August is over (thankfully) and September is not so bad...

August was a rush, and not always as relaxing as you might expect. We did, however, go to a hockey tournament! Our friend Clara from Manitoulin Island (we went to Iceland with her about a decade ago), was down in Vaughn for her granddaughter's hockey tournament. Quite the unusual thing to do in August, and even more so during a pandemic. This was a completely physically distanced tournament where only the players and coaches went into the arena. Spectators stayed out in the parking lot and caught up on things in the nice weather. No sweaters required!  And they won!

Eric finally got a new bread machine (a Breville) and it has worked perfectly for him. The large amount of yeast purchased at the beginning of the pandemic is almost gone!

Our 30th anniversary of our engagement and Wendy's birthday soon followed. Wendy always likes flowers and Eric usually doesn't forget.

Wendy even got the time to do another puzzle. This has happened a lot this summer.

We took a trip to visit our nieces and their families and got to meet a new kitten. Maddy was not completely certain what that "thing" called Mango was, but they seemed to make peace. Later visits would allow them to be less 'cat and dog' about the whole thing.

For our 29th anniversary, we went on date night and had DQ for dinner. Yes, for dinner. Seems to be a thing for us.  Good when you don't know what to make for dinner. The blue is cotton candy dipped.

Maddy got her next haircut in August, and seemed OK with the whole thing. Would have been worse to be mostly naked and meeting a new cat, we suppose.

Eric had a few more doctor's appointments, with the ENT surgeon who did Eric's thyroid sugery being next. He was checking out Eric's problem with swallowing and will be scheduling a closer look with a scope in October. An endocrinologist was also one of the appointments, and they seem to have identified the fatigue over the summer to be partly due to the steroids Eric has been on. Getting better, but slowly. You might be able to notice some extra weight - Eric is 40lb heavier than the last time he saw the surgeon in November. The steroids have contributed a lot to that gain.

Parker had his birthday (20!!!) and realized that the amount of 'flame-age' becomes significant from this point on. We may end up putting only one candle for each decade after this. He also was celebrating getting his job back (laid off from Purple Bricks during COVID). He will be working full time from home.  He also will begin the online Real Estate course starting in September.

Eric's next appointment was at the Cancer Centre with the medical oncologist, mostly confirming that everything is very good (other than the slowly lessening fatigue and the swallowing). The MRI done was clear and no issues in either the brain or the neck!

September hit and Parker decided he wanted orange juice and peach schnapps. Had quite a bit (plus rum and coke - not a great mixture) his first night. Oddly, the rest of the orange juice has sat untouched for weeks in the fridge...

Wendy received a special puzzle from her friend Carolyn, and it required a little work by Eric getting it from her phone and sending it along for it to be made.

Eric finally stopped working 16 hr days getting ready for the new online term, and was able to settle into his new basement office with lights, cameras, microphones and a green screen. Works very well (especially with his weak voice), although Parker is a little inhibited in his gaming on the other side of the screen. Wendy's desk is near where Parker was standing to take this photo, so it is a little like a call centre when all of us are down there! At least Parker's office for work is upstairs (he works a split shift). Classes are surprisingly less exhausting as preparation for classes, but staring at a screen full of initials (rather than live videos) four days a week sometimes gets old pretty quickly. Getting used to this new environment more each day, and unfortunately, the winter term will also be online (an entire year) as well.

September 12 was a family event day for us. We had Adam come down from North Bay (he started the last course of his program early the following week - for 6 weeks) and all of us went to the London Airshow! It was a physically distanced airshow with reserved parking spots, where we stayed in our 6m x 7m square area and sat with our car during the show. The US Airforce Thunderbirds was the feature act, and all the many US planes flew from their base in Michigan without landing. F35, F22, two Canadian CF-18s, etc. A well organized show without having to lug everything with us to a seating area. We even used the radio to hear the live announcing (which we could actually hear!).  

All in all, not a bad way to end the summer!

