Al & Sue Williams 2015, In Review

Posted: 2016-01-05 16:52 Permanent Link

A lot happened during 2015, most of it good.

The year started with us enjoying our newly completed Kitchen / Dining room renovations and celebrating Emma’s (our Granddaughter) first birthday at our house. And we completed the year with babysitting Emma on New Year’s Eve (again) and enjoying our newly completed bedrooms, bathroom and hall renovations. Things are good. (Okay so we kidnap Emma on a regular basis – can you blame us?)

Sue and I continue to work for the same companies as we have for more than a decade now. Work has been very busy for both of us. Sue got put into a new job position that is demanding more work hours than ever before. Although there is currently no-end-in-sight, Sue is still positive and is looking to get things running smoothly at some point. My job responsibilities have grown to a new record and there is no way to keep up. I just do my best and hope that things will get better.

The saddest thing that happened during 2015 was the passing of our brother-in-law John Rodgers. We always liked John a good deal and we truly believe he was the best thing that ever happen to Alan’s sister Linda. Here is hoping that Linda will somehow get over John’s death and manage to resume her life…

The scariest thing that happened was losing the left-rear wheel from the truck on the 401 on way to John’s funeral service. Sue, Melissa, Amanda and I all came very close to being in a vehicle involved in a high speed accident.

I had had the truck in for service the day before to ensure that it was ready for the trip (as we would be easily driving more than 1000 Kilometers for the funeral). Unfortunately, the mechanic who performed the work, failed to properly service the truck and we lost the left-rear wheel at full highway speed. It came off during rush hour on the 401 just west of highway 25, in Milton. The wheel rolled across all three eastbound lanes and into the westbound lanes where it hit another vehicle, right where the windshield and the driver’s window meet and then rolled for several hundred meters until it stopped. We are lucky that it hit the other guy’s car where it did. The result was severe damage to his car, but no injury to him at all. 100Km wheel going one way – 100km car going the other way – they collide and the only damage to was to one car. Wow!

When the wheel came off our truck – the truck decided to roll over, however, I got the truck back under control and got it stopped on the side of the highway, without hitting any other vehicle. It fact, in spite of the crazy situation, it looked as if I had intentionally parked the truck there. Again, Wow!

There is even more to that story, but I will reserve it for verbal telling only.

While we were visiting my sister Linda (for John’s funeral), we stopped by and saw my biological mother. She has moved to the town of Cobalt ON and seems to be quite happy with her life there.

The cottage did well, this year. Everyone who used it, enjoyed it. We got more maintenance work done, by painting the exterior of the cottage and the outside of the shed as well. We also got many other improvements and maintenance work done. A special thanks to all who helped out at the cottage, because without your help we would have to pay people to do the work and thus we would not be able to afford to keep the cottage going.

The cottage now has High Speed Internet & VoIP telephone service. Another Wow!

We finally replaced our old 4 × 8 black metal utility trailer with a 5 × 10 galvanized trailer. This is a huge improvement and we should not have to buy another trailer for a very long time.

Currently my health is stable, as is Sue’s health. The senior members of the family are slowly getting older, along with all that it means when you are in your 80s, but Sue and I are doing our best to look after things. In fact, we are in the midst of planning a 90th birthday party for Sue’s dad. We are very excited about it and hope to see everyone there.

We had fantastic dinners, at our house, for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, with a lot of people attending. And we had friends and family over for many not-so-formal dinners. It is truly great to have so many family and friends in our life. We are very grateful!

Here is to hoping that 2016 is our best year ever!