Howdy Folks!
Greetings from Sundre, Alberta, Canada!
My deepest apologies for Mark & I falling off the map. In September we received some devastating news... my step-mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She passed away in October, leaving my father alone with my two little brothers who are 5 & 8 years old. Our farm is very big (this is where the maple syrup comes from!) and requires a lot of work in the fall - all of which was going unattended. So, we did the only thing that we could possibly do - we abandoned our lives and our businesses in Western Canada, jumped into the car and trekked all the way across the country to Ontario to help my family survive. If you're unfamiliar with the great North, that's 38 hours of driving each way. Sounds fun in a slingshot, not so much in a car with a 5 & 13 year old!!! Thankfully we had neighbors who stepped in to try and keep the campground running but of course, not tending to clients for a few months straight, has a devastating impact. Even paying the vendor fees seemed out of reach. We lost so much in such a short period of time, emotionally, mentally, financially, shattered.
We took the Christmas season to grieve, lick our wounds and try to escape reality a bit. Now we gotta figure out how to put our lives back together and survive! Mark has some pieces that have been waiting since before we left to ship out - which I will do ASAP. I wasn't sure if there would still be any interest in Mark's work given our absence... If there is, we will gladly become vendors once again and get those cool custom pieces to our fellow slingers.
Thank you all for being there... missing us... the kind words, your understanding, the love. This family means a lot to us - especially when we feel so broken. Thank you for tagging me @Tripod - I have 865 emails to answer (some of them very understandably angry) so this was a nice encouragement to get back into this game of Life. Looking forward to being back in the mix! XOXOXOXO