Family and friends

We took a few trips into Toronto and Cambridge over the fall, mostly to see family and friends. On one trip, we had lunch at the Dagu Noodle restaurant just off Bay St. in Toronto. Took some effort to get there, as the Toronto Marathon was in full swing at the time.

A month or so later, we went to a noodle restaurant in Markham during a quick trip to a large T & T Asian grocery store. Parker tagged along with us, as it was the same day as our great-niece's birthday party.

In Cambridge, we visited with Eric's sister Cathy and all her children at the same time! This was our last chance to see everyone before Christmas, as Cathy was soon headed back home.

Cathy, Dan, Leanne, and Carrie

All of Cathy's grandchildren were also there!

Laura, Elyse, Cathy, Jacob, and Brynn

We were thrilled to go to a hockey game to catch up with our friend Clara - she was on our Iceland trip and was in Hamilton for her granddaughter's hockey tournament. 

Clara, Wendy, and Eric

Ying has met several fellow visiting scientists at the university (each with one child), so we invited them over for a lunch at our place. They will be coming back for a dinner on Christmas day for a combined traditional and Chinese dinner!

Maddy enjoyed a visit with her friend Abby for a few days, and especially liked that Abby shared her rawhide chew. Maddy loved borrowing it and running around the house, only to noisily drop it whenever her neck muscles became tired. It really is as big as her whole body, but she doesn't care!

Maddy also got her hair cut just in time for Christmas. The pretty bow she received lasted less than a minute after she got home. 

News since January!

It has been a while since I have posted - things have been as busy as ever around here. Sorry if this post is long... many things have happened since my last post in January! I have put them in chronological order, even though blog posts are typically presented in reverse chronological order.


Eric begins teaching again.
After a term off from teaching, the new Assistant Dean of the B.H.Sc. program asked me to take on the teaching of a required second year course called Inquiry II: Cell Biology. This course would have 5 instructors and 6 TAs. The 215 students were divided into 34 groups and we assigned 3 groups to each of the 4 other instructors. For myself, I took 22 groups! I also acted the lead instructor to introduce the course at the beginning of the term and have more or less been the 'head instructor' for the course. It is taught as an "inquiry course" where the whole thing is problem-based with the students determining the content. There are no lectures at all, just tutorial times where the groups present their progress on the project areas that I assigned. The premise this year is that each group is a small drug company that is developing a new treatment for a specific disease area (all groups chose their own specific topic, although I selected the general type of disease - cardiovascular, joint diseases, eye diseases, etc.). The underlying theme for my 22 groups is the cellular biology of "oxidative stress", so they are all investigating treatments that somehow involve either increasing or decreasing oxidative stress.

As an aside, the Assistant Dean has also asked me to be part of a pilot program to run courses during the summer this year. They have always wanted to try making the program run in at least 3 terms, and now they are ready to proceed. I will run the same second year cell biology course so some of the first year students sticking around in the summer will be able to get a jump ahead in their program and give themselves some more space in their schedules to take other courses in the fall term of their second year. This term ends in June - my contract is over in July, so I may not even be still at the university...!

Leah moves in.
My nephew, Dan, from Edmonton joined up to the Canadian Army and was off to St. Jean sur Richelieu Quebec for basic training in January. He and his wife, Leah, put all their things in storage before heading east (their lease was over for their townhouse, so there was no choice). After a short time at Dan's sister's place in Cambridge (Carrie), Leah moved into our home into the room that used to be Stanley's. Dan will be finished at the very end of March and is expecting to be posted to Borden for a while. That is the same base where Adam goes for his summer camp work.


Wendy goes on a cruise.
Wendy went on a cruise with her mom and her friend Melanie (the husbands got to stay home). They flew to Florida then board the Holland America Zuiderdam for a cruise to Half Moon Cay (Bahamas), Aruba, Curacao, Cartagena (Columbia), into the Panama Canal, and finally to Costa Rica before returning to Florida.

