Spring changes around the Seidlitz house

Hi everyone,

I see that I haven't posted since December - oops! Lots of things have happened since we finished our bathroom renovation. 

The first big event was the birth of a little great niece in the end of December. Wendy went out to Pembroke to help and was absolutely thrilled to be around a baby again! 

At New Years, Parker's girlfriend Jaclyn dropped by to ring in 2022. 

Maddy was happy to start playing with her new soccer balls (two different sizes, but she adores the large one). Maddy turned 11 in February and enjoyed her once yearly eating at the table.

Valentines day saw Parker and Jaclyn get together for an official photoshoot (with me as the photographer).

Wendy and I went to Toronto for a short vacation during the February break week. We hit the Art Gallery of Ontario, went out to dinner with several friends two nights in a row, and stayed in an apartment that overlooked the Island Airport (so I could watch airplanes). Wendy was also able to go to the new Chick-fil-A, and we went to Krispy Kreme on our way home.

Seidlitz Powder sign in Kiehl's (Yorkdale Mall)

Art Gallery of Ontario

In March, Wendy and Adam went skiing with our niece and family in the Kitchener area. We also went for dinner with the family while my sister was visiting (on her way home from Pembroke, before heading back to BC). The restaurant we went to was directly across the lake from Justin Bieber's house. 

Parker finished his real estate course and is now licensed as a real estate agent. He continues to work with Fair Square (previously called Purple Bricks) and hopes to learn as many aspects of the business as possible. 

One of the students in my program recently wrote a series of articles after interviews with people all relating to the topic of "I am not my illness". She published it online the night before my birthday. The link to the story is pasted below.

https://healthydebate.ca/2022/04/topic/thyroid-cancer-remission-professor/

Wendy and I are planning a few trips this year (pending the pandemic). We are going with friends (Terry and Theresa) to Newfoundland in July, and are going to Disney World in mid-December (likely with Parker and his girlfriend, plus our friends Mel and Murray). A couple of days before Disney, Wendy and I plan to go to a concert - Andrea Bocelli at Madison Square Gardens in New York City! We will likely go out to dinner and wander around the city before we head to Florida from there.

For me, the winter term has just ended and marking is now the focus for the next several weeks. After that, I am teaching two courses in the spring term (May to mid June), so there won't be much rest for a while. The spring flowers are just out and the weather is warming up. We went to Dairy Queen the other day to get Blizzards for dessert - since it was so warm and since my family were experiencing an April blizzard in Manitoba. 

I will try to post again soon, as we are having some new people move into our house this weekend (a young couple from Ukraine). Will tell you all about how it is going once they arrive.

Quietest Christmas since 1995!

This has been the quietest Christmas that we have had since around 1995 (the Christmas before Adam was born). How did we do it?

We got rid of the kids!

This Christmas, Adam and Parker travelled with their grandmother to Charlotte, North Carolina, to visit Wendy's brother and his family. Wendy had to work over the holidays and I was not sure how much time I would be able to take, so Wendy and I stayed home. 

Seidlitz family 2015

We did write our annual Christmas letter but are in the process of emailing it out. If you haven't received yours yet, here is a link where you can download it as a pdf.

 https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwZyqom6DVjOWEtqaHZwY2ZkT2c


With the kids leaving Dec. 23rd, we had to plan our Christmas celebrations for the weekend before the big date. We opened presents and had a big turkey dinner with our friends and family. Here are some shots from our Christmas.

Christmas "morning"

Parker is eager for his birthday to come in 2016! He also got a gaming computer.

Adam is interested in getting a motorcycle

We thought this shirt was appropriate - yes, bushy

Maddy got some Yak cheese.  Yes, it really is Yak cheese.

Marion got a new vase

Wendy got a new iPad

I got a silver chain (a wheat chain)

I also got a case for my watches and some Cessna 172s

Money for his trip!

Early Christmas dinner 2015

With all the Christmas stuff out of the way early, it was time to send the kids packing. After a too long drive down to Buffalo airport, off they went with Marion to the warmer climate down south.

Wendy and I were able to do all sorts of things that we normally would not do over the next week or so. We started by going over to Melanie and Murray's to do puzzles (OK, not what you would expect for our first night of "freedom"), then back the next day for a turkey dinner.

Christmas day itself was started with a luxurious sleep in late thing (until Maddy needed to go out) and the rest of the day was spent doing non-Christmas like things. If you are on Facebook, you may have seen some of these pictures, but I'll repeat them here for you below.

Yes, I needed to trim the lawn Christmas day!! 

We went for a 5.5 km hike in the very warm (for December) weather.

We went to see Star Wars (in 3D with motion-controlled seats)!

I ended Christmas day with some Calvados (Normandy apple brandy)

It was a great day, but we had to get up reasonably early the next morning - we wanted to go Boxing Day shopping! We headed down toward Niagara Falls and shopped at both the new Niagara Outlet Collection and the Pen Centre. It was an absolute zoo with almost no parking anywhere, but we got through it and can say that we have done it. We won't need to do it again next year (the deals were not that great).  After the shopping and lunch out (A & W - we don't have a lot of imagination...), we went all the way to the Falls and went for several hours at the Fallsview Casino.  We only spent $15 (but more than that on parking), but it was fun.

At Fallsview Casino

To wrap up our time away from the kids, we took one day as a pajama day - stayed in PJs the whole day and just puttered around the house. We went to dinner at a great tapas restaurant in Hamilton (Rapscallion) one night, then went to our neighbour and friends' place to play Mahjong (last night).

Mahjong game at Heather and JP's!

Today it is back to real life and back to the Buffalo airport for me to pick up Marion and the kids. Since it is New Year's eve, we are going to head over at Mel and Murray's for dinner (hoping she doesn't get called in to the hospital), we will ring in the new year, Wendy will drive home, then we will go to bed exhausted.

This kid-less thing is exhausting!

Happy New Year everyone.

Well, at least it isn't Valentine's Day yet!

We finally put together our annual Christmas letter and, as usual, it was completed in January! We have now decided to call it our Year in Review, mostly to honour (hide) the fact that we don't usually get around to it until all the hustle and bustle of the new year has settled. Click on the link below the image to open the pdf file.

Click here to read our annual newsletter

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwZyqom6DVjOQ2dUYXgxdnB4SDg/view?usp=sharing

Although we didn't include it in our newsletter this year, just for fun Wendy decided to ask a series of questions of the kids that we had asked them 6 years ago for one of our previous Christmas letters. Check out their answers below:

	ADAM		PARKER
QUESTION	AGE 12	AGE 18	AGE 8	AGE 14
What is your favourite colour?	Blue & Yellow	Blue & Yellow	Blue	Orange
What is your favourite food?	Cookies	Wings	Ice Cream	Pizza
Where do you want to travel to?	Paris to see the Eiffel Tower	A Caribbean place to go Scuba Diving	Disney	Nowhere
How much money is a lot of money?	$1,000	$2,000	$51	$100,000
Who is your hero?	Stephen Hawking	Don't have one	Daddy	Frankie (A You Tuber)
How old is “old”?	50	55	57	46 (Mom's age)
What will you be when you grow up?	A pyrotechnic	An engineer of some sort	A policeman	I don't know
How old is "grown up"?	n/a	23	n/a	21

Interesting...

Happy New Year everyone!!