TWO YEAR UPDATE

Where does the time go

We started the blog to keep our friends up to date with our events and before you know it we are not so up to date. Even before we say our wine fueled New Year's Eve Resolutions,we are going to address our lag in updates. The past two years are going to be captured in the segment few below. In our defence, Helen, Lesley's mom had a stroke last year at Christmas and her brother Tony was diagnosed with cancer. Both are doing fine but Helen is in a nursing home in London. The Blog languished as a result. Below is a quick overview of past couple of years in no special order.

TRAVEL

Kindom Valley, Vermont
Since our big trip to Chile and Argentina things have been a little quieter on the travel front. In August of 2009 we packed up the mountain bikes and went to the Kingdom Valley Vermont with our friends Barry and Joanne for a week. We rented a little cabin on the edge of East Burke Vermont. The Kingdom Trails has over 100 miles of off-road riding. Check out www.kingdomtrails.org. The riding was amazing and so was the food but there is something that makes one uneasy eating a burger made from a Belted Galloway while looking at a field of them.

Vermont Kingdom Trails

New Smyrna Beach
We have been to New Smyrna Beach twice. Once in December 2009, along with Aaron and then in the beginning of November 2010. In the 2009 pictures you will see the Santa Claus parade which is followed by the boat parade. We love Florida at Christmas time. As part to the 2010 trip we went with Walt and Liz to Savanaha. We saw the home of the Garden of Good and Evil and of coarse we visted the square where Forest Gump shared his box of chocolates. There is no bench or bus stop however.

Savannah & Florida

Chicago
We took a quick trip to Chicago on Easter Weekend of 2010. Unfortunately, the pics are weak as we somehow lost them. They were loaded on our new netbook but now they are mostly gone. We road up the coastline with our rental bikes and toured some neat streets. Chicago has some amazing restaurants including Pop Champagne; the Purple Pig and the Weber restaurant. Weber uses the largest bulb-be-ques we have ever seen. Like many other tourists, we had a blast playing with our images in the Bean in Millenium Park.

Bermuda
Christine arranged a house sit for us in Bermuda in July of 2010. This had to be one of the most relaxing trips we have ever been on. We started with an afternoon at the Swizzle Inn; then there was a day of boating on the ocean after that the days we pretty rountine: walking Garcia the dog, eating a little breakfast, watching some Tour de France; coffee in town; lunch and afternoons at the beach. After a few days Christine showed up thinking we were dead because we did not even call her. Brad and I showed up on her island, stayed at her friend's house and didn't even find it necessary to call or visit after that. We pretty much dropped out. Thank god Christine was looking after us because one of the hightlights was a dinner she arranged down on the beach. We had the place to ourselves and feasted on an amazing dinner and drank champagne. We tried to watch the Tour every night but we would find ourselves with a half of glass of port on the side table, passed out in front of the TV with Garcia at our feet. Bermuda still has the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen with aquamarine water and the pink soft sand beaches.

Summer in Bermuda

TARA AND COREY'S WEDDING

My neice Tara tied the knot in 2010. She married the sweetest man ever. Corey is also a chef so he is pretty much number one with the Pavan's. I hosted one of her showers which was held in June at One Restaurant. The wedding held at the Delta Armories. Tara did all the decorations, invitations, the wish tree and the centre pieces. All were beautiful. A friend of hers did the wedding cake which was amazing. One of the memorable things of the wedding was the drag queen convention going on in the other party room. That group added a certain exotic element to the party.

Tara & Corey Wedding

OTHER BITS AND PIECES

The rest of our photos are captured in one album. In 2009, we made it to the Cox cottage and the Levisky cottage while in 2010 we visited the Christie cottage. One of Brad's coworkers was married. The wedding was a traditional Hindu wedding and was simply beautiful. In 2009 we bought snow shoes. There are a few pics of us up at Scenic Caves near Blue Mountain at the end of the season.

2009 & 2010 Catchup

Wine Tour

Santiago, Chile and Mendoza, Argentia
January 15 - 31, 2009

This year we decided to forgo the beach and explore wine country for our annual holiday in the sun. We spent one week in Santiago and one week in Mendoza with a crazy 7 hour bus ride through the Andes.

