Christmas Eve Family Photo Shoot

We took advantage of the fact that Alida was home for Christmas, to get some pictures of all of us together. Here we are... All together...!

D Alida, S Mark & DIL Rosemary, Gerard, Ellie, DIL Melanie & S Henry

Just the girls: DIL Rosemary, D Alida, DIL Melanie

We have quite a few photos. One person looks better in one picture and someone else better in another. I didn't know which one to pick, so to keep everyone happy, I've posted a few that are almost the same.

Alida, Ellie, Gerard

Christmas Day @ Opa & Oma's

Christmas Eve

Even though our kids are all adults now, opening gifts is still quite an event in our family. When we do it and how much we spend on the gifts is not all that important to us. It's more all the little traditions connected with this event that make it special. So this year we got together on Christmas Eve.

One tradition is that we wait until it's dark and then light the fireplace. The youngest gets to pick the first gift from under the tree and give it to someone. Then that person chooses the next gift and so on.

We have this "lovely" pair of Christmas socks that shows up every year. Whoever gets them has to wear them while we open our gifts. Rosemary was the lucky one this year, and will now keep them (and wash them) and then decide who gets them next year. I think this started when Alida gave these socks to Mark one year. He was not all that impressed with them, so re-gifted them the following year, and somehow they keep re-appearing.

In keeping with our Dutch heritage, everyone gets a chocolate initial of their first name. They get disguised in all shapes and sizes of packages so that hopefully we can surprise someone with their letter.

It takes us a while to open all the gifts. Sometimes you get sent on scavenger hunt all over the house with notes that give clues to the next location, hopefully eventually leading to the actual gift. We also wrap some gifts in multiple layers of newspaper with each layer having a different name on it, so if your name is on the outside layer, you rip off that layer and toss the gift to whomever's name is on the next layer, until finally when you reach the gift wrapped layer, the rightful owner gets the gift.

We admire the gifts, check them out, thank the giver, sometimes listen to a song, try on the clothing, flip through the book, or whatever, so you see how this can get stretched out to a few hours. We take a break part way through for some pizza, egg nog, and chocolates. Not very healthy, but all tradition!

This year Melanie's dad joined us for the festivities and read "T'was the Night Before Christmas" to us, a cherished Christmas Eve tradition in Melanie's family.

Decorating for Christmas

We've been enjoying a lot of family time these last few weeks with Alida visiting here. Last Monday Alida and I went to help my parents put up their Christmas tree and other decorations. Jeff was there to help out and asked if we could help him put up his decorations too. It was really fun assembling his Christmas village. Do you think he might be a Montreal Canadiens fan? Every single one of his seven buildings has the Canadiens logo on it somewhere!

And then we topped off the day with dinner at Swiss Chalet (and a quick practice on viewing photos on an I-Phone).

First Day of Winter and of My Christmas Break

Today's the first official day of winter here! And we've been out enjoying the snow. On Saturday afternoon we went hiking and it was beautiful out there! Alida was parachuted into our Canadian winter straight from the 30 degree beach weather in Australia. She enjoys the crunching sound of the car tires on the snow and even noticed that the cold winter air has a special smell! We're enjoying her visit with us and keeping plenty busy.

At work we've just come through another round of our Christmas adopt-a-family program.

Our office has been filled with all the donations. Thanks to all the generous sponsors we were able to adopt 531 people. By now everything's been distributed and it's pretty well cleared away. We had our debrief today and were all treated out for lunch. Now I'm taking advantage of some accumulated extra hours, and enjoying this week with Alida. The following week our office is closed so I wouldn't be working anyway.

Bonnie

In loving memory of my sister-in-law, Bonnie, who passed away last Sunday afternoon.

Obituary published in the Ottawa Citizen on 12/18/2010

GELEYNSE, Bonnie Aged 56, died peacefully after a lengthy battle with auto-immune aplastic anemia. Bonnie was the beloved wife of Bart Geleynse of Osgoode; devoted mother of Sam (Andrea), Bjorn, Luke, Sara and Emma Stime. She is survived by her sister Amy (Paul) McDonald of Wapato Washington, and brothers Joe (Mary) Dinnison and Andrew (Kris) Dinnison, of Spokane, Washington. She was predeceased by her parents, Burt and Josie Dinnison. Bonnie will be sadly missed by Luke (Phyllis) Geleynse, Emily (Derrick) Don, Bart (Rachel) Geleynse Jr., Reuben (Karina) Geleynse, Joel Geleynse, and their children, along with many nieces and nephews and her precious dogs, Jake and Jessie. Bonnie devoted her career to translating the Bible and producing a lexicon and educational material in the Atikamekw language for the Atikamekw nation in Northern Quebec. Bonnie will be fondly remembered for her gift of connecting with and reaching out to everyone she met. The family would like to extend a special thank you to the staff at Ottawa Hospital, General Campus, 5 West, where Bonnie stayed for so many weeks over the past two years. Your care for her was phenomenal. A gathering, open to all, to celebrate her life, will be held January 8, 2011 at 2 PM at a venue yet to be determined. Those wishing to do something tangible in her memory are asked to consider becoming a regular blood donor and registering with the Canadian bone marrow registry (OneMatch).

