Very Last Photos

In Gatineau Park Dec. 28/09


Dec. 29/09

Very Last Blog Entry!

We're Home!!!! We are FINALLY home, after 329 days of living in different places!

Emma's update:
Christmas: We had Christmas with our Grandma Joan and her partner David. They came from Nova Scotia and stayed with us for Christmas in Gatineau. We had a lot of fun. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it in. One time we got lost with Grandma and David going from the Museum of Civilization to home (the GPS went wonky)! We also played a lot of board games, decorated cookies, went snowshoeing and had our Christmas Eve party. At our Christmas Eve party everyone made an act such as Nathan singing, Dad teaching us a game, Grandma reading a story game (where we passed a present left or right whenever she said 'left' or 'right'), David teaching us folk dancing, and Mom reading a story out of a book. I sang "Silent Night" while everybody held candles. It was a fun night. On Christmas Day there was a lot of waking up early, but the night before we had set up a rule: if the kids woke up before the grown-ups, then they had to wait until 7 o'clock to wake everyone up. Then we could zip down the stairs and look at our stockings. In my stocking there was four little chocolate balls, a mini reindeer (1 inch long), a small stuffed hamster, a book, and a duck egg that you put in water and it hatches in 24 hours. The duckling felt furry. My present from Santa was a game called "Murder Mystery Mansion" and a gift card for $30 to use at Sunnyside greenhouse in Calgary. From Mom and Dad I got a cupcake making set and a book. From Nathan I got a cake mix and some sprinkles. Grandpa Severson gave me a game called Goblet and $100. I also got other great gifts too.

This is Emma, signing out.
Over to Nathan...

Nathan's News:
After Christmas Grandpa came and stayed with us for a few days. Then we went on a plane with him back to Calgary. The plane was fun. We had to take two planes; one from Ottawa to Toronto, and one from Toronto to Calgary. On both planes we got seats near the wing, so, in the middle of the plane. It felt weird when we got back. Not going to our house, but still in our city. We went to Liz's house for a New Year's Eve party. It was good. They had a new Wii (Mario Cart Wii). We went to Heidi's house for a playdate and Heidi showed us a great sledding hill. Now we are back in our house and this blog is over!
This is Nathan, signing off.
Over to Mom...

Juleta and Chris' journey:

After my Dad was successfully through security with the kids at the Ottawa airport, Chris and I packed up the car and hit the road. We spent 4.5 days driving home and had remarkably good roads all the way. Apart from a stretch of wet snow in N. Ontario, and some blowing snow near Regina, all was clear and dry. Now we are settling in to our home again (lots of cleaning, unpacking and re-arranging yet to do) and enjoying having Chris' Dad with us. In a week the kids' extra-curricular lessons and my work at Mount Royal will start up and Calgary life will be in full swing.

It would be very difficult to summarize all the learning and adventure we experienced by exploring Canada this year. We are all very glad to have made the journey, and are now happy to be home.

From the land of crisp, dry winter air and bright blue skies -
Juleta

The Parliament Building Report

Good news! I don't have to drive home. Mom and Dad bought plane tickets for Emma and I to go back to Calgary with Grandpa (and no snow).

Yesterday we went to the House of Commons and saw Question Period AND the Olympic Torch. Barbara Ann Scott was carrying the Olympic torch. It was quite boring. I saw Jack Layton, Stephen Harper, both Speakers of the House, and Gilles Duceppe, and Michael Ignatieff. We had to go through 2 security checks to get into the House of Commons. There were paintings on the ceiling. We were sitting above the Conservative MPs. They were talking mostly about torture and prisoners in Afghanistan. I enjoyed the tour of Parliament better, even though then we didn't get to go into the House of Commons.
Only 14 more days til Christmas! See you then,
Bye.
Nathan

After a month in Gatineau

Salut! (that means 'hi')

1. My birthday. On my birthday we had crepes for breakfast, and played around and read some new books. I got $60 as gifts and went book shopping at Chapters. I bought 3 new books that day. Two days after, a big box arrived. It had a lot of presents from Grandpa, Great-Grandma, and other relatives. In the box there was $15, baby stuff from Kyra, a necklace from Halia, and a lot of clothes and a book from Grandpa!
2. Things we've done here: Went to Chapters (four times!), toured the Parliament buildings, went to Dad's new office, found two new playgrounds, went to Gatineau Park (three times), went to the RCMP barns (and we're going there again tomorrow), went to the Remembrance Day ceremony, and gone swimming at four pools. I have seen three movies at the movie theatre too.
3. The house. Our house is really big, with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big basement with a fooze ball table and an elliptical cross trainer. There is a backyard with a big shed too. In the front yard there is a porch and a lawn with a tree. My room is fairly big with a large closet and a double bed. There is also a large dresser with a big mirror on it. There is a shelf with coat hooks under it.
4. The things I like about the house. My room - because it has little stained glass pieces of a horse's head and two cats. And, because I don't have to share the room with anyone. The kitchen - because it has a large sliding door so there is lots of light in it. The basement - because there are LOTS of toys.
5. The things we are doing for Christmas. We are not getting a real tree this year. We've cut a tree out of construction paper and taped it to the sliding glass doors. Tonight we are going to decorate it with paper ornaments which we have made. Me and Nathan are going to have store-bought stockings and Mom and Dad are going to use real socks. We've made two kinds of cookies so far. Grandma Joan and David are coming. And me and Grandma are going to try and come up with a song to play together - her on her penny whistle, and me on my new recorder (which I got from Mom and Dad for my birthday).