We booked our trip through the same company that organized our Brazil trip so we were pretty excited that things would go off without a hitch. We flew with LAN Airlines which we can highly recommend. The attendants are nice and the planes were new smell clean. Once we landed in Santiago things started to unravel a bit. Our driver wasn't there to pick us up. We negotiated with a cabbie to take us to our hotel for $25 US. When we went to check-in things went really crazy as we had no reservations and the local tour company had not received our money that we had paid in October. After our initial shock and a few phone calls home to a dead tour company we knew we were on our own. After some hand wringing and cursing we got our act together and decided to rebook our week in Santiago with the Hotel Galerias and take it from there. Rob Hughes was able to send us the info on our bust travel agency and on TICO (the company that insures travellers for this sort of thing). For those who don't know Rob, he works with Lesley and was covering for her back at the office. Once that was settled, we simply rebooked everything from our hotel and decided to enjoy the next two weeks.

Santiago:

Let us start by saying that Chileans are the most like Canadians of any people we have met. They are totally friendly and helpful. We had read that they stare at foreigners, which they do - especially white guys in surf hats in the City. English is spoken quite widely as they learn it in school and are inundated with MTV and other such shows. Santiago has about 4-5 million people so it is a good sized city but not huge. The Metro is unbelievable clean and efficient. It makes our TTC look like it is the product of a banana republic. The City is booming with new construction - including a huge office and high rise sector along with their version of crappy suburban housing tracts. There are more cranes in that City than in Toronto. The food is amazing. Lots of seafood and fish. It was the height of their summer so we had amazing fresh fruit everyday. Prices are roughly equivalent to Toronto so while it is good value, it is not Mexico cheap.

Highlights of the week include: the Diego and Frieda exhibit; going to the central fish market, eating at the outdoor cafes, going to the Bella Visita market, the bus tour to Vina Del Mar and Valparaiso (a city serviced by Funiculars), the exhibit on protests against Pinnochet and checking out the parks. Brad's favourite thing of all was the day trip we took in a pickup truck up to a rustic thermal. After travelling a decent road for an hour we took a mining road for an hour or two to arrive in the middle of nowhere to soak in some lovely hot springs. They were mud based so the big thing to do is to cover yourself in the mud, let it dry and then hop back in to wash it off. It was there that Brad had the most stares from this one woman who was absolutely facinated with us but too shy to speak. The Mountains were huge and of course beautiful. Our guide was a geographer and worked for the government doing EAs on roads. We loved him. We forgot to mention that the weather was over 30 degrees and sunny every day.

BTW, we have no pictures of Santiago because we lost our camera on the bus to Mendoza so you can only imagine the City.

Mendoza

On January 23rd we took a 7 hour bus ride through the Andes to get to Mendoza. The scenary was out of this world. We saw a Volcano and the highest peak in the Americas. The border crossing was strange. We had to leave the bus, get our paper stamped to say we were exiting Chile and then we had to clear Argentine customs. We then had to get back on the bus and off again so they could check our bags. The customs man was teasing Brad when he found his Immodium. There is nothing quite as embarassing as standing in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers and a government official laughing about diarrhea. Never mind the food, stay away from the damned mineral water. Dehydration can be a good thing sometimes.

Once in Mendoza, it was all about wine and food. There is a crew of people in the City that are on their way or coming back from climbing Aconcagua, one of the seven sisters. They are nice people but why do something that killed 7 in January alone. The best place to start a visit to Mendoza is a gringo run place called Vines of Mendoza. They have wines from 50 wineries for tasting. They also put out a newsletter recommending restaurants and Bodegas to visit. We went back one night as they were featuring a wine maker who makes sparkling wines for 5 wineries. That was a fun tasting night. Unlike Niagara, the Bodegas are all locked so you have to make reservations to visit - and you must pass through a security guard to get in. Once in however, they treat you really well. The Bogegas are like modern day castles. They are really lux but with modern architecture. We rented a car and explored the roads which was an adventure without a proper map. We had lunch at two wineries and tastings at another. Salentein was the most interesting as it also included an art gallery. Their wines are gravity fed. All the wineries depend on the melt waters from the Andes mountains so it is a precarious life. Brad wanted to visit the big thermal outside of Mendoza which we did on Sunday. It was like an Argentian White Water Kingdom. It was family day with everyone soaking in the various pools. Lesley was facinated with the men and their barbequing. They get these big charcoal fires going and keep loading on every kind of meat imaginable.

The weather was hot. As one shopkeeper told Brad, the heat is going to be cruel today. At 41 degrees, we wouldn't say cruel but we took advantage of siesta time to hit the hotel pool. All shops close between 1:30 and 4 pm for siesta and they should. The city park is busiest at 11:00 pm when the heat starts to break. You will notice in the pictures, that the streets are tree lined forming a canopy which provides some relief from the sun. The trees are watered through an open canel system which conveys water along all the boulevards.

