This year was a combination of health challenges for Marilyn and good news stories in the results:
1. Breast Cancer – clean bill of health follow ups
2. Min-stroke – no noticeable changes in health as a result
3. virus Infection in the Eye – successful treatment
4. Peripheral vision issues – no change

Elmer and Marilyn continue to respond well to the Pure North Health Maintenance recommendations and are feeling very good for our age. So now our health is now off the agenda for this year’s story

We now have twelve families and two Teenagers that make up our growing tribe. All are actively pursuing their goals in life successfully and enjoying good health. We could not possibly be more thankful for all these very important gifts that have been afforded us.

Some notable events n our family:
• Another college grad
• The first Masters pending grad
• Another thinking of starting a Masters Program
• Two more entries into College
• A two year old Great Grandson that can almost drive
• Rumors are that another may be on the way
• Career promotions abound
• Everyone has jobs
• A wedding in 2015 with others potentially to follow
• Another High School grad
• Our last entry into High School
• A Great Grandfather who continues to pursue his enjoyable career
• Another very happy house owner

Our real lives are still filled with experiences that seem to add humor and spice that never seem to stop to make us “scratch our heads”:
• We now will park our car in Pelly when we visit sister Mary in Benito (ask Mary why)
• The “musical” locks on our car doors that make it very exciting as we never know which door will not open under any circumstances
• The car heater switch that can only be turned off when the driver’s door is opened
• Our hearing aids and glasses that keep moving from where we left them but are eventually found in mysterious places around the house
• The dastardly TV controller that keeps hiding on us
• “Mice” that keeping eating chocolate bars, candies and other goodies that Marilyn hides but somehow disappear
• Credit cards, passports and other vital information that are “stolen” for weeks at a time but “someone” puts them back just when the RCMP were being contacted
• A neighbor continually leaving our garage lights on
• No matter how many garage sales Marilyn has, the accumulation of “prized possessions” continue to multiply
• The designed empty crawl space has been inundated with cardboard boxes so that maintenance crews are unable to service our furnace

We are very thankful for our family and friends. We are always ready to have another visit. Do drop by!

Marilyn finally has her kitchen table and chairs. Do come and break bread with us!

Elmer and Marilyn

Sometimes we are concerned when young people say they will go to the “End of the Earth” to get to know the World and experience life. So six weeks ago they set off for Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

This is likely better than two years of University credits!

Here is what they have to say about their trip so far. (I was not able to transfer the pictures which are referred to in their Facebook entry). This was forwarded to Gramps and Granny by his mother Nona,

From: Garrett Kucher [mailto:kucher16@me.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 10:29 PM
To: Kucher Nona TRAIL
Subject: my experience

Hi family,
I’m almost 6 weeks into the trip and Santana and I are having the trip of a lifetime. I just wanted to say hi to everyone because I miss you guys so much and Christmas is coming, unfortunately I will be on the islands of Thailand and anyone is more then welcome to join us! 🙂 Anyways, I feel I should share some of the experiences and things I’ve learned along the way with whoever would like to read. ( sorry about the grammar and run on sentences Kayla and Allie) I’m in a small cafe on the side of the street in Battanbang Cambodia stealing the wifi so I’m writing this as quick as I can. I’m not sure where to start but I will tell you some things and my thoughts about them.

Eating in Vietnam- if you want to know exactly what your eating, only eat vegetable pho. It is the best thing in the world, but once you get something else I’m not even kidding it’s a flip of the coin wether it’s dog or cat( I’ve never had chicken that looked or tasted like this so this is my guess). The butchers on the side of the road just lay all the meet on a table in 35 degree weather all day, you can buy anything you want, cat, dog, turtle, snake, eye, buffalo nose, chicken feet

Dining- when you use something or it’s garbage everyone just throws it on the ground, napkins in restaurants get thrown on the ground, trash is literally everywhere.
Transportation- everyone rides scooters, in Hanoi there is 6 million people and 5 million bikes, I’ll show you the video of trying to cross the street when I get home if anyone would like to see!, they carry everything on bikes, up to 5 people, kids ride on them and everything, babies just get held in between the parents, and kids under the age of 6 don’t wear helmets because it could “hurt their neck”.

anyways that’s just a brief touch of Vietnam it’s tough to really explain how everything is but it’s honestly like being on a different planet, I’ve never experienced anything even close to this before that’s why I’m sharing this crazy eye opening trip. I’ll touch up on Cambodia after we finish the temples and get into Thailand.

I’ve never seen or imagined that anyone can be this poor, from living In wood huts and eating rice and fish they catch, and just going to the washroom where ever they are close too it’s all so crazy, the kids are all just naked in Cambodia playing in the mud and dirt. Here is a house that a mother and 3 babies live in

Seeing all this stuff has really changed my outlook on life and how fortunate I am to even just have a house and family to go home too, the kids play with a beat up old soccer ball for all hours of the day because that’s literally all they have, they all sleep in hammocks outside their huts. Santana and I have chose to rough it like I mean really rough it to get the experience of having nothing, we have stayed in 1$-6$ hostels and a couple decent rooms along the way, but I’m telling you it’s not very fun having the runs for three weeks and this is your toilet

or waking up and having to go shower using this

it honestly blows my mind to see all this people that have nothing at all and still when you walk by them or come to give them something they have the biggest smile on their face, for example we were on a bus from Kampot to Phnom Phen the other day and we had a tray of cookies so I leaned forward and gave two cookies to two middle aged Cambodian men and they didn’t stop saying thank you and staring at me, it was like they have never had a cookie before. Don’t get me wrong their is a lot of nice places and people with lots of money over this way but it’s very scarce, majority of the country is dirt poor. I’m not even half way through this trip and I can say that is has changed my outlook on life in many many different ways, I’m so thankful to have all of you and we are so lucky to have a family like this, oh ya and gramps, I don’t know what you would do if you saw what a construction site looked like over here haha, anyways if anyone wants to FaceTime or catch up at anytime just Facebook me and hopefully we can find a time, I think I’m 15 hours ahead over here, love you all very much and I hope everyone is doing awesome have a great holiday season.

One last thing, Nigel I’m so proud of you brother, I heard you had a great opportunity tonight and you just killed it!!! Good for you cousin! Keep rockin it!

Love everyone very much hope to talk to all very soon

Love Gus