Welcome Back!

Okay, so I admit that it has been a very long time since I have posted anything. It's not for lack of anything to say (just ask my husband!)

Dare I attempt a super-quick summary of the past 15 months? When last I posted, we were in Windsor - my parents came for a visit in July, and we had a fantastic time checking out Pelee Island and all sorts of other Ontario-riffic sites. At the end of July we drove back to Edmonton in time for me to start my new job on the first of August. While Murray spent the year attached to the laptop writing his thesis, I galavanted about the country telling everyone how great Concordia is (among many, many other things).

Murray finished school in May, and we found out that Murray's first call would be to Zion Lutheran Church in Melville, SK. And here I sit, in Melville, at my kitchen table, filling you in on all the SK excitement.

We live in a parsonage (that means the church owns our house, in case you were wondering). I have been promising Christina some pictures of our place, so here is the virtual tour:

The house was built in about 1966 and we have a total of 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We have a HUGE lot (lots of grass to cut!) as you can see here:

We usually use the back door (on the left, by the garage), and when you first come in, there are stairs to the basement, and the kitchen is on your right:

Yes, in case you're wondering, that is my cat sprawled out on the kitchen table. How hygenic.

If you continue through the kitchen, you will end up in the living room, which is outfitted with our new, heck-of-a-deal furniture from Ikea:

Looking back toward the kitchen, you see this:

We have 3 bedrooms upstairs (this is the master bedroom, which looks much smaller than it is - it is across from the kitchen, to the left when you first come in the door) :

Next to the bedroom is the bathroom (no shower, but lots of counter space) :

Next to the bathroom is the "beauty room" which has my closet and hair/makeup/junk. Then there is the spare room on the end that houses more junk (and, maybe someday, a baby. No, not right now.)

Downstairs is a really big storage room which has a whole wall of shelving and a cold storage room for all the canning I'm going to learn to do (HA HA HA HA!) There is also lots of shelving in the laundry room, which is also where we have our recycling bins set up.

The main part of the basement is the craft area/Wii playing area. This is where I rock the block playing Mario Kart, wail on my pecs with the Wii Fit, and create tasteful and inspiring works of craft:

There is a bathroom downstairs with the only shower in the house (it looks like a bathroom - you're not missing much), and beside that is the spare bedroom:

We even have cable TV in the spare room for our houseguests who enjoy watching Holmes on Holmes or re-runs of Canada's Next Top Model while they're dozing off to sleep.We've had our first over night guests, and a few visitors from out of town - as you can see, we have plenty of space (and multiple colours of wood panelling in the basement)...if you're ever in the Melville area, you have a place to stay!

That's all I've got for now...it's pretty dark out, and it's not even 9:00pm. Summer is nearing its end. That's a tragic way to end this post.

The Mother of all Blog Entries

It's hard to believe that we only have 2 months left in Windsor. We planned a little vacation, and since our time here is nearing an end we figured we'd take an opportunity to go for one final visit to Toronto. On Saturday (May 19 - our 6th anniversary!) we kissed Dixie goodbye (she was in good hands with some friends from church) and left for a taste of the big city life. We stayed with Dan and Daina, and had a great visit with them and with Dustin, Lisa, Alexander and the whole TO crew. This is the view from Dustin and Lisa's apartment:

They have an awesome view of downtown and Lake Ontario - too bad there's another building going up right in front of them...

We stopped in at Sugar Mountain while we were downtown - not as good as Welch's in Banff, but pretty good!

On Monday we crossed the border into New York state on our way to Pennsylvania for a visit with Courtney, Rae, Matthew and Marcus. It was about an 8 hour drive, but the scenery is beautiful! It is so green out here (unlike Calgary, which I heard had snow on the long weekend - typical).

We arrived in Lancaster at about 8:30pm, and had a chance to catch up with Court and Rae. Murray and Courtney have known each other since kindergarten - they have been through a lot together, and Courtney was the best man at our wedding.

