The Big Apple ... North

Ah.  The sights and sounds and smells of Christmas were all very different for us this year.  Our Christmas in Toronto with Dayna and Elliott was a lot of fun.  We flew in on the 22nd, checked into our hotel and immediately put Harry to bed.  He was down with a fever and chills from a bad cold and an ear that wouldn't pop after being in the airplane.  He really didn't feel well.  Awwww......

Wednesday we hung out at Dayna and Elliott's house nursing harry back to health.  We did some last minute grocery shopping and played team Scrabble in the evening.  The boys won.  Of course, the fact that Dayna and I drew only vowels in turns 7-12 aided their victory!

On Christmas Eve we went to the Art Gallery of Ontario and saw the Tutahnkamen exhibit.  It was great.  Dayna especially liked the sarcophagus for the pet cat (a Siamese cat, of course!)  She went home and told Saul (her Siamese cat) all about the sarcophagus she would design for him.   We had a good laugh over that!!  Saul seemed fully un-impressed. 

Christmas Eve evening we spent with their friend Sean and his parents (Dayna and Elliott's "ontario parents".)  It was so nice to finally meet them.  We made homemade pizzas and just gabbed the night away.  This has been their (Sean, Dayna & Elliott's) tradition for the past 4 years.

Christmas Day was spent at Dayna and Elliott's apartment.  We played Starfarers of Catan all afternoon.  Harry made his traditional clam chowder for supper, then we spent the evening playing another round of Starfarers. 

One of their neighbours stopped in with gifts for Dayna and Elliott and then stayed for the rest of the evening, too.  These are the kind of gifts artists give each other ...

... homemade paper mustaches, complete with double-sided tape for wearing!

Boxing Day (the 26th) we were absolutely crazy and went to the Eaton Centre (mega downtown mall).  You have to realize, of course, that Boxing Day is our "Black Friday" -- the biggest shopping day of the entire year.  The mall was literally wall-to-wall people but I was only interested in seeing the 20-foot Swarovski Christmas tree.  Beautiful!  And sparkly!!

See all those people hanging around?  Twice as many were actually inside the stores!  We lasted about 30 minutes in the mall before escaping back out to Queen Street for some good old-fashioned "window shopping".  Queen Street is full of interesting, unique shops and eateries.  The rest of the day was spent strolling up and down the street, in and out of shops.

Dayna had to work on the 27th, so Elliott, Harry and I went for a leisurely brunch.  We hopped a cab back to the apartment.  Soon after, I discovered my wallet was missing - presumably left in the cab.  Fortunately I only carry a few essential cards when travelling --  license, Visa, bank card.  I called VISA and cancelled my card.  My bank card is microchipped so that was not usuable to anyone but me.  The other fortunate thing is that I never keep my Social Insurance Card, my Citizenship Card, and my health insurance card in my wallet.  Instead I keep them in a seperate very small card wallet.  So that meant I still had one piece of photo ID (my citizenship card) to get me back on the airplane!  Yay!   Yesterday I went out and got new bank cards and a replacement license.  I just hope that the person who found my wallet guiltily enjoyed the $200 cash that was in it!!

All in all, though, it was a great trip.  It was so good to be able to spend Christmas with Dayna and Elliott in their home.  Other highlights of the time together -- be careful when juggling fresh eggs:

(Yeah this is blurry, but in my defense, I was laughing pretty hard when I took it!)

And ... watch your mailbox for an email from Saul!!

Sugar and Spice and everything nice

It's Christmas time again and for Linda and I that means BAKING!  Every year we put together goodie boxes for 15 (or more) friends.  We spend 2 days baking and 1 day packaging ... and that's what we've been up to for the past 3 days. 

Linda (of course!) chooses time-intensive goodies -- "otherwise they wouldn't be special!"  And for this year's boxes we needed 930 portions!  (By the way, I just added that up.  If I'd done that beforehand I probably would have found the adventure way more intimidating!)  This is what that much baking looks like:

The plastic containers have at least 3 layers of goodies each!