One of the highlights of the trip was that Wendy's mom went zip-lining! Here's the proof:

Hockey win for Parker!
On March 5th, Parker's Midget house league team (the Dundas Kings) won the championship game to end the season! The game was tied at the end of 3 periods and a 5 minute overtime, so the league rules have in place a tie-breaking series of 1 minute long periods (without stopping the clock) with decreasing numbers of players to decide on the game. They remained tied after the 4 on 4 players, then again after the 3 on 3, but Parker's team scored during the 2 on 2 period! Apparently the next period would have been 2 on 2 without goalies...

Dundas Midget House League Champions 2016

Hiking starts again.
Wendy and I started hiking again for the 2016 season. We went to our usual 5 km hike on the Dundas main loop.  Beautiful weather (eventually up to +16C) but the trails had a lot of hard-packed snow that had turned to ice. Normally not a problem, except when the air is so warm that the top of the ice turns into water. Treacherous!

A little wet...

A new bridge on the trails

What gives?
The weather over that last couple of weeks has been, quite frankly, strange. Three weeks ago we had +16C. The week after that we had -19C with a windchill below -20C (plus a lot of snow). This week we will have +19C with a humidex reading of 21C! What's with that? Even the crocuses are confused.

How does one get a "boxer's fracture" at school?

Parker knows.  

And it is NOT a badge of honour. 

Thursday,  Parker was having his first bad day at school since grade 5 on Thursday. He was irritated at the world and another kid decided that this would be the perfect day to further irritate Parker. Bad choice on both parts. Parker ended up suspended until Monday, the other kid had a bloodied nose,  and Parker has a broken bone. 

Of course, he didn't really complain until after his hockey game this afternoon in which he smacked into the boards and had to come off the ice! 

No more piano, hockey, handwriting, etc. for at least 2 weeks, likely more...

I say he very much deserves it. 

Someone who doesn't like hockey?

Apparently,  Maddy doesn't like hockey.

Last night and this evening we noticed that she would run into and hide in the closet during the World Juniors hockey games.

I wonder if it has anything to do with all the cheering...?

The week that just won't end

This was one of our busiest weeks ever.  It started with our Thanksgiving celebration almost a week after most did theirs (hint - turkey's are cheaper a few days after the Thanksgiving weekend). We decided to have the big dinner a week late because Wendy's parents were out of town over Thanksgiving, and we could combine the dinner with her mother's birthday.

After the turkey was all prepared and in the oven, of course we had hockey. Parker did a great job and even reported to us that he got a goal (we didn't see it, but sometimes we aren't watching closely). They won the game. 

Parker staring me down, wondering when I will stop pointing the camera at him

Everyone arrived and we had a big turkey feast. Our niece and her family, Mel and Murray, and Wendy's parents joined the 5 of us (Stanley got back from Toronto early in the day). 

Laura loved the piano

She's a natural!

Marion opening presents

The busy weekend was followed by a busier week. Adam had a week off college (mid-fall break), and Wendy took several days off to use up some vacation and get things done around the house with Adam. He ended up spending a lot of time with friends and at the haunted house he volunteers at every year (they feed him...). Wendy and I started an evening financial course offered through her work - a way to learn more about keeping finances in order and planning for the future. It was an interesting group of people, but we hope they will have some good information to provide us. The class is held at the hospital next door to the Cancer Centre where I used to work.

Tuesday I gave one of my usual lectures and spent a lot of time on email reviewing with students over the next few days. Wednesday evening, Adam took my car up to Murray's to replace the rear brake pads. One seemed to have seized and made lots of noise, but it turned out to have twisted the pad so that a good portion of it wore right off. Not expensive, but glad it is done. On Thursday I gave the first 'exam' of the year, and it was a busy time running between 4 different rooms to make sure all was OK.  The TA's did a fantastic job, so I mostly went in each room just to show my face.

Wendy and I were preparing madly all week for a stained glass show at a church in Hamilton on Saturday. Wendy's friend and work colleague was running the show, so we rented a table. Lots of last minute rushing to get it and the display apparatus ready, but we got it done. We even went out to dinner with Mel and Murray on Friday then headed to the nearby hospital (same place as the financial class) to visit Mel's father as he recovers from surgery. They headed out for a vacation the next morning, so we took all the leftovers home ourselves. 