On Tuesday we checked out downtown Lancaster. Lancaster is in the middle of Amish country in southeast Pennsylvania. It has lots of historic buildings with a big farmer's market full of home-made crafts and treats and loads of farm-fresh meats and vegetables. I even managed to find rock candy! In the afternoon we took a horse-and-buggy tour with an Amish guide.

On Wednesday morning we packed our suitcases and set out for the REALLY big city of New York. It is amazing to me that you can go from the heart of Amish farmland to the middle of Times Square in 2 and a half hours.

Crazy bumper-to-bumper traffic, lots of smog, and absoloutely no personal space were part of the whole NY experience. This sign made me laugh because everyone honks anyway - I'm pretty sure there is no way to monitor it.

We checked into our hotel, which was hardly big enough for 2 double beds, and the regular price was over $450 a night. We got a much better rate and comforted ourselves with the fact that we wouldn't be spending much time there - it was really only a place to sleep. We set out right away to squeeze in as much sight-seeing as we could in 22 hours. Our hotel was one block off Broadway at Times Square, which was perfect for us to park the car and walk/cab/subway to wherever we needed to go.
We walked through Times Square, saw the Naked Cowboy (not as hot as our Alberta boys, but maybe I'm jaded...), then hopped the subway to Ground Zero. I don't know if they still call it Ground Zero, or if it's the WTC site, or what, but we went there. They have done a lot of clean up and construction, but some of the surrounding buildings are still badly damaged.

9/11 is still a huge part of life in NYC - especially on Manhattan.

We raced back uptown to get in line for standby seats to see David Letterman. We popped in to the Hello Deli which is owned by Rupert (the Guy in the Bear Suit, among other things...) Murray got his picture taken with Rupert. Unfortunately for Murray they only needed to fill 7 seats, and he was 10th in line. Feeling somewhat rejected, we decided to check out Rockefeller Center (notice the American spelling!) and the NBC studios. We got to see the studio where Saturday Night Live is filmed, which was really cool. It looks huge on TV, but the main stage is pretty much right in front of the audience. I would love to come back in the winter and go skating on the ice rink and see the famous Christmas Tree.

We went even further uptown to Central Park. We passed Trump Tower, Tiffany, and the Plaza Hotel - all the NY landmarks! There were plenty of horse/carriages waiting at the park entrance, and it was pretty reasonably priced, so we went on a guided tour. The park is really nice - lots of people running and relaxing under trees...hard to believe you're in the middle of the city. I didn't know cars could drive in the park, but they can.

Our next stop was the Empire State Building, which, I understand, was built as a make-work project during the Great Depression. It is an incredible building with amazing ArtDeco style. The sun was setting and it was beautiful!

In the top right-hand corner you can see the Statue of Liberty. We didn't go there, but we saw it from Manhattan. It is not nearly as big as I thought it would be. I guess I had an idea in my head from seeing it on TV and in movies...cool to see it anyway.

We found an awesome barbecue place for dinner called Virgil's. They actually give you a towel instead of a napkin. Yummy smoky pulled-pork sandwiches!

We spent much of the evening in and around Times Square. It's the best place to go and people-watch. And let me tell you, there are some really unique people to watch! It was 'fleet week' for the Navy - they had docked 8 ships and so the whole city was full of sailors on leave.

We stayed up REALLY late (okay, 2:30 is really late for me). We checked out a couple of bars/pubs, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with how un-pretentious it all was. I was expecting to have to pay huge cover charges or get turned away because we weren't dressed up - maybe I've watched too much Sex and the City.

The next day was definitely the highlight for me...

I got up REALLY early (I think I might have gotten 2 and a half hours of sleep), Murray and I got ready and headed down to Chelsea TV studios to try our luck at getting standby seats to see Martha Stewart. (as an aside, I had become quite a pro at hailing cabs by this point...I felt like a real New Yorker!)
We arrived pretty early and ended up being 6th and 7th in line. The helpful intern-looking girl told us to come back at 9:30 and we would find out if there were still seats to be filled. I was SO excited when our numbers were called and we were ushered in to the studio. Audience members were instructed to spit out their gum (?) on the way in.

