Best Wishes of the Season!

Dear family and friends,

Seasons greetings everyone! It’s been so long since I posted that I forget how. For some reason, I’m having troubles with my photos so this may be a relatively unadorned missive until I have time for a refresher class.

2024 was another very full year. As always, we are grateful for time spent with loved ones and the blessings we share. We count ourselves fortunate for our many friends and family who, for the most part, enjoy spending time together.

Where to begin? I suppose the biggest challenge for me was that was I was diagnosed type 2 diabetic about this time last year. The first sign was waking up one morning with blurred vision. I had not checked my lab results after my fall medical, nor had my doctor caught the abnormal numbers. I remember feeling foggy for several weeks, not comfortable driving myself, plus not happy with side effects (nausea) from massive doses of Metformin, the standard medical response.

However, all that eventually settled. Over the ensuing months, I chose a dietary approach – less sugar, no processed food, more fiber and protein, intermittent fasting most days from about 6pm to 9-10am the next day (i.e. 15-16 hours) plus electronic monitoring for several months. The good news is that pounds seemed to melt away (about 40 to date) and my numbers stabilized. As a result, I was giving away clothes all summer and fall, shopping on an “as needed” basis to fit my smaller self.

Last year Christmas festivities included a trip to Vermilion, big family Christmas Eve at Suzie and Colin’s, visit with Barb, and supper at Betty and Dale’s on Christmas Day. We started the New Year hosting most of the family for supper.

Super big news was that my and Andrea’s book (started in April 2021 and submitted November 2023) was finally published on January 5, 2024, after multiple edits and proof layouts. We are so happy that When Men Buy Sex: Who Really Pay? is ready for Canada and the world! Our publishers advised that we should be prepared to spend as much time promoting our book as we did writing – and it came to pass that book-related activities demanded considerable attention.

We celebrated out NAIT friends with a January brunch and then Bill’s 84th birthday with a big family supper. So nice that we are all able to get together.

We passed on our annual trip to Mexico this year to attend a March law enforcement conference in Winnipeg on “Prosecuting Demand: Deterring Sex Buying and Exploitation.” Andrea and I both presented at the conference. We had 50 books shipped ahead for our first “launch” of sorts and sold 43! Our trip was complemented with visiting Bill’s family around the area. Special thanks to Barb and Rick for the kind hospitality before we moved to the lovely Fort Garry Hotel. Blizzard conditions prevailed rather than beach weather.

Back in Edmonton, Andrea and I were honored to receive the inaugural Dr. Zohra Husaini Memorial Award for “exceptional dedication to advancing women’s rights.  It was particularly gratifying to be recognized by the Human Rights community in a country where the pro-prostitution lobby is often allowed to take center stage.

Back to family, one of our greatest joys of the year was the March 15 arrival of twin great grand-babies Bryer and Bria. They are the first-borns of Bill’s first-born grandson and are the happiest, most entertaining little people. Kudos to their parents for managing so well!  We celebrated group birthdays later in the month with a home-made pizza party.

Moving ahead to April, Grandma King turned 99 and agreed to a small party ahead of her 100th.  Save the date April 21, 2025, and stand tuned for details.  She remains in extended care at the Vermilion Lodge and continues to do reasonably well although her mobility, sight, and hearing are compromised.

Our oldest grand-daughter, Megan, graduated in June and is now at the University of Alberta. The first weekend of June was our second annual family camp at Long Lake hosted by Suzie and Colin at their cabin. Other highlights were regular trips to Vermilion, various awareness events and podcasts, hours of diabetic webinars, regular meetings with my writing group and book club, family dinners, gatherings at River Cree, and lots of summer birthday celebrations.

Bill became to experience usual back pain in May and after a series of further investigations, it was determined he needed to have a kidney removed. Summer and fall seemed full of medical appointments as well as planning our major book-launch for fall.  Surgery was scheduled for Oct 21 and successfully completed with no signs of cancer beyond the diseased kidney. We were very grateful for the care provided by Alberta Health Services and deeply appreciate for the care and attention provided by all the children from rides to appointments to extra meals during recovery.

Andrea and I were thrilled and honored to be recognized as Human Rights Champions by the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights.  A lovely ceremony was held Sept 19 at government house with awards presented by the Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. To be in the company of so many esteemed honorees was a further tribute to our cause.

This was followed by our major Nov 3 event Exposing Exploitation: Focus on Demand which included lunch at the Chateau Louis with a four-pronged focus of awareness. We celebrated 10 years of Equality Model legislation (PCEPA) in Canada, the launch of our book, a preview of Andrea’s film  Chapter 5: The Missing, Murdered, and Forgotten from the eight-chapter docuseries, Labeled.

Here we are with MC Ryan Jespersen, Elder Karen MacKenzie, the Honourable Salma Lakhani who provided the most inspiring introduction,  and long-term supporter Kate Quinn.

A 90-minute livestream program has been saved for posterity and is available for viewing on our website http://whenmenbuysex.ca.

The highlight of our book launch portion was giving opportunity to six of the survivors featured in the book to share their powerful stories. Our event was generally acclaimed an amazing success and  livestream is definitely worth watching!

Once again thank you to all who have blessed our lives with friendship and caring.

Although I end the year feeling somewhat depleted, I look forward to continued connections in 2025, albeit more slowly paced.

Very best wishes to all for a peaceful Christmas and a happy healthy New Year.

Take good care of yourselves and each other. Time is precious. Enjoy and be grateful. I hope to blog more regularly in 2025.

Love from Kathy and Bill