Our boxes have three layers, too:

We fill the boxes "assembly-line" style.  Anthony helped by putting in the dividers!

  

The finished boxes:

Recipients this year, get to nibble on Fudge, Rice Krispie Bites, Cream mints, Coffee Meringues, Chocolate Swirl Toffee, Peanut Butter Balls, and Rum Balls.

I decided, too, over the last 3 days that Linda is amazing!  She hauled two little boys in to town every day, baked all day, kept the boys occupied, happy and fed.  She even managed to fit in a Christmas appearance at Grandma Pilats' school and an obstetrical appointment.  Did I mention that she did all of this while being 5 months' pregnant?! 

And if that wasn't enough, she whipped up some gingerbread and slapped together a gingerbread box for Anthony to decorate:

 

It may not win any competition, but Anthony thinks, "It's beautful, Oma!"

So, another year of Christmas baking completed.  Tomorrow and Sunday we'll deliver the treats -- that's always fun!

P.S.  If I don't smell something sweet for a few days, that's just fine!!

Twinkling Lights

I love Christmas lights.  One of my favourite December activites is going for a drive after dinner to look at Christmas lights.  I like community light displays.  I like lights on the houses.  I like lights in trees.  I love driving through the country and seeing Christmas lights in the distance on a farm house -- I may not be able to see the house, but the lights show me it's there.

The days this time of year are so short.  Especially here in the north.  It's dark so early and stays dark so late in the morning.  Then comes the Christmas season and there are lights everywhere.  It's always been a sort of reminder for me that the Christmas season is, in fact, about light.  What better way to remember that in this dark time of the year we are celebrating  the coming of the Light of the World.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light

-Isaiah 9:2a

Mary had a baby ...

It finally snowed here yesterday.  I was beinning to think we would have a very brown, very warm Christmas.  We still may, but for now the snow got me into the spirit of the season a bit ... at least enough to get out some Christmas decorations. 

Since we'll be in Toronto for Christams, we won't put up a tree.  But it's just not Christmas around here if I don't put out my nativity sets.  I collect nativity sets -- big and small, colorful or monochrome, hand-made, manufactured -- almost any kind.  Here's a smattering of some of my sets:

If there's a horizontal surface, it probably holds a creche, or two, or six!

Ah well ... like I said:  Mary had a baby!

Number please

I was given a challenge recently.  Account yourself.  Literally "account" as in using numbers.  Assign something to as many numbers as you can from 1-10 and then 5 other numbers   You can't use any of the numbers of your birthdate).  Here goes:


  1 - # of cities (towns) we've lived in since getting married
  2 - # of children; # of grandchildren (for now)
  3 - # of pleasure trips out of town in the last 12 months 
  4 - # of fish currently in my fish tank
  5 - # of months I worked on this house before we could actually move in 
  6 - # of dogs we've owned over the last 30 years (Halley, Topaz, Brandy, Moses, Fargo & Louise ... in that order)
  7 -  # of houses we lived in Calgary 
  8 - # in our family when we're all together (again, for now!)
  9 - # of years I've been working from home after 10 years of working downtown
10 - # of consecutive years I've been in a leadership position of some sort at church


11 - # of years we lived in the first house we owned
13 - # of years I've been a Canadian citizen
19 - # of years I have owned and operated "KVH Business Services"
30 - # of years we've been married; # of years I've lived in Canada
52 - # of years on this planet


I'm sure there are countless (pun intended) other numbers I could assign significance to.  But this wasn't as easy as it looks.  And there's nothing profound about it.  Just makes you think about your life in a different way.


-KVH

a pinch of this, a pinch of that

 I can't help being a "granola-head".  Maybe it was growing up in the 60's and 70's.  Maybe it was going to Dordt and getting an education that challenged us to reformational and stewardly lives with a social conscience.  Whatever it was ... I can't shake it.  That's okay.