After a week of eating and drinking and swimming we got back on the bus for the 30 plus hour journey home. We took the bus back through the mountains, then the flight home with one stop over in Miami.

It was a great trip and we are just a bit wiser.

South American Wine Tour

Summer of 2008

We haven't been updating our Blog. On this rainy - post summer Sunday afternoon we are finally doing it.

This year has been busy. After Brazil, we tore apart two rooms of our house to update and refresh them. That project wore on and cost too much money, like every household project. In April, we spent a few days in Florida with Brad's parents who now winter in New Smyrna Beach. Training on the bike started when we got back. We rode our bikes, visited my mom, visited cottages, went to Lake Placid, entertained a bit, watched the Tour de France, had a visit from Lesley's mom and a friend, put up some tomato sauce and roasted red peppers and now it is fall. Brad still has one big race left - the Crank the Shield. It is a 3 day, 300 km off road race from Muskoka to Haliburton. It will be held on the Sept 21st weekend. He is doing it with Barry and Joanne so it should be pretty interesting.

In trying to update the Blog we found that the technology has changed again. You can look a the photos in tiny form in the blog or click on the album and open it and then select slideshow.

Lake Placid
You will notice that we were in Lake Placid last fall with Lisa and Todd. On that trip, the gang tried to tackle the Gothics. We were denied due to a number of factors including bad weather. That only strengthened Lisa's resolve to go back. Brad, Lisa and Todd made plans for major peak bagging and Lesley made plans for outlet shopping in Lake George. The weather wasn't promising so we paid the cancellation penalty on the camp site and rented a little cabin in Ray Brook. That was a brillant idea. As you can see they were successful this year bagging the Gothics, Upper and Lower Wolf Jaw and some others in their 9 hour death march up and down the mountains. Lesley shopped in Lake George when they did Phelps on Day One and watched the Olympics and the new Batman movie the day of the grim death march.


Perkovic Cottage
For those that don't know Rob and Stephanie Cox, Stephanie's parents have a cottage on Jack Lake near Apsley. For the past few years we have gone up there for a weekend of eating and a bit of drinking. There is Speck over the fire, Stan's own tomatoes, and a turkey dinner and sometimes sweet corn. Nathan is starting to fish with grandpa and is showing possibilies of becoming a train engineer.


Three Legged Lake
Despite Lesley's fears of going north of Highway 7, we managed to get up to see Ann, Abby and Zack. Their cottage is just south of Parry Sound. Rich was trapped in Ottawa doing work so that is why is is absent from the photos.




Ride to Conquer Cancer
A friend of mine at the gym (Michelle) somehow convinced me I wanted to participate in the inaugral Ride to Conquer Cancer to raise money for Princess Margaret Hospital. If you want to do it next year go to ConquerCancer.ca.

To participate you had to ride 200km from Toronto to Niagara Falls and raise a minimum of $2, 500. Thanks to Michelle I joined her team - the Easy Riders. My friends, family and co-workers donated $3,500. The event had 3 000 riders and raised $14 million.

The weather was beautiful. They closed Lakeshore in Toronto. We rode from the CNE to Mississauga to Milton and north Burlington to Waterdown, Dundas, Ancaster and to Mohawk College in Hamilton on Day 1. There were rest stops every 20 - 30 kms. The food, drinks and Motrin were great. At Mohawk, they had our little blue tents set up. There was hot showers, free shower kits, beer, wine, entertainment and a fabulous dinner. Day two was an easy 100 km ride into Niagara Falls.

Brazil

Rio de Janeiro and Buzios
Jan 9th - Jan 25th, 2008

It has been months since our last posting so after many months here is an update.

Brazil is worthy of some explanation. Rio is a city of approximately 10 million strong and has some of the world's most natural beauty with Corcovado, Sugar Loaf Mountain, the endless beaches of Copacabana and Ipanmena. The designers are inspiring. Roberto Burle Marx who designed the mosiac-tiled Copacabana Promendade and many other famous gardens and landmarks and Oscar Neimeyer who designed many of the landmark buildings in the city and elsewhere - and may be best known for designing the buildings of Brasila.

The city is one of extremes. The mountains appear nestled in the ocean. The wealthy abut favelas. The world's largest urban forest is in the midst of this huge city. No liquor laws; yet no public drunkenness. Kiosks on the beach selling drinks nonstop. No topless beaches but the most revealing bathing suits you can imagine. There are beautiful colonial buildings with new highrise offices filling in any gaps.

