Happy Holidays!

Overall, 2002 was a pretty exciting year. In January, we started planning a vacation to the Caribbean for March. It had been 5 years since our last trip, so a vacation in an exotic location seemed like a nice treat. We watched for last-minute deals and eventually booked an all-inclusive package at a resort in the Mayan Riviera.

In preparation for the winter trip, we replaced our first digital camera with an Olympus C-700 Ultra-Zoom. The big 10x zoom on the new camera allowed us to get some fantastic bird pictures. The trickle of pictures we posted online in 2001 became a flood of 1500+ images in 2002, and before we knew it, we were constantly improving trusler.net. Maintaining a photography site has become a major hobby for us, and both family and friends have provided us with excellent feedback. From our excursions to the Barron Canyon and the Shaw Festival, to various trips to Kingston, including almost every visitor we entertained, it all made its way onto the website.

Throughout the summer, we visited the Trusler's cottage on long weekends. We took our usual summer vacation the week before the Go Home Bay Regatta in August. This time we didn't bring the cats with us because the cottage kitchen was being renovated. During the week, we made a special trip to Missisauga to pick up our new car, a Hyundai Elantra GT. Our 13-year-old Cutlass Cierra with 242Mm on the odometer was finally retired to the scrap heap.

The travelling bug bit us after Mexico and in late August we went for another vacation, this time to Nova Scotia. We visited Ross' cousin Jen, her husband Claude, and their daughter Esme in the village of Prospect, just outside of Halifax. After spending a few days around Halifax, we had a magnificient drive along the Lighthouse Route on the southern shore of the province. While around the Digby Neck, we spotted a seal colony, and a 50-foot Fin Whale.

All the travelling we did during the summer made it more challenging to keep up the acre of property around our house. Fortunately the previous owners had planted a lot of perennials which didn't require much attention. Our poppy and iris gardens were incredible. We planted some vegetables, but the deer ate all of our carrots and lettuce. Next year we are going to stick to garlic.

This year, we were only at one wedding, that of Ken Darlington and Kim Saegert. In the upcoming year, we're looking forward to even more tripping about, much of it from the 6 or 7 weddings we'll be attending. Among others, we plan to travel to Hawaii for Paul and Candy's wedding in February, and to Regina for Bobby-Jo and Greg's wedding in July.

We would like to wish all of our family and friends a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Ann & Ross