The Murray Family

So, updating this website is seeming to have less significance as time goes on. Almost everyone who reads this is also on Facebook and our updates there are daily. I would recommend that anyone not yet on facebook should get on there and you’ll have a much easier time keep up to date on our lives.

We still intend to update this from time to time with anything that requires some detail, but it’ll likely be infrequent (as it has been for some while).

While I’m here and typing, I might as well say, Phoenix is due to arrive tomorrow. We’re very excited to have her as she missed her Christmas visit due to cancled flights and such. I’ll try and get a few pictures up after she leaves.

Other than that, I’ve been fairly busy doing Real Estate again, while at the same time getting ready for my new business. It’s exciting. Hopefully I’ll be open for business for Jennifer’s wedding.

Our new kitty has settled right in, and he and Nemo are now pretty good buddies and have a lot of fun rough-housing together. Bandit’s favorite spot to snooze is in the cat house, I got these pictures of him today as he was waking up.

……………………We have a new addition to our family. Meet “Bandit”, our new kitten who we adopted from a rescue group to be a companion for our existing cat, Nemo. Bandit is an orange medium hair cat and is about 4 months old. Nemo is very stressed having a new cat on his turf, but is coming along and we hope they will soon be good friends.

We’ve been very bad bloggers lately, so will try to make up for that. Alpha posted about Florida below so I won’t go in to much detail about that, but we did have a very good time. Jayne enjoyed the horseback riding afternoon the best, and it was very beautiful and a lot of fun. Disneyworld was fun, full of people and lots of walking. On Alpha and Jayne’s birthdays, in addition to getting to go the head of the line, they got buttons saying it was their birthday, so all day long staff were saying Happy Birthday to them, I think they both enjoyed that too!

And when we got back, it was time to go car shopping for me. We went to the car auction, wandered around a bit and didn’t see too much that was going to suit and be in the price range I wanted to stick to, as I was pretty determined not to spend anything over and above what I got from the insurance company for my last car. But, Alpha kept telling me I should test drive a new car, just to see, so we headed to a Toyota dealership, and by the end of the day I was the proud new owner of a Toyota Corolla LE, the first time I’ve ever had a brand new car. That was on a Saturday, I had to wait till Wednesday to pick up the car, but I’m really enjoying it. The coolest part is the key, it’s just a fob that I carry in my purse, the car unlocks automatically when it senses the key is close, and I have a push button start. When we drove to the registration office to do the paperwork there, I parked the car, reached for the keys and realized I didn’t know how to turn the car off since there was no key to turn. But I realized after a second or two that I just push the button again and it shuts off.

I’m really enjoying it so far, I don’t drive to work so I just drive it on evenings and weekends, but it’s a great little car so far.

Okay, I’m late, but better late than never. So we started our trip by flying to Houston. We spent an overnight at the hotel there at the airport and then flew out the next morning to Orlando. I did not sleep well and when we arrived it was all I could do to stay awake. Oh how I was looking forward to a nice hot tub when we finally got to our villa.

It was not to be. Our pool and hot tub were ice cold. grrr. In fact it took 3 days before we managed to get enough heat to use it. Once it was going, it was nice indeed.

Disney World was fun as usual. Two of the days we went were on our birthdays. Mine on the 8th and Jayne’s on the 10th. We received special passes that allowed us to go to the front of the line whenever we wanted. That was cool. Jayne freaked out on the Everest ride I thought it was the coolest.

We also spent one day at Universal Studios, which was a huge waste of money, and a day horseback riding. Jayne loves horseback riding so of course we told her we were going to a museum. heh, heh. She was happy as punch when we got there.

We also spent a fair bit of time hanging out at the villa and enjoying the warmth.

My ex Brother in Law, Kelvin and his sons joined us about half way through. That was good fun for the most part except his oldest, Joel, and I got into a spat at one point. He’s got this crazy notion that aliens are among us and nobody and no explanation is going to sway him. It’s really quite pathetic to be honest.

Our flights there were with Continental Airlines. The same airline that had one of their planes go off a runway in Denver and burn, so the flights were a bit freaky. Of course 2 days after we arrived a Continental plane crashed in Buffalo, killing everyone. Thank goodness we were booked on Westjet for the flight home.