My latest granola-head passion is making my own yogurt cheese.  I adore cream cheese.  But cream cheese is fairly high in fat, calories and lactose and relatively low in protein.  What do you do?  Make yogurt cheese (also know as "labneh")!  Yogurt cheese is low in fat, calories and lactose and higher in protein.  Win/win!  A comparison:

     Cream Cheese                 Yogurt Cheese

    (1 cup)                                 (1 cup)

      554 calories                         155 calories

        42 gr. fat                              7 gr. fat

      23 gr. protein                      40 gr. protein    

Here's what you need:

2 jelly bags (found with canning supplies)

some sort of vessel to suspend the bags in

(I bought this at Walmart in the craft/floral dept for $4)

plain yogurt  (I use organic 'cuz it's additive-free)

an elastic  (oops ... a rubberband for you 'mericans)

Here's what you do:

Slip one jelly bag inside the other to create a

double-layer for straining.

Place in the vessel and secure with an elastic.

Spoon in some yogurt.  (I do about 1-1 1/2 cups at a time)

Cover and place in the refrigerator.  The

whey (liquid), which carries most of the

lactose and fat, will begin to drain out.

After 24 hours check the yogurt.  At this stage it will

be like thick sour cream.  If that's the consistency you

you prefer ... it's ready ... or ...

Wait another 24 hours and the yogurt cheese will be

pulling away from the jelly bags and will be

the consistency of spreadable cream cheese.

Your yogurt cheese is ready to be put in an airtight container and it's ready to use.

You can flavour the yogurt with fruit or herbs, before or after making the cheese.  Or you can use pre-flavoured yogurt.  Pre-flavoured yogurt tends to be high in sugar, but since sugar suspends in liquid a lot of it drains out with the liquid ... but the flavour remains.

You can use yogurt cheese wherever you use cream cheese or sour cream -- even in baking. It's cheaper and better for you!

30 is a nice number

Today, October 27th, Harry and I have been married for 30 years.  It's been a good 30 years and we haven't tired of each other's company yet -- even after 5 weeks together in a very small space!!.  We agreed to sign on for at least another 30 years.  Traditionally we celebrate our anniversary with take-out East Indian food and baseball.  Sadly, there is no baseball game tonight.  But I think East Indian cuisine will still be on the menu.  

In other news:  for those who have been asking, I'll try to do some updates to iowanorth.ca in the next week or two.  Thanks for the recipe contributions and I'm planning to add some new knitting patterns, too.  It's kind of low on my priority list right now, but I'll do my best.

My Brilliant Career

This week marks the beginning of a new role I have taken on at church.  My term as a Council Elder ended in May.  I have stayed on as a Shepherding Elder and have begun my work in the newly-created position of Care Coordinator.  We have a Pastoral Care model that is quite similar to the Stephen ministry.  I will be the "go to" person for coordinating care needs with district elders, journey partners, and the pastoral staff.


A lot of the work I'll be doing is purely organizational, data management, flow of information and coordination kind of stuff.  But I'm most excited about the work I'll be doing with District Elders.  All of our elders are assigned a "district" of 10-12 people/couples. My district was the test group last year for developing the group into a "village".  Rather than individual visitations, we met together twice as the whole group in an informal social setting to develop community.  And on a regular basis we now have emails flowing between us notifying me (the Elder) of prayer needs, physical needs, celebrations, etc which I pass on to the whole group when appropriate.  We made a covenant with each other to take notice of each other.  If a need arises in our group -- for instance, someone is hospitalized and meals for the family need to be coordinated -- rather than a general plea going out in the bulletin on Sunday, as our District Elder, I notify the group  and we fill the needs.  Our "village" takes care of our villager's needs!  


