oh canada

well we have been back in canada for five days now and it feels great (except the humidity, although it hasn't been that bad).

right now we are in barrie. not much seems to have changed, some new construction here and there but that can be expected. it doesn't feel like we are on a real vacation because of the visits with family and friends. it just feels like we are at each place for a long weekend.

kai has had fun playing with all of the kids we have been visiting with; their playtime together hasn't skipped a beat.

yesterday we went to a local farm and picked strawberries. kai had a blast. nancy (grandma) showed him how to pick the berries but he was intent on staying with becky as they moved down the row. at one point she moved over a row and instead of walking through the row of strawberries he went all the way to the end of the row and as he walked up behind me politely said "excuse me dad, i need to get to mom." as he passed by me, he was carring his basket with all of the berries he had picked. he carried that basket all the way to the van, never letting anyone help him. as we were riding on the wagon back to the parking lot i asked him how many berries he ate, he replied "three".

my sweet kai (that's what my gramma o' would have called him)

when your kid doesn't sleep in the car, it sucks. when you try to get him to do what you ask him to and he freaks out, it sucks. when he won't eat after he just asks for food, it sucks.

and then you get to see him sleeping peacefully at night curled up with his favourite stuffed toy.

i wouldn't change having a kid for anything in the world.

Retracing our steps

If you build it, they will pass through briefly on their way from Colorado to Ontario.

We come to you live from just inside the western edge of Iowa. Thanks to the NCAA baseball tourney booking out all the rooms in a 50 mile radius of Omaha, we found ourselves a little further than we'd originally planned today. No worries - we still made pretty decent time, and now we have an hour less to do tomorrow on our way to Tinley Park, a Chicago suburb where my cousin lives with her husband and their two boys.

I digress. Back to Iowa. It's a strange little place. I've been here only once before - on the way from Ontario to Colorado, just over a year ago. The world is certainly more lush here than in western Nebraska and eastern Colorado. There are trees, and not just any trees, trees that grow unaided by human intervention... not so in the desolate plains of eastern CO.

Our little Super 8 hotel room, a queen size with a crib mattress that we're hauling all over N. America for Kai, is mostly darkened right now, even though it's only 9 PM (CDT) - 8 ish, for us MDTers. Kai is tossing and turning on his mattress, but at least he's staying put... for the most part. Sleeping in a hotel room with us has never come easy to him. The fact that he doesn't sleep in the car (only twice that I can think of, over the past 2 years, and they were for less than 20 minutes each) means that he should be good and tired. I know I am.

I think I expected that I'd be a little more informative tonight. I think the tiredness/lack of sleep is catching up on me. I suppose I'll write more later, when there are lots of new Ontario adventures to talk about.

Phew!

After a day of not having anything at all on our blog, and considering (and actually) starting a new blog, it seems we have managed to remedy the blank emptiness that was Canucks at large all day.

Silly corrupted template file.

Got to get to bed. We're painting a local high school tomorrow starting at 8 AM. More soon. I promise.

blogger is having issues

This is just a test... it seems that our blog is having some trouble today.

Inspired

I did it. Last Saturday I went to a local art supply store. I felt like I was back home. I worked part time at Curry's art supply store in Barrie for four years while I was doing my undergrad and most art supplies and their displays are still the same. I knew exactly what I needed: two prestretched canvases, a plastic palette and some linseed oil. My purchases sat at home for a week. Then yesterday just before lunch, Keith and I reassembled my easel. As Kai went down for a nap, I thumbed though some of our recent photos. And then I did this:

The Duck Pond, oil on canvas, 16"x20", 2006.

This was inspired by a picture that I took of Kai back on Dec 31, 2005 when we went to the Denver Zoo. Anyhow, it has been over 10 years since I've painted with my oils (and thankfully, they still work!), but it was so much fun to play with them again! I suppose I have about 10 years of photos to use for inspiration now...

By the way, thanks to everyone for your congratulations on the GG gold medal. I'm pretty excited about it. It's a huge honour (note the "u") and I'm still pretty overwhelmed that I was selected. I found a little description online that talks about the medals, with a link to the directives explaining how many silver and gold medals each university can award each year and detailing the selection criteria. There is also a page where you can search for past award winners from individual schools - like Kathryn Armstrong, who earned the bronze medal at Innisdale the year she graduated. And to answer Meg's question - no, sadly there is "no monatary award associated with the medal." I remembered that from high school, when I got the bronze, so I wasn't disappointed to read that. Of course, if anyone wants to send me money, you are more than welcome to do so! Our church needs a new parking lot, so I'll funnel it along.

happy wayne and beer

some of you may know that wayne has had a series of interviews with a company in cobourg. well, the job is his, congratulations wayne. i never had a doubt they would pick you. do you want me to bring home some good american beer to celebrate? in the meantime, everyone raise a glass to wayne.

speaking of american beer. there are a number of micro breweries in colorado that we have been tasting and some from surrounding states. i tell you what, they are great beer (note the (s) is missing, that's for you, dave and christian).