Bye for now,

Emma

PS - sorry I didn't blog sooner!

Things we don't want to forget!

Emma and Nathan made a jumping course - fun for days!


The meadow between Joan and Rachel's house finally turned brown for the season.



Ah, September !

Late October!

Pia the weaver -showing us her studio.

Last pics from Nova Scotia, Grey Gatineau

Emma's was the toothiest, mine (in the middle) was the meanest, and Nathan's was the silliest!


Very scary witch and vampire! Halloween night was so warm that the kids wore T-shirts under their costumes and weren't even chilly!


Nathan turned 7 in Nova Scotia.


Emma and I made apple pies with apples we'd picked ourselves!



Emma on Grandma's deck. Sunny and warm in October.
-----------------------------------------------
Juleta here. I haven't managed to get the kids in a blogging mood since arriving in Gatineau 3 weeks ago, and there's a lot to recount! Some things I'll remember about our time here include

• Grey skies! I suppose we did have some very warm and sunny weather earlier in November - but after days and days of grey skies this prairie girl is suffering from the seasonal blues!
• Our amazing visit to the RCMP musical ride barns. We lucked out and watched a practice session where the riders did a complete run-through of the routine for us. Magnificent horses, beautiful riding -and we were the only ones in the audience. Emma and I were in horse heaven. Nathan liked it too :)
• Walking in the famous Gatineau hills. Very nice. Though I wouldn't trade Kananaskis country, or even the Weaslehead for anything...
• Going for a weekend run past 21 Sussex Drive on a clear, warm day, with Oak and Maple leaves covering the sidewalk.
• The patriotic power of the national Remembrance Day ceremony, made perhaps more special by seeing Prince Charles and Camilla.
• The way the wind blows the Canada flag on the top of the Parliament buildings. That flag is never slack!
• My terrible French! Why is my old brain having such a hard time dredging up my University French? Was it really 10 years ago that Chris and I were in France? Nearly everyone in Ottawa and Gatineau is billingual and I wonder if they know how wonderful that is?
• Living in a city again has some conveniences (walking to a grocery store etc.), but the ugliness of the urban landscape is quite appalling. I sure miss the postcard-pretty landscapes of the Minas Basin in Nova Scotia! But even more than that I miss the wilderness of the foothills and mountains in Alberta. Eastern Canada has been so much more intensively used by humans (at least this far South). Farmed, logged, fished. Of course, we are in the process of doing the same thing to Alberta and BC, but somehow I still feel closer to 'wild' when I'm home.

More later -

Juleta

From rue de St-Emilion

Hi there, Juleta here.

We have settled into a cute, comfortable family home in Gatineau which we are renting until December 31. The owners are in Edmonton for 3 months for a work contract. And we are grateful for this place. Emma and Nathan are enjoying having their own bedrooms again (Emma especially), and exploring the toys the family left for us to use.

Chris and I are enjoying the simple routes to downtown Hull and Ottawa. Unless it is rush hour I can get to the Parliament buildings in 15 min! But we've struggled to find good places to swim and work out. Somehow we always end up driving for 40 min to some suburban rec. centre on the outskirts of Ottawa...?!

In other random, bloggy news, I stumbled across and purchased two wonderful, very different, books lately. The first was "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" by Dr. Gabor Mate from Vancouver. It's an exploration of addiction and discusses the the ways and degrees addiction burdens all our lives. I was rivetted. He paints a compassionate picture of life in Vancouver's downtown Eastside, and then outlines a reasonable and loving avenue for action to reduce the harm addiction causes. I learned a great deal - both about the world of those suffering terrible drug addicitons, and about the addictive tendancies in most of our lives (mine included). Mate's voice is one of optimism and experience. I'd recommend it.

I finished 'Hungry Ghosts' and went straight to a wonderful new book of interviews with actors of Shakespeare. Discovering what people like Kevin Kline, Derek Jacobi and Kenneth Brannagh have to say about their processes of preparing for the classic roles is sparking my dormant love of acting, directing and language again! It has been wonderful to have a long break from teaching, but I'm getting quite excited about carrying on with some of my wonderful private students. I'll have lots of ideas for Shakespearean monologue work to try out when I return!

Okay - I have to mention four of the best things that have happened this month - one for me, two for Chris, and one for Emma!
1. Emma turned 9 on the 23rd! She felt very special - had many phone calls and emails, and lots of wonderful gifts.
2. Chris has had three meetings in the Centre Block of Parliament Hill - briefing MPs about a report the Pembina Institute was involved with
3. He also had the chance to travel to London, England for work!
4. My great thing was that my friend Liz came for a weekend and we got to go to Montreal, just the two of us, by train. We had the best weekend. We laughed like crazy, talked for hours and managed to check off a huge, long list of touristy things like eating Montreal smoked-meat sandwiches at Schwartz's, going to a jazz club, walking to the cross on the 'Mont' etc.!

Well, that's enough from me...

Juleta