I don’t think I’ll ever go to Disney World again, but we had a blast and if you’ve never gone, you should. I had particularly good reviews of Epcot and the nation pavilions. The Japanese place was so cool. We bought japanese candy, skipping the dried baby crabs, and I also bought a kit to grow a bonzai tree. I’ll update you on that progress as it happens.

Next update will be about nancy’s new car, let’s see if I can get her to write it.

I was scolded today for not updating my website. Yeah, bad me. So much has happened, I really should take time more regularily to update everyone.

I don’t think I can tell everything in one sitting, so I’m going to endeavor to tell a bit each day, so check back frequently or subscribe to the RSS feed (in the lower left).

So tonight it’s late, so I won’t go into any details. Tomorrow! I mean it. Tomorrow I’ll write about our vacation.

Night night.

So, it’s 20 minutes past midnight and so it is now officially my Birthday. wee! Problem is, I’m awake. Last night I slept at the Marriot hotel in Houston Texas as our flight was in the morning, and we had to wake up at 5am. Well, I woke up at 2 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I think I dozed for 15 minutes on the flight which actually is good for me. All totalled, including the airplane nap, I got about 3 hours of sleep.

So all day yesterday I’m a walking zombie, so I go to bed tonight at 7:30pm. And I woke up at 11:30pm. uhg. so here I am wide awake after just 4 hours sleep. What the hell? I want to be rested for my Birthday which we’re going to spend at Disney World later today.

So our vacation rental is nice. The pool though is freezing cold and so is the hot tub. Pool guy is coming tomorrow morning to fix. hopefully. we were really looking forward to a hot tub, in fact, that was a MUST HAVE for us in choosing a place so I am hoping it gets fixed ASAP.

I’m up before everyone else this morning, so I thought I’d do a quick update. We went out for dinner last night with a bunch of friends for Alpha’s 40th birthday. He doesn’t turn 40 for another week, but we’ll be in Florida then, so he wanted to celebrate before we left. I won’t say too much about it, as he’ll likely post something.

We’re going skiing this afternoon, just to the small hill here in town, but it’s been a while since I’ve been on skis so I told Jayne we have to take it easy my first time out. She’ll probably be skiing circles around me as she’s pretty good on skis, I’m just hoping I come back in one piece.

I’ve been chatting with my dad on Skype lately too, which has been kind of neat. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a piece of software you can download, and then talk to another person over the internet, either voice only or voice and video. Since I only see him a couple times a year now, if that, it’s pretty neat to just push a button and there he is.

Well, that’s it for now, hopefully I survive this afternoon so I can enjoy Florida!

Some very interesting news lately. So first off, I got an email the other day from my oldest son, Justin. Last time I heard from him was about 2 years ago I think. Anyway, he writes to tell me that in a month I will be a Grandfather. …What!?! Yep, he and his fiancee are expecting in mid Feb. The last time he emailed me, he and his girlfriend had just got together I think and he was going to show her all the photos I had on my old website, unfortunately I had just started this one and all those old photos were gone.

Anyway, I managed to have a decent chat and learned a few things. First, he’s working for his grandfather’s company along with his uncle Terry (my old bud) doing septic inspections I think. His fiancee’s name is Ashlee and she’s cute as a button. She does some kind of medical assistance stuff I think and is thinking of getting into nursing. Their baby will be a boy, and his name will be Ethan Justice Wells. What a cool name!

We’re crossing our fingers that we’ll get to see Justin and his family later this year.

I have some photos, but I’m not posting them here yet. I’m using them as a blackmail to force my dad to sign up on facebook. Nancy’s dad is on facebook now so I figured he needs to get on it now too. He also has a home page I made for him that has all his favorite links, well, now it just has one link, a link to facebook. ha ha ha, I’m evil. :-)

Let’s see, oh yeah, we’re off to Florida and disney world in a couple weeks. We also have tickets to see a space shuttle launch while we’re there. we’re very excited about that. We’ll also have breakfast with an astronaut the same morning too. It’ll be very early, the breakfast is at 3am and the launch at 7:30am. No sleep that day.

Barack Obama was sworn in yesterday, bringing to fruition a prediction of mine from almost TWO AND A HALF YEARS ago!!!