We got up early on Saturday and headed out to the Olivet Church bazaar and craft sale. Below are a few photos from the show.

Since Parker needed to get some volunteer hours for high school, he signed on to help the organizers for about 6 hours. We barely saw him the whole day. He is proud to announce that his very first duty in the very first hour of his very first volunteer job was to help take a bucket of water up the stairs. 

It didn't make it. 

Below, he and his supervisor are mopping it up. The mop bucket was apparently a little tippy as they both lifted it up the stairs. Gravity took care of the rest. Parker reports that it probably would have been more balanced if the mop wringer was removed first! He had somewhat more success helping sell lunch tickets, although Wendy had to have him count out her change several times.

Parker at his volunteer job

We ended up making about $220 - it was our best craft sale event so far, since most have been pretty dismal. Below are a couple of the larger custom pieces that we made. We sold the first one (a heavy cast iron stove pipe holder/grate with an 8" circle of glass) and the larger framed piece with a tree and leaves has not yet sold (22"x 17" glass area).

Antique cast iron stove pipe standoff with cardinal

Tree with leaves in reclaimed frame

If you want to see more, check out the stained glass page on this blog.

As the sale was winding down, I drove Parker the 30 minutes back to Dundas to drop him off at his Saturday hockey game. Back I drove to the sale to pack everything in the car. We immediately turned around and headed back home to drop off the stuff, then quickly over to the arena to catch the last period of the game. They tied the game, although they were ahead until the last 30 seconds of the game. It was very exciting. After a quick dinner, we headed out to Mel and Murray's to feed their cats, then drove all the way back to the hospital (yes, the same one where the financial course is held) and had a great visit with Mel's dad.

Back home, we watched Amazing Race online (we missed it Friday night), then collapsed.


Today (Sunday, finally!) we decided we weren't busy enough, so we got up and prepared for our normal 5 km hike. Of course, we got awoken early (6:45) by a cadet calling to ask why nobody was at the pickup spot for the cadet trip to gliding. All cadet events were cancelled across Canada due to the attack in Ottawa, so Adam had the day off since they were not allowed to go gliding. Some people don't watch the news, I suppose.

After we got home from the hike and got the kids up (3 teenage boys and Sunday mornings don't often go together), we headed to a pumpkin patch in Ancaster to pick out our pumpkins. No need for a hayride, so it was just get the pumpkins then get back home. Parker wimped out and stayed in the car. On the way home we also stopped and fed M&M's cats. Adam then took Wendy's car and went to the haunted house to get ready for running hundreds of people through today.

Adam found this one quickly - notice the 'vacation beard'!

Stanley with his pumpkin

Just playing with the good camera again

They day couldn't just end and be relaxing - not that lucky. Hockey time again!  Wendy and I dropped Parker off at practice then headed out to do our errands and buy groceries. After dropping the groceries ($365 worth) off at home with Wendy, I drove to the arena, picked up Parker and went back home. Now that we had food in the house, I had an unscheduled nap (fell asleep sitting on the couch) then prepared dinner.

Thinking that it was time to rest, we realized that we needed to go to the haunted house or we would miss it altogether. Stanley, Parker, Wendy and I went to check it out. Got a good tour, a few frights, then Adam took us behind the scenes to see all the work they had done over that last 2 months. They had completely transformed a barn into an electrified, computerized, video monitored, mechanical marvel of Halloween spirit. Below are a few images from the haunted house. Adam plans to video the whole sequence of the many rooms, elevators, video mirrors, , rotating platforms, etc., so we may be able to show it another time.

A skeleton in a model A greets you as you enter to line up

Adam in his glory

Just one of the control areas - mostly the mechanical systems are operated from here

Adam's friend Nick - scaring unsuspecting visitors

Adam's friend Mike, watching the many cameras

After getting through unscathed and with a little candy in our pockets, we finally headed home to crash. Well, after cleaning up the kitchen, paying the bills, reminding Parker to do his homework, and posting on this blog.

Finally. The week is over!

Now we can look at what's on the schedule for next week...