Anniversary

It's Friday already. I relish the weeks where Friday feels like a Thursday. I think this week went particularly fast because I took Tuesday off to spend time with some friends that were visiting from Ontario on their way to a wedding in Denver. Anyhow, I don't know that I look forward to Friday as much as some people, but there are a lot of nice things that go along with a Friday, especially payday Fridays that precede long weekends. (Note to Canadian readers: the Memorial Day long weekend always follows the May 24 long weekend.)

The Memorial Day long weekend marks a few things for us. We arrived in Boulder last year during this long weekend. In fact, yesterday marked the official anniversary of our entry into the U.S. as visa holders. A year ago today we were getting up at my cousin Kathleen's house in a Chicago suburb and heading off toward Iowa. Our anniversary (May 27 - 6 years tomorrow!) was spent travelling through Nebraska.

We arrived in Boulder on May 28 only to find that there were no rooms in Boulder that we could afford. Our townhouse wasn't going to be available until June 2, so we found a Ramada Inn in North Glenn (about 20 minutes east of Boulder) where we stayed for 4 nights. Boulder was packed with people from all over N. America because of the annual Bolder Boulder race that takes place on Memorial Day, a 10K race where 50,000 people run, jog or walk (or a combination of the three) through the streets of Boulder. This year, I've entered with a couple friends to walk the Bolder Boulder. Actually, I think I'm signed up as a jogger. You can enter as a runner, a jogger, a walker, a jog walker or a walk jogger, although I don't know what the difference in the last two would be. They put you in waves according to how fast you think you'll be moving, so that slower people don't get in the faster people's way. Anyhow, it should be fun!

Lastly, the artist who painted these pictures for the 2002 and 2003 posters is Jim Freeheart, an artist that we've seen around town over and over... he is a modern-day Monet. I absolutely love his work... the guy inspires me. I've been thinking a lot about painting again.

A boat to Mexico

I’ve heard that some people have little books where they write down the funny things their kids say. I think that if I had a book, which I don’t, I would be writing down entire conversations, like this one:

Earlier today, in mom and dad’s room, Kai on the bed waving around his new “John Deere tractor blanket” that I made out of a fitted sheet for him: Mom, we’re on a boat.

Me, sitting in front of the laptop computer, which lives on my sewing table when the machine is stowed, same room: We are? What kind of boat?

Kai: A white boat.

Me: Oh… really?

Kai: Um, yeah. A white boat. And I’m the driver. And you’re a passen’er, and dad is a passen’er, and Jake is a passen’er. And I’m the driver.

Me: You are? Wow… lucky you.

Kai: Yep. Someone needs to drive, and I’m the driver. Drive drive drive drive drive!

Me: where are we going?

Kai: to Mexico!

Me: really, Mexico?

Kai: Yeah, to Mexico, to your work!

Me: So what kind of boat is this?

Kai: (indignant that I’ve already forgotten) It’s a white boat!

Me: But is it a sailboat, or a motorboat?

Kai: It’s a sailboat.

Me: Are we going to leave straight from Denver?

Kai: No, we’re going to leave from BOULDER.

Me: Oh… I don’t know if that’s possible, Kai. I don’t know if there’s water that goes straight to Mexico from Boulder.

Kai: (distracted) Drive drive drive drive drive…

Back to Normal

I arrived back in Boulder on Monday afternoon, two days earlier than I originally planned. With all the mission objectives accomplished, it was decided that rather than intercompare with the DC-8 on Monday and transit home on Wednesday, we'd be able to finish everything necessary so that by the time the intercomparison was done, the plane could just fly home. So it's all done...
Tuesday and Wednesday, all the instruments was stripped off the plane, and by yesterday afternoon it was bare - seats, racks, inlets, you name it, they were gone. It's almost depressing how fast they can be removed. What took almost 2 months of effort to install took less than 14 hours of labour to dismantle. Our group didn't even start the process until the second day, and we were completely off by 4 PM. Sadly, all our stuff is now in pieces, and it will take more than a few weeks of work to put it back together in the laboratory.

So my second trip to Seattle turned out to be rather short, but it was still successful. My inlet (HO2/RO2) hadn't been working for 2 1/2 flights, and on Saturday and Sunday we managed to get it back in working order. This was a relief, specifically because of the intercomparison that was done during the transit flight. Because we had a hard down day on Friday, I even got to have a day off, during which I went back to the Pike Place Market - and this time I got to see it "in action". Keep in mind that the two main features of the market are flowers and fish. The crab is a dungeness crab - a VERY tasty little guy - I like it more than lobster.

I also took a few pictures of Paine Field, where the C-130 lived for the last month. It was on a ramp next to an old B52 and a plane that used to be the Queen's. This is why it has 4 props even though it was fairly small. The B52 is just a behemouth... 8 jet engines, a HUGE bomb bay (that you can duck into and stand up inside, if you're so inclined), and wheels on the ends of the wings.