It has been an amazing experience to introduce the concept to my district, see them sign on enthusiastically, and then see it actually working throughout the year.  We are not a "small group" that meets for Bible study, etc.   We have simply agreed to take note of what's going on with each other and take care of pastoral needs.  In November, Pastor Koot and I will begin working with the other District Elders to help them get the village concept working in their districts.  I'm really looking forward to it.  It's really putting the day-to-day pastoral care of the church into everyone's hands.


On Sunday, Harry will be installed as a Service Deacon so we will both be in office for the next year.  When we were in Las Vegas on our trip we joked that perhaps this was not the ideal place for Elder Karen and Deacon Harry to vacation!  We had a good laugh over the sound of that statement.


I don't know why God keeps putting these church leadership roles in my path.  It kind of started with my push to get a relevant Seniors' ministry started.  I worked at that for 7 years and am still quite passionate about it.  I thought that with my Council term ending I would be returning to the Senior Adult Ministry program this fall.  I guess God had something else in mind for me.  I hope He provides me with clarity of mind and the necessary compassion to effectively do the job (not to mention the time to do it well).


-K


www.riverparkchurch.com

Mommy ... it's over

As I typed the title, I realized that some of you may not get that pop culture reference.  (If you happen to catch "Just for Laughs" on the comedy network you'll recognize that as the closing line.)  For me, it's also a reference to the completion of our long holiday and a return to work.

We spent our last week just mucking around the house.  We canned applesauce and cranberry sauce ...

(24 half-quarts of applesauce and 6 pints of cranberry sauce)

Went shopping at a new "outlet plus more" mall that just opened (scooped up 2 pair of shoes each) ...

(boots were the preferred choice)

Watched movies ...

(Louise actually watches TV -- even when there are no dogs on the screen!)

Had the grand-boys for a stay-over from Saturday to Sunday ...

(Jacob in post-pasta glory proclaiming "Good Job!")

And spent Thanksgiving day at Linda and John's house
eating turkey, playing ping-pong and just hanging out.

(Jacob and Anthony demonstrating their drumming skills)

We are rested and settling back into the work routine.  It's been a good 6 weeks.

P.S.  If you haven't heard the news yet, grand-baby #3 is on his/her way.  
         Expected arrival:  April 15

Week 4

A lot of road passed under our tires this week.  We started out from the Grand Canyon and headed for Page, Arizona.  The drive took us through some of the canyon lands which were beautiful.

We drove through a Navajo reservation and stopped at an artisan's market where you could buy Navajo jewelry and pottery and weaving direct form the artist who made the wares.  I splurged on some jewelry and pottery.  What was most interesting was the artists' willingness to explain the various sybols incorporated in their work and the meaning of the symbols.  So interesting.

Once in Page,  Harry went off to play the Page-Lake Powell National Golf Course, while I tried to keep myself and the dogs cool.  The campground in Page was terrible.  Only bad one of the whole trip.  It had all of the amenities one would like, but the staff was incredibly rude.  I thought it was just me.  But they herded a bunch of us Canadians in one area of the campground and while talking to our neighbours, found out they were also treated rudely and were only going to stay the night rather than the 3 nights originally planned.  Whew ... at least it wasn't just me they were rude to!  As we left Page, we visited our 4th and last dam of the trip:  the Glen Canyon Dam.  Yeah, yeah ... we're weird!  Anyway, it proved a nice little hike and some pretty scenery.

While having dinner in Page, we both agreed we were ready to head home.  We looked at the calendar and the map and made a plan.  We really wanted to try to make it home for Jacob's 1st birthday (Oct.4) and found we had plenty of time to make that .  So off we headed to Anaconda, Montanna -- just outside of Butte.  Harry re-played a golf course that he had played 5 years ago when it was just new.  I toured around the town because I had almost no recollection of our stay there 5 years ago.  That was the occasion of the fateful riding accident that resulted in a bad neck injury and so much pain I had little awareness of my surroundings.  I opted not to return to the scene of the accident and ride there again!!

