Eat Your Heart Out Snowbirds!

Sure......it's probably 80 degrees and sunny, and you went golfing today, and then sat in the lanai drinking wine in your shorts and t-shirt; but....if you had been here, this is what you could have been doing! What a winter wonderland. White, fluffy snow drifting down, cheeks reddening from the fresh, crisp winter air. Hands tingling nicely, toes too for that matter. No sunburn risk here. We get our vitamin D the way God intended: the 300 capsule bottle from Costco. You probably have sweat dripping down your back as you try to shelter yourself from the blistering heat. For me....maybe a little nose trickle...but if freezes up soon enough. And when I am finished.....ahhh! Sit down by the fire, sip a warming rum toddy, and dream. Dream of April when we've seen the end of this bloody stuff and we can go outside again without having to pass wind in your fleece-lined jeans to keep warm!

Postscript: this was pretty much the last snow we saw in the winter of 2009. February and March had very little snow; none that even stayed on the ground. The kind of winter we like!

Chinese New Year With Friends

Kung Hei Fat Choi

January 26, 2009: The Year of the Ox. Our good friends Barb and Gerry invited neighbours to celebrate our inner Chinese by hosting a very special Lunar New Year dinner. It was doubly special as it was also Gerry's birthday. We kicked the evening off with a glass of champagne and lovely appetizers. While sampling the first of several different wineswe all took a shot at guessing which sign of the Chinese zodiac each person was. It wasn't as easy as we thought but the big winner was Robin with five out of eight right. Wayne was the big loser with 1 of 8 right - his own. Duhhh....who has he been married to for the last 40 years! Barb (with some assistance from sous chef Gerry of course) made us a wonderful traditional Chinese meal featuring salmon, chicken and pork with lots of veggies and fried rice followed by an array of Chinese New Year type treats - oranges, candy, dried fruit, cookies. The wine flowed and after a relaxing dinner we played a game of "Apples to Apples". What a laugh, and what a great evening with our wonderful neighbours/friends (Barb and Gerry, Mearl and Judy, Robin and Carol).

Niagara on the Lake Icewine Festival

Lovely to look at, sculptures to behold,
icewine to drink, but damn it was cold!

It always seems the Icewine Festival is held on the coldest weekend of the year, and last weekend was no exception. The thermometer was reading -6, but it felt a heck of a lot colder than that. Mike, Robin, Norah and I did a quick walkabout, just about enough time to develop a whole lot of sympathy for the poor souls who had to stand there freezing their butts off for 8 hours at a time.

Although there didn't seem to be as many ice sculptures this year, there werelots of icewine and food pairings available, but at a hefty price. The highlight for us were the ice sofas, chairs with sheepskin seat covers, and coffee tables guaranteed to keep your icewine chilled.

Birthday celebrations

Our wonderful son-in-law Steve celebrated his birthday on January 10th and our beautiful soon to be daughter-in-law Robin celebrated hers on January 16th. We spent the weekend at Kristen and Steve's home feasting on chicken wings, apple pie and birthday cake followed by fun time in their hot tub. Wee Matthew loves the hot tub and was so good at wearing his little hat to prevent sore ears. The brave Mike got out of the tub, made a snow angel and jumped back in. Crazy!! As you can see we all had a ball on Steve's Plasma Racer. Both Matthew and Jack enjoyed watching and playing with Mom's Nintendo D.S.

2008 Come and Gone

Finally....it's over and none too soon! What a year. On the plus side we have a new grandson (Jack Ryan) and Mike and Robin became engaged; on the other hand, wasn't that stock market roller coaster ride something else! Still, we hold some small amount of optimism for 2009. Mike and Robin are getting married - that's good. And who knows - the markets could improve. It could happen!!

Anyway, we celebrated New Year's Eve with hope in our hearts, and a bottomless wine glass in our hand. The evening was spent with our very best and long-time friends Jim and Glenna and Bev and Kathryn. Chef Extrordinaire Monsieur Jimmmeee (and his long suffering sous-chef Glenna) cooked dinner while we sat around trading 2008 stories and our insights into 2009 - which I am sure we will look back on and realize how amazingly insightful we really were!

And no modern New Year's Eve would be complete without playing WII and promising yourself that you would spend an hour every day doing WII Fit to get back that fantastic body you had at some point in your life. And by the way....we are not Smarter than 5th Graders. In fact, if you believe those really are grades 1-5 questions, we are barely literate!

And believe it or not, despite our ages, we ALL stayed awake not just till midnight to watch the clock tick over to 2009 and sip champagne, but till almost 12:30. Yes...night owls one and all.

To all our family and friends....Happy New Year and have a great 2009.

Love, Wayne and Norah

Christmas with little ones

That is always the best...Christmas with little ones. And for us it was especially nice because we had the whole family together this Christmas, something which may not happen again for a while if Mike and Robin are able to follow through on their plans to move to Australia this year. So we enjoy it while we can.

We had a quiet Christmas Eve with our neighbours Mearl and Judy, watching "Love Actually" - our new favorite Christmas movie. Kristen, Steve and the boys visited with Steve's family on Christmas Eve and then then arrived here around 10 p.m., hustling the boys off to bed so they wouldn't see Santa delivering any gifts. Everyone knows Santa arrives after midnight anyway!

Mike and Robin spent Christmas Eve at their apartment, had their own Christmas morning, then came over for breakfast, gift opening and Christmas dinner. Then off early next morning to Ottawa to spend time with Robin's family - with all 6 kids getting together on Boxing Day. Even without Mike around to join him in making the Boxing Day sale rounds, Steve continued the tradition himself - up at 5:00 a.m. with bonus money in hand to sniff out the best deals.

One of the highlights was playing Trouble with Buddy (Matthew) on Boxing Day. The objective of the game is to be the first to get all 4 of your pieces to the end, while simultaneously taking every opportunity to cause trouble for other players by sending them back to home base. Feeling guilty sending wee Matthew back the first time, we thought he might be upset. Instead: 'That's okay Nana! You need a hug!", and up he would get up and go over to whomever sent him back to give them a hug and kiss! That's the way the game should be played!

The pictures:
Our first big snowfall before Christmas.
Matthew sees, on Christmas monring, how good Santa has been,
then immediately test drives the red, all-steel Radio Flyer trike with his name on it.
Jack listens intently as Poppa reads him an exciting story.
And, then here he is looking about as cute as they come!
Matthew gets the one gift he most wanted - a violin - from Uncle Mike and Auntie Robin,
and Mike and Robin get matching Team Canada Oympic t-shirts with 08-08-08 on the back (the start of the Olympics and their engagement.)
And finally - Christmas dinner, just before popping the Christmas crackers.