Music and colour are everywhere. Our travel agent arranged for us to attend a Samba show with the huge elaborate costumes. We stumbled into street concerts/parties in Lapa on Saturday night on our way to a Samba club. A samaba school tookover the street on Sunday afternoon, warming up for Carnival. There was a samba band playing on the beach in Impanema at sunset. We put our dance lessons to use.

People love to share horror stories when you travel. We ran into none of the trouble that we had heard about. Yes you need to be careful. However, the cabs are good. The subway is a dream compared to the TTC. The food was amazing - even when dinner was a total surprise. The salt air has a healing effect. The shopping is unbeleivable. Brazil has some very talanted designers. The caipirinhas which are made from cachaca - a white spirit made from sugar cane are delicious. Dorothy Parker's famous quote about martinis comes to mind when you drink these.

The favela tour was interesting. Tourists are safe despite the fact there is no police presence in the favela. You can take photos except in certain parts. When I saw the guy with two major guns tucked into the waist band of his surf shorts I knew why.

The Centro area which is their business district was pretty cool. The steets are so narrow that they are cobblestone walkways but every once in awhile a delivery truck seems to make its way up the street.

One of reasons we may have picked Rio is that we have been listening to Carlos Jobim's "Girl from Impanema" for almost 20 years. We went to the restaurant where the song was written. She is still alive - in her sixties.

We left for Brazil on an overnight flight travelling through Washington. The first week was spent in Rio. The second week we recovered from all the excitement of Rio in a fishing village/party town known as Buzios about 2 hours north of the City. Buzios was "discovered" by Bridget Bardot in the 1960's and as a result has become a tourist destination. Fishing is still active. None of the buildings are over two storeys in height although they seems to use some creative calculations on height as the buildings seem to crawl up the hills. The main street is cheek to jowl with boutiques and restaurants. There are over 20 beaches in this town. Again, the kiosks offer full service chair, umbrella rentals and drink and food to be bought.

Brasil

Riviera Maya

Derek and Stacey's Wedding

Stacey, one of Lesley's co-workers, was joined by 70 of her friends and relatives in the Mayan Riveria for a wedding celebration. We were booked into an all inclusive in the Rui Yucatan, Playa Del Carmen approximately one hour south of Cancun.

The wedding day of April 26th was the highlight but there were some others. The town was fun. Brad, Lori-Anne and I hired someone to pick us up at the hotel on the 24th at 6:30 a.m. to drive us to Chichen Itza, one of the large Mayan ruins about 2.5 hrs southwest of Playa Del Carmen. We stopped for breakfast at a food court. There we learned about going easy on the habernero peppers.

We had a private guide take us around. The ruins were truly amazing. In school I remember learing about the rubber ball game where they used a 6 lb ball and put it through a relatively small hole on the wall. You definately didn't want to loose. It also had some amazing acoustic qualities. A noise can echo 14 times inside the stadium. The temples all had huge symbolic meaning and were orientated according to the equinox. They also had a round observatory not unlike modern ones.

On the way home our guide took us to a Cenote which is a huge pot hole filled with blue water. Apparantly in this part of Mexico there are no overland streams. All the water flows through underground steams and some collected in these Cenotes. It was truly amazing.

We ate off campus a couple of times for variety and to experience the town. The restaurants were good. We even saw the bars with swings instead of barstools.

Lots of time was spent relaxing at the beach and around the pool. The picture of Brad at the swim up bar is for my niece Tara. I promised her one of these.

Enjoy the photos.

Stacey & Derek's Wedding

Road Trip to Detroit

Cities in Decline

For my birthday, Brad treated me to a weekend in Detroit. The Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills http://www.cranbrookart.edu/ had a Cities in Decline exhibit. It was somewhat ironic that Bloomfield Hills, one of the suburban communities that has contributed to Detroit's decline had about 80% of the exhibit and the other 20% was downtown at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The Cranbrook is an amazing place to visit on its own but we only spent the morning there.

The afternoon took us downtown to Woodward Ave just north of Comerica Park home to the greatest ball team in the world. You will see from the pictures that initially the neighbourhood seems a bit sketch but surrounding the abandoned buildings are the biggest hospital buildings you have ever seen - all spanking new. It seems they are also renovating the buildings for purposes of creating lofts. Some looked pretty cool. It was strange to see suburban townhouses being built in Brush Park which is a huge neighbourhood that was all abandoned and is now being redeveoloped. Real estate is cheaper downtown Detroit than any of the suburbs.

