the farm".

Unfortunately we didn't get to see the house that he built but we viewed it from a distance as we drove onto the property turning around at the lower barn area. We sat down at the old out buildings for a bit while I rattled on about the place and all the memories it held.

As we were leaving I asked Wes to stop and take a picture of me at the gates to the property. I was overcome with sadness standing there. The gates were still unfinished and looked exactly as they looked so many years ago. I felt they represented my father in a way. He too was taken from us far too young and left us... unfinished.

I don't know if the present owners ever intend to finish these gates but part of me doesn't want to know. For me they will always remain like this, waiting to be finished, wondering what they would've looked like if they had the chance... just like my Dad.

Pizza Time!

Far left: from the left: Mike and wife Shannon, son Erik and me. Near left: Donna's mum Elsie, Mike and Erik.

MIA: Kyle & Ryan Moskal

There are 4(?) computers in their house (next door to Elsie). My brother-in-law, Mike has even built his own games arcade (below). Mike if you build a fruit machine we could be on to a winner.

Jetlagged

We finally made it to Elsie's (Donna's Mum) house Cranbrook, so far I survived jetlag from a 9 hour flight, then a 4 hour car trip and it shows. No sooner had I arrived I got to meet new inlaws
as they came round to interrogate welcome me.