Dear Friends and Family,

Another year has passed and we hope that you have been well. It's time again for another update on the Wong/Matsumoto family.

We moved at the end of last year and finally our house is getting to be a home.

Reika (15) is now in Grade 10 at Burnaby North Secondary. After three years of trumpet, she's decided to take a break and focus on choir this year.

Kirika (13) finished Grade 7 at Westridge Elementary School in the spring and is now also going to Burnaby North with her sister. She continues to attend the Vancouver Japanese School online on Saturdays.

In February, our hamster, Sousuke, of three years pass away. It was a sad day, but he lived a long life, for a hamster.

We welcomed Ginga, our new hamster, into our house in May.

Eri was in a car accident at the end of May. She wasn't seriously hurt, but the car was a write off. Since then, Eri's been going to physiotherapy to help with the soft tissue damage. Thank goodness our new place doesn't have any stairs.

So we had to buy a new car sooner that expected. Slowly making our way into the electric vehicle economy.

Marshal continues to make sourdough bread.

Since September, he's been going to a gym regularly three days a week in the mornings. He feels he's been in the best shape of his life.

With the pandemic, there wasn't much travel this year. Marshal did manage make his annual trip to Japan for around 3 weeks in March/April. He had to quarantine for 14 days in Japan, so that really cut the trip to about 5 days of freedom. He then had to quarantine for two weeks (actually 15 days) on return to Canada.

Reika and Kirika went to visit their Auntie Caroline in Montreal in August. It was their first plane trip alone, without parents or supervisors. But they made it there and back safely and had many adventures with Caroline.

The weather in British Columbia has been a bit crazy this year. First there was the heat wave at the end of June. Our place doesn't have air conditioning, so we had to escape to Marshal's parents during the day for a couple of days. At least our place was still cool enough to get a little sleep.

There were the wildfires after that. Luckily, it didn't affect the lower mainland that much. The air quality was only really bad for a few days.

Then in November there were the rains from a series of atmospheric rivers. This caused flooding and mudslides in cities nearby, but luckily we were unaffected.

We've had a couple of days of snow so far, but nothing that has stayed. Nor have we gotten any freezing weather, for which we are also grateful, given all the rain.

We haven't really done much this year because of the pandemic, but looking back, it still was an eventful year.

Wishing you all the best this holiday season and into the new year. To quote Dr. Bonny Henry, "Be calm, be safe, be kind."

The Wong’s / Matsumoto’s

Marshal, Eri, Reika, Kirika (+Ginga)