We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. The one thing that really interested me was book that I picked up on the Heidelberg Project http://www.heidelberg.org/ Some crazy guy painted his house with dots. The neighbourhood joined in and created a neighbourhood of crazy art houses. Periodically the City tears one down but the neighbourhood keeps going. Next time we are in Detroit we will be visiting the hood.

We stayed at the Inn on Ferry Street. http://innonferrystreet.com/05/ It consisted of 4 old mansions renovated to function as one inn. It was one block north of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The neighbourhood is formerly know as the Cass Corridor which has a bad history. Now it has been repackaged at "Mid-Town". This neighbourhood is loaded with galleries, an art institute and Wayne State University. We had a ball walking around and checking our the bars and restaurants.

The best was a club downtown called Cliff Bells http://www.cliffbells.com/index.html
It was boarded up since the 1940s and has been restored. It is a beautiful art deco club.

This is enough text - enjoy the photos

Visit to Detroit

Ladies Weekend 2007

The ladies converge on TO

For the past 3 years (ever since a certain mother had a milestone birthday), the ladies of the family have gone away for a little shopping and eating. Now that my niece is working and done with the school she was able to join us. Sadly this year my Aunt Edna was not with us but I know she was looking down on us and having a good chuckle. Her dear friend Mary joined us this year which made it special. And really Mary is part of the family since she came to the "blood and non-blood family reunion" organized by Holly for last summer.

We descended on the Delta Chelsea Hotel in Toronto. We visited the Emily Carr exhibit at the AGO as our one cultural event. The rest of the weekend was devoted to drinking, eating and shopping.

Here's a few pics of the ladies.

Toronto Ladies Weekend

Holiday Pics

Doesn't it seem like Christmas was ages ago?

Now that we have our Blog sorted out. A new router helps, as does Picasa. What an amazing way to store pictures.

The first set is the Pavans. The pictures were taken at my mom's on Christmas. My niece and nephew are totally grown up for those of you that remember them as babies. And my mom doesn't she look great? She will be 83 in a couple of weeks.

Yes, I have to answer to two Octogenerians - Hazel and my Mom. I gave my mom a pillow a few years ago that said "If it is not one thing, its your mother". I still laugh except when I'm in trouble with either of these two ladies.

My family is below.

Christmas 2006

Brad and I don't like the stress of a New Years Eve Party. There is just too much expectation - plus there are no cabs. The past couple of years we have had the night before party which seems to work. Also, it is less frenzied than the before Christmas party which sometimes clashes with Brad's birthday which needs to be special on its own.

The only rule is that we have to serve spriral ham from the Old Time Butcher from Oakville. Also there has to be Bone Sucking mustard. I never take enough photos at parties but there are a few below. You might notice from the album cover, the creativity of the Scarborough/Sudan crowd never wanes - especially when it comes to party tricks. Mac is demonstrating the "Horney Slipper". Brad's shoe horn has a whole new role in our house.

The Ham Feast

Brad Turns 40 in South America

Our Big Adventure South

At long last we have our photo's posted. There was a bit of a hiccup. Lesley agreed to do some "improvements" offered by Blogspot and afterwards the Blog was toast. It wouldn't accept any pictures. Lesley thought she could wait out the problem (yes she did reboot her computer several times). After a month, Brad took charge and basically the weekend was spent doing work arounds. We have disabled the router, found a new website for posting pics and I have no idea what all the code below this says. Hopefully you will just see this message and be able to put your curser over the picture and bring up a gazillion pics from our trip.

When you click on the picture, it will bring you to a website. Choose "slideshow" it is on a 4 second delay. After the slideshow click the "x" and you will end up someplace else - hopefully not in OZ.

The trip was great. BA is an amazing City. The architecture is beautiful - both the old and new. We tended to avoid the $5.00 steak places but ate like millionaires for $30 - 50 bucks for two. The only sad thing was to see the poverty up close. As you can imagine, a girl from Ridgetown has never seen street urchins picking through the garbage to earn their way in the world. Nor have I seen entire families living in abandoned buildings.

On the positive side, there is next to no american influence. We felt totally away from things. There were next to no name brand american labels and junk food restaurants were few and far between. The BA cafe con leche beats anything Starbucks puts out so I didn't even miss them. The wines are amazing. I think they drink almost all of what they make so we really don't get a good sampling of Argentinian wine in Canada. The food was good but not spicy. We even had to ask for pimento negro with our meals. For Lesley, having 3 types of Salami on the breakfast buffet was like some sort of homecoming. For Brad, it was the Dolce de leche.

