Grandma's birthday

This year my Grandma turned 89. We had a party for her, and ALL the family were there. All the cousins and their kids, and all the aunts and uncles. Grandma had no idea. She didn't want anyone to make a fuss:) So she was quite surprised, and just kept saying "They're all here aren't they?"Our whole family with Grandma

My cousin Danielle and her daughter Skylar


So it was a short trip out to Ontario, but a fun one and well worth it. Nice to go there for a happy occasion:)
Supper the next day at Grandma's nursing home.

Hockey Hall of Fame

So we took a family trip to Ontario this summer. The first day we were there, we took Indiana to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Really this was so that Auntie Karen could make sure her little nephew grows up to like hockey. And since he isn't 2 yet, I'm sure that although he won't remember it, at least we can show him cool pictures of it.This picture is for my brother. You see Uncle Tim used to play goalie, and our favorite team is the Canadiens.

Karens new bike

So I haven't ridden a bike since I was in grade 8. I had a beautiful 10 speed that was pastel purple, pink and green. I loved it. Until I got to grade 9 and it wasn't all that cool to have a bike in those colours anymore. So then I stopped riding bikes. Well I decided I needed to get over it, so I went out a bought a bike.
I did end up spending a bit so I would get a bike that I do enjoy riding. And then I got them to put a basket on it so I can ride to the grocery for milk. And a bell so I don't run into anyone on the bike trails. And a helmet so I don't get a head injury when I fall off my bike:) So now Jeff and I will go ride our bikes together:)

Fried Green Tomatos

When we lived in Kentucky, on of my favorite things to eat was Fried Green Tomatoes. We planted tomatoes in our garden this year, so I do look forward to frying some up for supper from time to time:)

Uncle Lou

This is a picture of my cousins Nikki and Danielle when they were pregnant, my Uncle Lou and my Grandpa.
My Uncle Lou is HILARIOUS! We have so much fun visiting with him, hearing baout his latest golfing adventure, his take on politics, about the local Tim Hortons. Once I became a nurse, I started hearing more and more about the ache in his elbow and how it affects his golf swing. When Tim, Dad and I went to Australia, we bought a video of us snorkeling and scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. Well Uncle Lou started telling us about when he was growing up in Malta and about him snorkeling there, and spearing octopus. I can not picture my uncle Lous in a bathing suit spearing octopus. I guess he was skinnier then.
Uncle Lou has had another heart attack, and well things don't look the best at the moment. So keep him and his family in your prayers.
UPDATE: Uncle Lou passed away this afternoon. So I will be making a trip out to Ontario this weekend.

Bree's new toy

Jeff bought Bree a new toy. When he came home he set down his bag and went to kiss me hello. In the meantime, Bree climbed inside the plastic bag and dug out this toy. She loves it. She carries it outside, she brings it to bed, and has to know where it is at all times. Bailey, doesn't like it.

Protesting

Jeff and I went to a March last weekend in support of Station 20 West. This was supposed to be a building in the poorest area of Saskatoon that would house an expanded medical clinic, a dental clinic run by students, a community garden and kitchen, and a co-op grocery store. The idea came from a research study showing that people from this area of Saskatoon are at increased health risk, because they have poor nutrition, poor dental health etc. The funding was already in place, and the previous government had already put $8 million into trust for it. So then a new Conservative (Sask Party) government was elected. And they decided that they didn't have enough money in their own budget, so they took this money back. That's right, money that wasn't even from their own budget. So about 2500 people showed up in support of Station 20 West. It was a pretty moving experience. It was a 5 km march. People on the street were joining in. Families were waving at us out their apartment windows, people were standing on their front stoop saying thank-you.
But our premier in all his wisdom did not change his mind. hmmm, why was it I didn't vote for him again?
Here is a newspaper article about it.
Story 1
Story 2

