Holiday Season 2009

This winter has been full of continuous snow making it really feel like a Saskatchewan winter!

The kids made a snowfort in the huge snow drift in the back lane...not the best location but that was where the snow drift landed!

Even the biggest kid was building forts....



Kids, toboggans, and dogs on 'the hill'

This is how much Thunder helps around here!...she tires quickly

...and then has to pee.


We made lots of cookies.

....and then we fabricated gifts

Somehow....Julia and I lost every game (Randy was the Banker...hm)

Julia got a new Gecko...."Avalanche"

...she has a few social problems :)

and is unusually large!

Julia finally got braces....December 21st!

....it is confirmed she has an Alexson head....

Happy New Year!

Welcoming the Swine Flu to our house.

My finger nail chewer has been the first to catch the flu in our house! The H1N1 that is. Not a big suprise since her fingers are in her mouth constantly....(sorry Julz) We took her to the doctor on Tuesday after having a fever, cough and sore throat for 2 days. I thought she may have strep but her throat was only sore from coughing so much, she has the flu, the swiney type. Julia fought the cough and fever very well but the cough has gotten worse again. Boy our house sounds great!

We have decided against getting the H1N1 flu shot for our family. We never have had a flu shot, don't often catch the flu, and we don't plan on getting this one either. Interestingly, this flu seems quite different in that it hasn't affected anyones stomach, making it a little more tolerable. Coughing is annoying and seems to make you feel like you ran into a brick wall or played a football game while you slept! However, as long as the fever doesn't get you before the meds get into you, well.....it seems like we are just putting in time to recover. We hope it is short and sweet. So far, not so sweet.

My line of defence has been to exercise as much as possible, eat spicy food, and well, a shot of scotch each night doesn't hurt either...it helps you sleep and it should kill everything in it's path on it's way down!

...unfortunately my line of defence must have some holes since my pesky little cough has grown quite large quickly and I am scaring Randy out of the house....and into Julia's bedroom at night! He has now decided Julia and I should sleep in the same bed! Lucky for Randy, from Julia's room he cannot hear the dog bark to go outside and I was up 3 times last night! Is this dog not grown up! I have to weigh the consequenses and still the mess would far out weigh the trip down stairs to let her out. Twice to pee, once because of the chinook wind that came in quickly, scared her and so she was barking up the stairs. What a large brave dog lol, good thing she is cute.

I figure sleeping beside Barky Bakerson and getting up twice a night to let the dog out may have helped shoot some holes in my defense plan!

....and where is Randy in all of this, Oh, he's out buying a new tv to hang above the pool table!

Pool Wizards putting the table together

Mike and Peyton in a heated game of Pool

Thursday Mornings...

Well, after about 5 years of taking a break I have decided it is time to go back to Potting. I have thrown some pots over the last 5 years but not enough to really get back into the swing of things. The only way to really get started again was to take some classes, and that is what I have done for the last 3 months or so. I am lucky to have a wheel upstairs in our "Art Room", unfortunately I don't have a kiln. It took a little to get comfortable again and I am learning new things which is awesome. I have only been able to fire in a very hot kiln and therefore my colors aren't really bright. I have a bunch of glazes in very cool bright colors that were given to me, however, the color seems to burn out in the hot kiln and I get a different color...one that is not so bright. I have however, found someone with a low/med fire kiln that I plan on using....so bright springy colors here I come!

I would love to find a kiln myself and have a little more control over the colors I use but I am happy right now just to practice and learn a little more.

Some pics of pieces I've done

These little dip dishes are super useful... we use these all of the time

This rice bowl signifies to "Enjoy" your meal

Ilove making tiny things...

Videos for Uncle Gain

Jacque finally convinced me to take her camera with me on a pairing. So we left Regina on two of the days early in the morning and headed to Mexico and Cuba. It was sure tough to turn around down there and come back to Regina. 26 above zero to 26 below zero in about 4 hours!! Yuck.

This was the sunrise somewhere over South Dakota.

Here was a Northwest 747 going south as we were on our way back north.

It was a cloudy day going into Puero Valarta, you can see some of the surrounding mountains down there.

Those of you living in the Fraser Valley will recognize the volcano that lives to your east. It's Mount Baker on our way back to Calgary.

The evening we got back to Regina was just in time for the sunset with a wind chill of -34!

Randy has decided to prove that he goes to work.....he would like "Uncle Glenn" to see that he can multi task as he flies the airplane. This is a video of landing in Cuba, it was 26 C and really windy. It is -31C here and COLD.

And this one is Puerto Valarta, Mexico in the evening.