The politics of Argentina is interesting. We were staying close to Plaza de Mayo where most protests take place. The riot gates where always kept close by - just incase. There was one protest when we were there. After reading about some of the economic debaucles and the mass executions of people, it makes you realize how fortunate we are to have a stable government. Ad-scam while bad, really didn't impact us.

The weather was sunny and above 30 everyday. We had to be careful with the sunscreen. BA is a fully modern city with full sanitation so drinking the water was no issue. You will see we even indulged in some street food.

For the traffic engineers, private cars are banned from the financial district during 9-5 Monday - Friday. Only taxis and buses were permitted. We didn't get to a soccer game. They are on Sundays which were our travel days. Tourists are generally escorted to soccer games. The stadium near La Boca was huge.

Punta Del Este was described in the New York Times as the "Hamptons" of South America. I'm not sure about that but it is lovely. Brad tells me that is where some of the SA celebs have their homes. High season doesn't start until Christmas so it was quiet. We got to see some real surfers doing their thing. The area is on a bit of a point so one side has the river and the other side has the ocean. You can choose what type of beach experience you want.

Our hotel was in a residential district about 2.5 km from the downtown. We found our $5/day rental bikes were the best way to get into town for lunch and dinner. Safety wasn't an issue. I hear it is in Montevideo, the capital, but not here. We couldn't even really lock our hotel room. Virtually no one spoke English. A couple times I freaked out about the 1000 peso dinner only to realize that they are at 0.039 rate. It also makes me feel bad about haggling over the 200 peso lush beach towel ($7.8). Doesn't the City charge $5.00 to rent you a brillo pad when you work out?

The hotel was all about the chill. It felt like we were at someone's cottage but our turn at the dishes never came up. The rainy day we hung out at the pool and read. Brad had brought his MP3 player and his PAL. We ended up entertaining the workers and the other guests with our music.

I'm going to sign off because I'm dying to see if this is actually going to post.

Buenos Aires

Punta Del Este, Uruguay

Two Weeks and Counting!

Pre-Christmas Preparations are Underway

Brad and I are totally getting excited about the fact that in two weeks we will be waking up from a nap, watching the sun set at 10:00 p.m. and wondering where to go for a $5.00 steak in Buenos Aires. Bring it on.

Our last vacation was a ski trip to Stowe in February. And really, a week of skiing is not so much of a vacation as work on skis. The routine will kill you - especially during President's Week but that is another story.

The only draw back with heading south in December is that it brings all the Christmas preparations forward. Friday night was spent listening to Christmas songs and wrapping presents for my loved ones. Notice the "Dark and Stormy" on the computer table. It helped bridge the gap between the South and Christmas. Also notice the latest Sean Yelland artwork above the desk. Check out this fabulous artist at http://www.seanyelland.com/home.html


Sometimes the loves ones almost become the present.


The other really cool thing we did this weekend was attending an engagement ceremony for one of Brad's co-workers. Nermine works with Brad and her fiance is Phillip. The cermony was held at St. Mark's Coptic Church. I overheard one of Brad's other co-workers lamenting that they had no culture. I knew what she meant. I have never experienced an event with so much tradition. It was really a beautiful ceremony.

This is the couple as they came into the church.

Here they are during the ceremony.

....And after the ceremony.


After all the excitement, it was back home and writing Christmas cards. Everyone is getting the short message this year.

My Aunt Edna

A Role Model




















Aunt Edna in Alaska as a itinerant nurse

This month hasn't been a very good one. This blog has been sadly out of date because we haven't been home much. My Aunt Edna took ill on October 3 with a stroke and had a number of setbacks over the month until she passed away on October 26. Fortunately, we were able to get to see her on the weekends and eventually said our good byes to her two weeks ago. Last weekend on October 29th, we had an Open House for the neighbours and some of the friends who lived close by. Going through the cupboards to find her beautiful serving trays and dishes brought back lots of good memories of being at her and Airlie's place.

Aunt Edna set the standard for dinner parties and entertaining. Although I can't match her, whenever I threw a dinner party I always wondered what Aunt Edna would think of my plans. I used to always go over the menu with her either before or after the party. She never lost interest in the subject. She still enjoyed talking about parties even after she stopped hosting them herself.

Before we went to Port Huron for the Open House, Brad and I dug out the photo albums and scanned some of the pictures to share with others. The following is a posting of a few of our favourites.

This is my Mom and Aunt in Seattle.



















My Aunt was a nurse and worked in public health in Alaska. She had an amazing sense of style.







































Aunt Edna took me on lots of trips. This was our trip together in 1975. We went to Florida. The man in the photo is my brother Mike.



