My friend Jamie

On Monday night I got phone call from my friend Julie. She was on her way to the hospital to see our friend Jamie. He was in ICU and not doing very well. He had just been taken in to hospital that day. When I talked to them later that night, I knew it wouldn't be long. Mel and Julie had been visiting with Jamie's dad. He said "what's that girls name from Canada?" Karen they said "Yeah, Canada Karen, he talked about her all the time." Tuesday morning when Julie called me she didn't even have to say anything. We just cried.
I worked with Jamie at UK hospital (University of Kentucky). Our group of friends from night shift were very close. We could turn to each other for anything. When my grandfather passed away, I called Jamie, he worked all of my shifts for me and offered to take care of my dog while I was gone. When he and his wife were getting divorced, I made spaghetti and brought it to work for him. I can still hear him saying "MMMM, Canada Karen is bringing me Spaghetti!". The night was not complete without at least one laughing session, Jamie bent over his hands on his knees, spitting mountain dew, his face all red and wiping tears from his eyes.
I spoke with my friends last night, they were at the visitation. Jamie was from a little town called Prestonsburg about 3 hours from Lexington. We had never met his parents before, but they knew all of us. They walked up to each person who was there and said "Oh you must be Candace. Jamie always talked about how he loved feeling your baby kick when you were pregnant" "Oh you must be Jessica. He called you his little sister." I had sent flowers, Red and White, they said they knew who they were from before they even read the card. It's nice to know that we meant enough to Jamie that he would talk about us so much to his family.
Today is the funeral, and I so wish I could be there with my friends. I will miss you Jamie!

blogger census

Just wondering how many people actually read our blog. Just leave a comment:)

Visiting my Nephew

Indiana feeding me an apple
Drying off after a bath
Posing before going for a walk
Cuddling at nap time
Playing with pots and pans
"Watching" TV with Auntie Karen and Mommy


Jeff is away for work, in Thailand, so I went to visit my sister and nephew. And it was a wonderful visit:) Indiana is 16 months now and growing way to fast:)

Weather

I added a new feature on my blog. On the right hand side there is a little drop down menu that will show you the current temperature in Saskatoon, Lexington, Brandon, Toronto and Nairobi. I put the temperature in Fahrenheit for the benefit of my American friends. They are always asking me what the temperature is here and I always have to use a calculator to figure it out for them. And then I figured out to put a second bar in Celsius for us Canadians. So you can see the temp where I live, where I used to live, where my sister lives, where my brother lives and in Kenya where my family used to live.

Our new dog Bree

So when we were in the Bahamas Jeff brought up the idea of getting a new dog to keep Bailey company. Since Jeff is usually the one telling me not to get a dog, I decided to take advantage of the situation and run with it. So after a few weeks of searching I found a dog. We had to interview and her owners liked us and we got the dog. She is 3 years old. She was a breeding dog and they have retired her from breeding and wanted to find her a forever pet home. It killed them to sell her but they know they can't keep every dog they breed. Her name is Bree. Bailey was a little upset at first. But they are becoming friends. She is still adjusting, but getting better. She barks, so I had to buy a water bottle. Well I have had to spray her 2 times. That's it. She is so upset that I was upset with her that she won't dare make a noise now. So CUTE! She is very cuddly and just wants to please you. So far so good:)Jeff with Bailey and Bree.
Bree on the couch with her stuffed pig. It's almost as big as her, but she carries it everywhere.
So cute.
Waiting for Jeff at work.

Winter in Saskatoon

So the week that it was like -54F without the windchill and -50 C with the windchill, I talked to my friend Dana from Kentucky. I was telling her how cold it was and about the snow. So I promised I would take some pictures of the snow etc. Well I didn't take any pictures that week, why? Because it was too too cold. So I waited until last week, and it wasn't really that cold anymore, and we have had a few days when the snow has melted a little bit. So these pictures don't really show the worst of our winter, but I thought I would post them anyway. And I think they are kind of pretty. So Dana, here you go.
The outdoor Meewasin skating rink in downtown Saskatoon.
A park bench along the Meewasin trail.
The Vimy Memorial. You may remember this from our wedding pictures.
The wier in the South Saskatchewan River
The picnic benches outside of Jeff's work.

Missing my friend

Feb 7th marks 10 years since my friend from high school died. Her name was Laurie Mathiason. If you don't know the story, you can google her name. I don't really like to talk about the details, and definatley don't like to argue about it. The fact is that no matter how it happened, my friend passed away.

When you are 20 years old, you shouldn't have to go to your friends funeral. I had no idea how to deal with the pain and grief at the time. And now each year I still have a period of sadness. I wish I could have seen what she would become. Even if we had just grown apart (as high school friends often do), I would still love to catch up with her.

So this time of year is always a little bit hard for me.
I miss you Laurie.

Bahamas 2

The first part of the week Jeff's work paid for our hotel. Then on Thursday we used our Hilton Honors points and we moved to the Hilton. So this picture is of the British Colonial Hilton. The oldest hotel in Nassau.
This is the view from our hotel room.
We went snorkeling. So fun. A lot of movies are filmed in the Bahamas. This is the plane from Jaws 4. There is a ridge not too far away from this spot, it was marked with a buoy we could see, where the ocean floor drops suddenly to 6,000ft. So movies like Cocoon and the Abyss were filmed on that ridge.

