snow bound

Last night as Howard was helping me with my project, another rather significant storm started to blow in. The cousins were over for the evening but their frivolity was cut short by the rather urgent need to get home. Too bad. We were rather enjoying the continuous peals of laughter coming from the basement!

This is what the driveway looked like this morning....

Fortunately Howard got through this shoveling session without getting his nose in the way of the shovel handle. He's been sporting quite the colourful nose from his last shoveling outing and has taken quite a bit of ribbing from his brothers (and others) because of it!
Our neighbour down the street was out fighting with his own set of drifts. The grader came by and cleaned the streets up by 9:00 (we're pretty impressed with the workers in this village!) and we were tempted to ask him to clear a swath on our driveway.
Beth was on her way to meet some friends but first she helped her dad clear away the snow so she could get her car out.


Our second year of married life found us in Morris, Manitoba. For those of you who might care, it's the "Home of the Manitoba Stampede". Anyway, that fall was amazing but suddenly in November we had a storm overnight and we couldn't even open the back door due to the drifted snow. That was only the beginning of the snow that winter. I loved it. I spent most of my free time shoveling and by March the pile of snow that lined the driveway was well over my head. I developed back muscles that I never knew existed! I've always loved shoveling snow - even when I was a kid - but today I stood indoors and took pictures. Howard has done most of the shoveling so far this winter. I think he likes shoveling too!

christmastime is here....

There's a great area in Winnipeg called "The Forks" where two rivers - the Red and the Assiniboine - meet. Several years ago some very creative people decided to put all the old warehouses down at the river to good use. Now there are restaurants and boutiques and specialty shops and lots more. It's a wonderful place to wander through or meet up with great nephews and nieces!

One of our sisters-in-law has a sister who is a painter. We were told awhile back that she had some paintings at The Forks. We finally found them when we were there on Christmas Eve day. They are amazing!

No matter which angle I tried this one had glare on it. Too bad! The artist herself is in the middle panel carrying a basket of apples.

We love you, Josh!

Back home we enjoyed our traditional cheese fondue around the coffee table before we went off to the Christmas Eve service at our church. Christmas day was slow and quiet - at least for everyone except me! I spent most of the day getting food ready for our big Dueck meal on the 26th.
Howard's sister and brother-in-law stayed with us for four nights over Christmas. Three of their kids came yesterday morning to check out our new house.
Then it was off to meet up with the entire Dueck gang for family pics.

The siblings with their spouses.

The whole gang - 34 strong!

The grandchildren who have graduated from high school. They're a good and happy bunch of kids!

The latest addition to the clan arrived in October. She is an absolute delight and none of the great aunties could get enough time with her. She is the sweetest little thing!
The proud daddy with the pleased auntie. Grandpa is on my other side.
Howard's oldest brother was anxious to eat.....
It was a good day but today I am really tired. I had a long nap this afternoon and I feel like I could go back to bed for another one! The next few days are hopefully going to be very slow..... I am ready to rest....until I work up enough energy and courage for my next and hopefully final house project! I will keep you posted.

decking the halls

We finally got our schedules synchronized last week which gave us enough time to get the tree up and decorated.

It was quite a taxing event!

The tree looks lovely and it feels even more like home now - especially since we put the tree in the doorway - just like we did in Germany.

what i like about canada - part 2

When we were at the Esso station buying our Christmas tree on Saturday (too much sickness in our household for a sleigh ride to cut down our own tree with the hot cocoa or peanuts bonus) some snowmobilers came zipping across the highway and up to the pumps. You've gotta love it! Since we have had so much snow so early the snowmobilers are thrilled and they are everywhere. I even saw some zipping along the highway at 8:30 one morning as I was on my way to work. Maybe they were students on their way to school! At any rate they are a tough breed who brave the cold for some speed and thrills.

And as for our Christmas tree? Well we bought the first one Howard saw (for a great price, we thought) and as we were loading it on the van the man told us that he would drop it off at our house for no extra charge. We gave him our address (and I drew him a picture just for fun!) and a few minutes later he was there in his pickup with the tree AND a giant tree bag for clean-up after Christmas. I had to shake my head again in wonder at the friendliness of this little village and their willingness to make outsiders feel welcome and a part of their community. What do I like about Canada? - hardy and friendly Canadians. They are everywhere. It's great.

my "job"

I have been blessed to have been put on the subbing list for Hanover School division. I get called regularly - not lots but definitely enough for this moment in my life. I have absolutely loved being back in the classroom and getting to know the teachers and students. One of the fun things has been getting little "gifts" from my students. On Thursday I was finally in the classroom of one of my nephews. I've been in his school the most but never in his class. After lunch he came back with this little bag of treats - somewhat fuller then! He insisted I should eat the lady bug and was not impressed that I said I wanted to share it with Uncle Howard!

sankt nikolaus tag

I'm late with my post but not with my shoes! The girls awoke on Monday morning to St. Nicholas day treats by their doors. Yes I know they are really too old for this kind of thing, but hey, they're still my kids and I love these little traditions! I've been very pleased to see that Toblerone is in all the stores here in Canada so that was their taste of Europe. Of course Kinder Eggs are too but I resisted. There is a gift card in this little package for their more "mature" side but who is ever too old for CHOCOLATE?!?!? - especially a Cherry Blossom which is something they've never had before. Hope you had a lovely Sankt Nikolaus Tag! http://german.lifetips.com/faq/36211/0/what-do-people-do-on-nikolaustag/index.html

snow

We've already had a ton of snow this year. According to the news last year at this time there was just over a centimeter of snow on the ground. This year there's already 55+ centimeters out there (that's more than twice the average for this time of the year) and of course it's only the beginning of December. There's a lot more winter ahead of us! (There is already a lot of concern about the Spring thaw and what kind of flood Manitoba will be facing then. Water levels were very high in the Fall and the ground was saturated.)

I took this picture on our ice cream walk back in November. The arrow is pointing to the street so that the drivers of these particular machines know that they are not welcome on the sidewalk!

Of course every town needs a place to get skates sharpened.
But we never thought it would be done at the local Shell station!
This was what it looked like last week. It's looks bitterly cold, doesn't it? Not so. It was around -10 but the wind was whipping pretty good. We've seen that the town workers in our town are really on the ball. Our neighbourhood was pretty much snowed-in on this particular morning (Bethany couldn't get to school because she couldn't over the drifts with her car!) but by 9:00 the street was opened and cleared. Pretty impressive, we thought!
Of course there was lots of snow left behind creatively designed by the wind.

the great advent wreath expedition

I told the girls I was going out to the bush to collect stuff for our Advent Wreath. They said, "Can we come too?" What could I say?

Bethany came along to guard the car since we were in "the bush" and suggested that she wait in the driver's seat so we could make a fast getaway if need be...I guess she forgot what her role was!

Katy came along to take pictures of the adventure....


...but mostly took pictures of herself!


The stash.

The process. I purchased these amazing "wreath making staples" at the end of the season last year and they are a marvel. No more wire wrapping for me!

Lots of great natural stuff. Let's call this wreath the "by the side of the road" wreath.

Great pods. No clue what they are but the family loves them and thinks they look like angel wings. I have to agree.
Voila. There is it. I love it.