Next stop was Great Falls, Montanna.  Again, Harry golfed and I opted for some last minute cross-border shopping while still in the Land of Cheap!  Ah ... how I wish we had Target in Canada!  In Great Falls we were warned about the impending bad weather ahead of us.  Cold temperatures and s--w.  Yikes!  We set out early on Saturday morning for Calgary.  The air was brisk, the skies were both clear and grey and leaked on and off.   We only drove through rain, but the scenery  was white with snow at times.

  It was kind of a long day, but we arrived safely back home in Calgary late Saturday afternoon.  We unpacked some of the RV and then I took a long hot bath.  You don't get those when you're on the road!  :-)  A good night's sleep in our own bed again and then off to Linda and John's house for Jacob's 1st birthday party.  Surprising LInda was so much fun.  Her face was priceless and she was so happy that we came home in time for the celebration.  Big hugs from Jacob and Anthony also made it worthwhile.  The birthday boy enjoyed his special day ...

So, our trip was great, relaxing and refreshing.  We'll spend our last week of holidays here at home puttering around here.  We'll clean and winterize the RV, clean out the gardens, make applesauce and get ourselves ready to go back to work next week.

I hope I haven't bored you with our trip journal.  :-)  -Karen

Week 3

Oh my. So much in so little time! This week brought us farther south down the California coast, across the state of California into Nevada and Arizona. A lot of real estate and a lot of diversity in our wanderings this past week.

We started the week out by basing ourselves in Malibu ... parked right on the coast!  

From there, we toured around 

(Santa Monica)

and 

 (Beverly Hills)

and 

 (Hollywood)

 No ... we didn't see any stars. Didn't look too hard, though! Greater L.A. has sooooo many people and sooooo many cars and traffic jams for no apparent reason. After 3 days we were ready to leave the congestion of southern California and head inland. But before doing that we made sure we swam in the Pacific Ocean!   

Shortly after Harry took this picture ... mere seconds actually ... I went under! Even that small wave carried a lot of force. Harry was much better in the waves and managed to jump them and ride the top of them.

Our next destination was Las Vegas via a stop in Barstow, California. While in Barstow we toured a real mining ghost town. Mostly a tourist shopping trap, but we were able to glean some information about the mining that supported the area and some of the people who lived there. It was HOT and we were now fully in the desert. Thankfully the campground had a swimming pool where we could cool off at the end of the day.

Our journey from Malibu to Vegas took us from 

to 

 The pictures say it all!!

We rolled into Las Vegas where we stayed at a luxurious RV resort. Not because we were looking for the pampering but because it was on the right side of town for us! We took a car tour of Vegas in the afternoon, then went to the old downtown area for some supper. After a nice dinner we drove back to our RV via the "strip" which took FOREVER because of road construction. As I put on Facebook earlier in the week, Las Vegas really is "over-the-top". I couldn't help but wonder how much power and water that place uses in just one day. Maybe the U.S. could reach their greenhouse gas emission reductions just by shutting down Las Vegas! 


At any rate, one day and one night was enough for us so off we headed for the Hoover Dam. It was big.  

From Hoover Dam there's only one logical destination: the Grand Canyon (or "the big hole" as Renee called it).  We camped about an hour's drive from the canyon.  In the RV next to us was "Almost Willie", a Willie Nelson impersonator! Check him out:  http://www.almostwillie.com/  


We have spent the last 2 days hiking around various points of the south rim. There are not adequate words to describe what you see.

"O Lord my God, when I in awe-filled wonder 

consider all the works Thy hands have made ... 

How great Thou art."

A comical end to our day at the Grand Canyon included a raven who was a bit of a show off.  This raven spread it wings and glided over us, then with a loud squawk he tucked his wings in and rolled onto his back -- in mid flight -- then back to his front and the wings came out again.  The silly thing was doing aileron rolls!  And he did a lot of them as he swooped back and forth over us.  Amazing to watch!

Soon we'll turn north for the last leg of our journey. -K