After Florida, we went to Seattle together, Toronto, eastern United States (with my folks) London England, Arizona (including a sidetrip to gamble in Las Vegas and check out the art in Sedona), and houseboating on the Rideau for her 75th.

This is the family at Wonderland Gardens celebrating my graduation from the University of Western Ontario in 1988. Airlie is on my right and my Mom, Aunt Edna, Tony and Sandi are on my left. Tara is in front.













For my 25th birthday, Mom, Aunt Edna and I went to visit Aunt Edna's friend Cathy Lloyd in Tempe Arizona. Here we are toasting me on my 25th. Cathy is on my left. My niece and nephew have already commented on my 80's hair.













Aunt Edna loved Christmas. She used to come over and cook our turkey when Mom was still working. She and Mom spent hours putting our stockings together every year. For years she used to give me my work wardrobe for Christmas presents. I used to dress a little better in those days. This picture was taken at my brother Tony's house one Boxing Day.












For mom's 80th, the ladies stayed at the Somerset Inn in Troy and shopped 'til we dropped. This is Aunt Edna telling a story at dinner.














This picture is included in the collection because it captures some of Aunt Edna's spirit. We had a crazy family reunion this past summer at my brother's cottage on the Bruce and Aunt Edna came. She's in the middle of the picture sharing a story with Tara.














Aunt Edna loved poetry. Unfortunately I can not compose two lines of poetry. I will end this blog with the following tribute.

Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands

When Death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come,
In Heav'n itself I'll ask no more,
Than just a Highland welcome.

Robert Burns 1787

The following appeared in the Port Huron Newspaper

Mary E. Crawford

CLYDE TWP.Mary Edna Crawford of Clyde Twp., died Thursday, October 26, 2006 at age 86.

She was the loving sister of Helen Pavan and loving aunt of Tony, Mike, Jerry, Lesley, Tara and Michael, who reside in London, Ontario.

Edna was the dear longtime friend of Airlie Bruce and Mary Deaver. Originally they worked together in Alaska.

Edna will be buried in the family plot in Duart, Ontario, following a service at the graveside.
Edna was born in Orford Twp., Ontario, on May 22, 1920. She attended Ontario public schools and graduated from St. Joseph's Hospital Nursing School, London, Ontario in 1942. She served in the Canadian Army Nurse Corps until 1944. Edna obtained a B.S. degree in Public Health Nursing from Western Ontario University and a Master's of Public Health from the University of Michigan.

Edna worked 25 years in Alaska in several public health nursing positions, ranging from Itinerant Public Health Nurse to Chief, Section of Public Health Nursing, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Her final position was Assistant Director of the Division of Public Health. On retirement, she received the Alaska Public Health Award for Outstanding Service.

Edna was a kind and generous person who was truly loved by all who knew her. She will be sorely missed.

Members of Edna's family and Airlie Bruce will be at……, Clyde Twp. on Sunday, October 29, 2006 between 2 to 4 p.m. Friends and neighbors are cordially invited to visit.
Messages of sympathy can be sent to…….
Cremation arrangements are by Jowett Funeral Home, 1634 Lapeer Ave. at 17th St.

September Summary

Where Did the Month Go?

From this picture taken at Jack Lake, it is evident that we are now into fall. September was a pretty fast month. Below is a reverse chronology of the month.

Every September ends with the Squeezer!

This is Brad at the end of the Squeezer Race in St. Catherines. See http://www.libertybicycles.com/squeezer/
This is a fun 30 Km off road race followed by wine tasting and food sampling from the Niagara Region. This year it was a rainy fall. Brad's cousin Jenny (umpteen lady winner of the Squeezer) took this picture of Brad in his clay covered glory. He came in 56th out of 900 riders.

The weekend of the 21 - 22nd was spent with Rob and Steph at Jack Lake.














The above is a good reminder of where you are after you have had a taste of Stan's homemade juice.















This was Brad and my sugar shack.















Here's Rob and Steph at Silent Lake. Also known as Silent Hell if you have ever tried to mountain bike here. http://www.ontarioparks.com/English/sile.html



















I was fascinated with the fungus. This is just of sample of the beautiful mushrooms.















Look out along the trail.















The above is Jack Lake.















Here is Lord of the Manor with young Brad.















If you recall from the beginning of the blog, I featured one of my potential caregivers, Nathan. I threw him a shower in April. Here he is being imprinted with my face so he will remember me when I'm old. Nate is 7 months and a bit here. He is a pretty handsome, good natured guy.