She's Here!

Meeting Alida at the airport...

Yay, she's here!

Wanna see my I-Phone?

I Think I'm Back

Hi! I think I'm back to posting pictures again. My camera worked when it came back from the repair shop a few weeks ago, and then it didn't, and then it did, and now it works more often than not, so I'm going to see how long it lasts.

Today is a big day for us because our daughter, Alida, is arriving here this afternoon for a 2-week visit from Australia. Her room is ready. Her winter coat, boots, hat, mittens, and scarf are ready. Dinner is ready, and we're ready. So now we just have to wait a couple of hours until we go to the airport to meet her and then have dinner together to welcome her home.

In the meantime, I'll show you something I made the other day. A few weeks ago when we stayed at a chalet, I saw this hanging on one of the doors and I really liked it!


I thought of it when I pulled out our artificial, plastic, faded front door wreath the other day, and decided I could kind of copy the idea from the chalet. So with a few branches from our back yard, and some other odds and ends out of our box of Christmas decorations, I came up with this. It makes me feel happy every time I come through our front door.

Weekend Away

We're back home again after spending a wonderful weekend at a cottage/chalet with friends. What a beautiful place! It's located at the edge of Beaver Valley right across from the ski slopes - about two hours NW of Toronto.

As soon as we arrived there on Friday afternoon, we lit the fire, brought out the food and drink and enjoyed a cozy time talking and reading by the fireplace. It snowed and "blowed!" during the night, so Saturday morning we were greeted by a wintry scene outside. We drove in the direction of Owen Sound where I experienced an auction for my first time ever. What a great place to pick up amazing bargains - and beautiful furniture! Wish we had a pick-up truck to haul home some of the neat stuff we saw. Actually, good thing we didn't have a pick-up truck! I've been trying to sort all our "stuff" and to unclutter our house for the last few weeks so a truckload of beautiful stuff and great deals would not be helpful in moving us towards the goal getting somewhat uncluttered.

At the auction we saw a poster for a Nativity Exhibition. So into Owen Sound we went, found the church with a gym full of 168 nativity scenes, very artistically displayed. What a variety! And we were treated to complimentary home-baked goodies, coffee and hot apple cider there. What a treat! Oh, and in the same church they had a quilt show and sale so we checked that out too.

We ate out at The Mill where I got nice and toasty warm sitting right in front of the fireplace.

Back at the chalet we played cards, read, ate (a lot of good food!), talked, made puzzles,

and hiked a piece of the Bruce Trail. What a great weekend of fellowship, coziness and relaxation!

I wish I could have taken more pictures, but my camera only worked every once in a while. Right now it's at a camera repair shop. They're going to let me know whether it's worth repairing, or whether it's time for a new one. So I'll have to try to survive without a camera for the next few days.

When All Else Fails, Read the Manual

For the past few weeks my camera was only allowing me to take one picture before saying, "Replace batteries". But I had just put in brand new batteries! And I recharged all my other ones! I re-arranged the batteries, wiped them off, turned them over. Nothing helped. And I couldn't believe how many times I thought of reaching for my camera and then remembered that it wasn't working.

So today I decided to go to the camera shop for some advice and was actually prepared to buy a new camera if I had to. But just as I was about to head out the door, Gerard asked, "Did your camera come with a trouble-shooting guide?" "Maybe. I'm not sure." "Have you checked it out?" "Well, no..." Sheepishly I went to look for my Camera User Guide. As it turns out, I had already tried everything they suggested except, "Before installing the batteries, wipe the battery terminals well with a dry cloth." That's easy enough! Actually, that's pretty well what Gerard had suggested earlier. And it helped! If only I had followed his advice right from the start... I could have had access to my camera for the last few weeks. O well, it's working as good as new and the trip to the camera shop has been cancelled for now. Yay! I've got my camera back!

I didn't realize how often I'm walking along and think, "Wow, that's amazing!" and grab my camera and take a picture. Here are two that I took on my walk to the subway last week.

And here's a house that I saw on Ryan's street last weekend. I just love the rich colours!