Bahamas 1

So we got to go the Bahamas. Jeff went for work, and we had enough airmiles so that I could go too. Jeff's work paid for our hotel for part of the week, and then we used hotel points to stay at the Hilton for 2 nights. Jeff worked very long days, so he only had to work Mon/Tues and Wed. So we got to do fun stuff together too:) The picture above is the view from our balcony at the Wyndham Resort. It was on cable beach.
On Sunday it was raining so we went to the Atlantis hotel and casino. They have an aquarium that's pretty cool. But the hotel was soooo crowded, and seemed very family friendly. Lots of people we talked to said if the kids weren't with them, they would stay somewhere else.
These are conch fritters. Conch is a shellfish, kind of like a muscle. I didn't find it to have too much taste really..
This is fried chicken and Bahamian Macaroni and Rice and Peas. We ate almost every night a restaurant called Cafe Johnny Canoe. It was a good price and good food.
This is Cable Beach. It's about 10 minutes from downtown Nassau, and it's a pretty nice stretch of beach.
And here we are in the ocean:) This was Thursday morning before we switched hotels.

Heath Ledger

So I'm pretty sad about the death of Heath Ledger. I really liked him as an actor. And in the interviews I saw with him, he seemed a really down to earth person. I really liked going to see movies he was in, although Brokeback Mountain was not my favorite.
But what I'm more upset about is the stupid press. My goodness, I turned on the TV a mere 2 1/2 hours after he was found, and CNN was doing a live broadcast that lasted like 3 hours, in which the had very very little fact to report. So what did they do instead? They speculated. They kept saying, this is not confirmed, but what if . . . They came up with some very imaginative and hurtful scenarios as to what happened. I mean come on, his family and friends don't need to turn on the tv and see that. And I sure hope they had the decency to make sure his family had been notified before splashing the news all over tv.
I remember when River Phoenix died. I was really upset about that one too. There was on paparazzi there when he died, and he didn't take any pictures. His friends thought he was crazy, but he said no, no one has a right to see that, it was horrible and it would be disrespectful to take pictures of someone dying like that. I've seen interviews with him since then, and he stands by that decision. I wish more people would be like that.
Now back to the current situation. I did expect to see some on the news last night, but it was ridiculous. Already they were advertising for the Today show to do a special this morning about what happened. You morons, WE DON"T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED YET. The autopsy is today. Stop speculating, let his family grieve in peace, and when you have some more FACTS to report, do a short story. A famous person is still just a person. They don't deserve to be treated like this in death.

Fun at Gabrielle's new house

I went to Oak Lake this week to help my sister Gab get settled into her new house. Well my job was to watch my nephew Indiana while everyone else worked on the house. A very important job indeed. We read stories.

Went for walks with Indiana in his new sled.

Ate yogurt for breakfast.

ate apples.

and just looked cute in general. What a nice visit.

Christmas Time

So I was getting a little annoyed with Jeff this year. We had all these people coming form out of town for Christmas and I wanted a clean house. I was also working quite a bit before the holidays. So I kept asking Jeff to do little jobs around the house. Like can you do at least 1 load of laundry tonight Jeff? Sure he would say. And he wouldn't do it. Could you just clean the kitchen please? It wouldn't get done. I made a list of things to be done and asked if he could do one thing from the list everyday. Never got done. I asked him to buy 3 Christmas presents. I said I could get them, but he said he would. He came home 4 hours later, no presents and said he had spent all 4 hours at the fishing hole trying to find a fishing reel for his dad. I was getting sooooo annoyed. The next day he went to the Fishing Hole again, for 3 hours. At least he bought something this time.
Then my brother gets here, and we went to my dad's to visit. When we were ready to leave I asked Jeff to start the car, and he made a big deal about not starting the car and how I had to go start it. So when we left I told him he was being a Jerk. Two days later at his parents house he did the same thing. So I told him he was a Jerk again.
Well guess what he got me for Christmas? A remote car starter. Guess where he was when he was at "the fishing hole"? Installing my new car starter. He couldn't clean the house while I was at work b/c he was at his parents house working on the car. When he would send me out to start the car he would be telling our family what he got me for Christmas.
You know I still would have loved my present and have been surprised without all the annoying behavior.
That's my husband.

Fudruckers

This is my nephew Indiana. My sister taught him sign language, so he is signing please because he wants his Auntie Karen to give him more milkshake. I wish I had video so you could hear the cute sound he makes when he signs please.

Indiana wasn't too sure what his daddy was doing with the camera. We were at Fudruckers for lunch. He was amazingly well behaved for all the people and noise around him. Don't you like his preppy sweater?