I’ve had to do some Real Estate work again, but I appear to be good at it and have made some money again. That part is fun. I intend to get back to the new biz shortly.

Um… My hair is super long now and I’m glad ’cause when my friends start calling me grandpa, I can at least say I have more hair than them. :) I think it’s time for a haircut soon though.

Okay, I’m out of news now. later.

Holy crap! Has it been that long since we updated our website? Okay, well here’s what we’ve been up to.

Christmas. We had a nice Christmas, although one sucky thing is that my daughter, Phoenix, was unable to join us due to the terrible weather that was plaugeing the nation that week. It is unfortunate as we only get to see her twice a year typically. So I’ve rebooked her flights for spring break. I hope I recognize her when she finally makes it out here.

As for our gifts, Jayne hit the mother load this year with a new digital camera, electric guitar and a host of other goodies. Nancy and I gave each other a trip to Cuba and a few other goodies. My new waterproof phone was one of my highlights so I’ll never have to get out of the shower to answer the phone again. :-)

Speaking of Cuba, our trip was an interesting one. Getting there proved interesting as our plane fried itself on the runway in Montreal and we were forced to sit on the plane for 3 hours, followed by another hour or so in a room inside the US control area of the airport waiting for our replacement aircraft. Arrival in Cuba was uneventful except that I grabbed the wrong bag at the airport and didn’t realize until my phone rang at 3:30am. The other fellow, oddly enough also from Calgary, had my bag and somehow figured out where I was staying and came to my hotel, and had them ring my room. The first phone call we answered in our sleep and misinterpreted the guy and said call us tomorrow. He rang again and the neurons fired properly and I got up and did the bag swap.

After that, the vacation went rather smoothly. Cuba is an interesting place. I’m glad we had an opportunity to see it, but I have no intention of going back unless the Communist govt. there is tossed out. It is sad how such a once-great city like Havana has deteriorated. If the country had stayed democratic it would truley be the crown jewel of the Caribbean. Nancy has posted pictures of the trip in the photo section.

In other news, I’m turning 40 in a couple more weeks. eek! I’m rewarding myself with, what else, a vacation! This time we’ll be off to Orlando to play at Disney World and hopefully witness a space shuttle launch. We tried to get Phoenix to come out as well, but the ex is unwilling to drive her to Seattle to catch the flight, so that’s out. Fortunately my former brother in law, Kelvin, and my 3 nephews will be joining us for part of that vacation. We rented a vacation house with a pool and hot tub and had extra bedrooms so offered it up to all our friends and they took us up on the offer. It should be good times for sure.

My strides towards my new business have come almost completely off the rails due to a programmer guy who promises the world and delivers nothing. I have been set back about 3 months at least and am now forced to go back to doing some real estate work to help finance the now more expensive programming efforts. grrrr. It will be a struggle to have a working system now in time for wedding season this spring/summer. Investors are welcome, inquire within. :-)

Nancy smashed up her car. I think we updated the website about that. Anyway, they’ve paid us off and we’re now looking for a new one. I’ve suggested we buy a hot tub with the money instead but Nancy didn’t like that idea. ;-) The car search is going slow as there are too many people who advertise on the free websites who are scammers just trying to get money from you online. double grrr

Jayne is getting all ‘teenagery’ on us. I guess it was inevitable. At least there’s no eyebrow piercings or purple hair. Yet.

Our oldest cat Jupiter is now in kitty heaven. (land fill). He stopped eating one day and became all weak and wobbly. He started to have little seizures and such too so we had him put down. It was a very sad day. I had him since he was a kitten, which was over 18 years ago. Our remaining pet, Nemo, misses him too and has become much more snuggly then he ever was. We intend to buy him a buddy once we’re back from Florida.

We had a nice Christmas dinner with both Nancy’s family and mine getting together for some good times. I got a teeny bit smashed later that evening and had a 4 day hangover. My younger partner in crime that night, Michael, was apparently recovered by the next afternoon. Looks like there’s more to being 40 than just a couple grey hairs. triple grrr

Jayne headed out to her Dad’s while we were in Cuba and had a great time apparently. She has a facebook page now and has uploaded pictures there of her trip.

Well, I think that brings us up to date. I’ll try and update more frequently moving forward. Have a look at our trip photos and we’ll chat later.