Katie, who I met before Stephanie, some 13 or so years ago as "the address lady from the City" makes the best turkey dinner on Jack Lake. It almost looks like family Christmas as we get ready to dig into our feast.

O-NO! Cup
We almost didn't make it to Jack Lake. We were supposed to go the week before but somebody had a conflict with their last O-cup.
The picture below shows an optimistic Brad wondering whether or not he will finish the season as 6 or 7th or maybe even 5th given home course advantage. Doesn't he look carefree?















The below picture shows the view from Lesley's camera as she sits primed to capture the historic moment of Brad's life as he bolts out of the gates with rocket- like speed. To cut a story short - if I sat here all day and snapped pictures, Brad would never appear in any of them.
















His chain snapped and flew off the bike two pedal strokes into the race. The chain was lost and so was the race. Oh well, more time to drink beer and watch his competitors race.

The day was not completely lost. We ended up in Lowville for lunch. http://www.lowville.ca/
Sometimes we hit this place when we are out riding. We like it - especially on the patio in the summer.

Sylvia is 40

I've been lazy about the blog

I've been totally neglecting the blog. I have good reason though. We are the proud owners of a Zen M Vision portable mp3 player from Creative Audio. Brad has been ripping every CD in the house. I would brag about how many we have on this baby but I wouldn't want my my Scottish mother to find out where we have been wasting our money. I haven't gone near the computer except to pick up a few jokes.

Late August, early September has been crap weather-wise but it is okay for chillin and buying a kitchen table. I also hosted my ladies reading group. We read the Navigator of New York by Wayne Johnston. I liked it, being a geography nerd but the ladies felt like it was homework. The story is a fictionalized account by Peary and Cook to reach the north pole.

The same weekend I also did my annual roasting of the peppers. Take a look at the following before and after shots of this labour of love.














The above is a picture of the Falcon V. Perhaps the greatest bbq ever made. This one is almost 30 years old and still doing the best steaks in town. Just show me a Weber or Broil King that will still be going strong in 2036.

These peppers are a steal - two hampers for $20.

After a beer, here is what they look like coming of the greatest bbq in the world. Lucky for all future guests there were no flies that day - everything is 100% sterile. :^)














After removing the skins, here is the best thing between Procuitto and provalone on bread.















The ladies took a night off from cooking, cleaning and looking after our loved ones to celebrate Sylvia's 40th birthday. We went to Ten in Port Credit. It's not a bad place but they struggle - are they are bar or a restaurant?
Here is Jo and Lisa. Notice they are sitting next to the wine rack. I think they were keeping an eye on the inventory so our Dionysusian evening wouldn't be cut short.














I'd say this was the hottest bunch of cougers in the bar that night.














Here is Steph and Syl and Woodsy in the background telling some story to Jo. ....Or trying to figure out why the guy from work was looking so hot that night when at the office he is pretty average Jo parks guy. You have to ask yourself why we bothered to put the cork in the wine bottle. Was it really going to oxidize in 20 minutes?














Happy Birthday Sylvia! Although the evening didn't end here, this is definately where the evidence trail stops.

Cycling in the City

Tourists in our home town

Toronto is an amazing City in which to cycle. Days when we don't feel like doing the epic bike ride, we hop on the communter bikes and head into the City. Below are a few shots from some of our excursions.
The first picture is a view is from the Docks, one of our favourite desinations. http://www.thedocks.com/
Brad likes South Beach Sundays at the Docks. The reasons for this have not been captured in the photos. The sad thing is that they are going to lose their liquor licience in January because of the self-serving, free loading, hippies on Toronto Island.














Here is a view from Sandy Shore Road or something like that. It is just east of the MacDonalds on Lakeshore Road. As part of my job, I got to check out a million townhouse next to this view which part of a little infill or redevelopment near Lisa's. The only sad thing is the storm sewer outfall pipe that outlets here brings lots of nasty stuff and fertilizer to make the algae grow. When the algae rots and combines with the swan crap the smell is pretty impressive. Kinda reminds me of the hog farms back home.














Humber Bridge - best bridge in Toronto















Here are some of the improvements to Ontario Place for the World Dragon Boat Championships.




























Quay to the City
www.towaterfront.ca

Toronto did a little demonstration project to show what it would be like if they removed the east bound lanes through Queens Quay. They planted up the median, expanded the boulevard and converted the car lanes to human powered lanes. Apparantly this isn't so good if you live there but as a tourist, it was fantastic.














Here's the bike arch they erected for the weekend.














Close up view of the bike arch