Welcome to the February 2011 edition of UK Bound.

Greetings all

It's been a while since my last formal letter home.

I guess by now, everyone is aware of the twins, aka Luther and Tamara. They're doing really well, putting on weight and doing everything that you'd expect them to be doing. I have some pics of them on our webpage and some other ones on FaceBook (and even a little movie). Can't really say they're twins anymore - Tamara's gotten noticeably bigger than Luther, and Luther would rather play while Tamara just watches the world go by. Attached is a pic of the twins.

Seth is doing really well in Year 3. He's getting awards and badges all the time now in and out of school. So much that we're going to teach him how to sew. It'll make it easier for me. Right now, he’s using a math website, and he’s earning weekly certificates. He’s learning French at school as well. He thinks it’s funny that he can count higher than Kim and me in French. Oh, the shame. Last year, Seth was learning Japanese and German. He’s getting quite a good sampling of languages at such an early age. We’re thinking about getting Seth some cartoons in French. He likes “Oggy and the Cockroaches”, and it’s a French show, we should be able to find Oggy somewhere in French. Seth has this week off, so we’re planning on going to the Tank Museum and Monkey World. His most favourite part is riding in the army’s version of a people carrier. It is a tracked carrier that holds about 20 (screaming) people. Seth just loves it. He’s been on it 3 times now and always wants to sit on the back where it’s bumpiest.

For the house, so far this year, we’re only doing minor repairs. The backyard needs replanting and we need some guttering on our shed, and some pulling out of a couple thorny bushes. Nothing that couldn’t be sorted in a weekend – maybe that should be this weekend’s project… anyone free to help out? We've got a skip coming on Thursday, so hopefully in a week or two it'll be full and all the rubbish gone. That's our third skip since we've moved here.

On FaceBook, I saw that it was -25.7 there a couple days ago in BC – that’s about 35 deg colder than it is here. I was going to say that our winter has been horrible. We had snow (which closed the schools) but now I hope that spring is now here. Attached are a couple pics of the big snowstorm that shut down the entire city in December, and the daffodils that have started to bloom. Today, the ice-cream truck came down our road and stopped across the street. I was busy so I didn’t have a chance to get an ice-lolly. Seth was playing on the xbox, so he didn’t notice it either.

This year, I'm taking two holidays – a couple weeks in Portugal and three weeks in BC (Vancouver, Kamloops & Revelstoke). If you've ever been to Portugal, please let us know where to visit. Right now we're looking at travel web-sights, and, although everything looks nice, it is always better if you have someone else's recommendations.

As for BC, I'll be coming into Vancouver on July 30, staying in Vancouver, Kamloops and Revelstoke for approximately a week each, and then flying out of Calgary on Aug 20. Please let me know if you're free, or come with us on little trips along the way and where you'd recommend visiting.

Some things I've thought of are:
Vancouver - July 30-Aug5
- Fireworks at English Bay (depending on sleep)
- Rent a motorboat and go around either English Bay or Indian Arm
- Sushi (yes, I've dedicated an entire day to sushi)
- PNE/Funland rides
- Reifel island
- Top of Vancouver observatory (or the Sunday buffet if it's still there although Seth barely eats anything)
- Grouse Mountain (would have loved to do the zipwire, but Seth's too small (and the paragliding is too expensive))
- Aquarium
- Feed the birds in Lost Lagoon (and the squirrels, ducks, skunks, raccoons and bats)
- Trip thru the Fraser Canyon (Coq is so dull). Probably go on the Hells Gate tram thing – never been myself. Shame they didn’t still have the car ferry going to Nahatlidge.

Kamloops - Aug 5-12
- Water slides
- Ski run up Todd/Harper (whatever they're called now (sun peaks is it?))
- Search for bears and wolves and other wildlife (in the car)
- Indian reserve
- Sushwap (or other) Lake

Revelstoke - Aug 12-20
- Revelstoke Dam
- Ferry across Arrow Lake
- Mt. Revelstoke
- Glacier
- Lake Louise
- Scaling the tower in Calgary

Seth and I both have Facebook accounts. We've got a couple pics up there, so send us an invite and we'll get some chats going regarding our trip. Our FaceBook contacts are:
brian kim carr - bacarr@hotmail.com
seth carr - seth_carr@hotmail.co.uk

I guess that’s about it for now. I wish I had more exciting things to write about, but basically it’s like the Mars commercial – Work (including house work), (bit of) rest (after the chores) and (a teeny bit of) play.

All the best and hope to hear from you soon.

Brian, Kim, Seth, Luther and Tamara

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The first picture is of Luther/Bullet coming down from his perch, and Tamara/Trigger trying to sprawl on the couch. They'll either start with Bullet on his perch and Trigger taking the rest of the couch, or one dog on each end of the couch, and then Trigger will slowly get closer and closer to Bullet. Bullet and Trigger are both pure bread Lurchers (yes Karen, we've had this discussion on FaceBook). Trigger has continued to grow since we got her, and now we think that she's more of a greyhound than a Lurcher. Bullet got his name, cause he's quick. When he's in the backyard, there is no way that you can catch him. He zips back and fourth, and will get within inches of you, then blots off, almost as if to say "what? is that the best you can do???". Trigger on the other hand, is probably faster on the straights, but there's no way that she can catch him. She's faster on the straights, but he's quicker in the corners.

The second picture, is of the horrible snow that we had. Yes, it was almost upto the logo on my trainers/runners. We had almost 2 inches of pure white snow. This amount shut down the city and schools, delayed trains and caused total chaos. Even the garbage trucks, as heavy as they are, were unable to drive down our road, for fear of getting stuck (even though we were fine driving in the snow in our Honda).

The third picture is the first Daffies of the year - these were taken on a walk with B&T on Feb 20th going to the local park.