I was even more excited when we were seated front row in the VIP section! It was the last taping of the season - we saw Donna Karan (the fashion designer behind DKNY) and Lorraine Bracco (the psychiatrist from the Sopranos). After the live taping was done, there were a few more segments taped which will run on Thursday, July 19 (since they don't have live shows during the summer).

We got a free nailpolish and an aromatherapy set, which I will treasure always.

We were about 8 feet from Martha! I'm sure if you read my blog, you probably know me and know how much Martha is my idol. I love her.

The rest of the trip was a blur - literally. We were really tired after all of our adventures. The drive back to Windsor was about 9 hours, but the scenery was beautiful. We drove through some "mountains."

There were even tunnels like in the Roger's Pass...

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, and I'd go back to NYC in a heartbeat!

Oh how I miss those western skies...

It is hot here today. It is 30 degrees, the sky was kinda smoggy, and the humidity is outrageous. Many people warned me that it gets humid in Ontario...maybe those of you who grew up here can attest to that.
I want to come home and see some snow on the mountains!

Just a Question...

Is Facebook made of crack-cocaine? I think it must be! Have no fear, though - I will never give up the thrilling, action-packed, intellectual content of my blog.

Just for the record: if I invite you to be my facebook friend, I hope you'll accept! I can't bear the thought of the world seeing that I only have 4 friends...

See you there, Jason!

ps: how come I can't change my font or colour? strange.

Virtual Tour

I promised long ago that I would publish some pictures of our apartment - here they are, finally!

We live upstairs in the church. When the building was constructed in 1928, our apartment was the parsonage. During the war, the pastor would go to the train station and pick up all the German immigrants, bring them back to the church, give them a meal and a place to sleep, and help them find a job. Some of those people are still faithful members of our congregation to this day!
After a number of years, the congregation bought the house next door to the church and used it as a parsonage so the upstairs space could be used for meeting rooms and Sunday school classrooms. About 2 years ago, it was renovated back into a living space.

Here is the view looking in our "front door"
Our kitchen was a hallway. I'm pretty sure this is not legal, but whatever man. Turning left at the fridge, you will come to the main hallway. (I'm standing in the bedroom doorway looking down the hall.)When you turn right off the main hallway, you find our bedroom.

We overlook the back alley, complete with garbage and barking dogs. You will notice the radiator: in the winter, when the heat comes on, it bangs and clangs and makes all kinds of horrible noises that wake us up at 3 am.

Beside the radiator, Dixie has her kittee hammock. She spends many a lazy afternoon lounging in her window bed. A family of crazy birds have built a nest in our air conditioner - now that the heat doesn't come on, we need something else to wake us up at a rediculous hour, so the birds take care of that. It also keeps Dixie busy - she keeps an eye on the birds and the squirrels that run along the power lines outside the window.

To the right of the bedroom you will find the living room.

Again overlooking the back alley, but it is nice to have some natural light because of the dark fake-wood panelling. The furniture is new, which is nice. Also note the Jesus paintings above the couches - a must have for any church. We have a small tv on the stand on the right side of the photo. A tv in the dining room!

This is looking the other way (taken from standing in front of the windows).
The storage room is actually just a gateway for the mice to get in from the attic. Moving back out to the main hall, the bathroom is on the left:

The bathroom was totally re-done in the renovation, so it is great. Across the hall from the bathroom is a storage closet and a door to the attic (ooooo...the attic!) The attic used to house German immigrants and Sunday school classrooms, but now it is a Christmas decoration and offering envelope graveyard. One of the rooms in the attic is actually quite nice - it has big windows that are high up in the bell tower.

At the far end of the hall is the den, which used to be the Pastor's study.

Aside from the various sources of noisy-ness and the microscopic kitchen, we have really enjoyed living in the church. The congregation respects our space and privacy, and it makes for a super-quick commute!

So that's it for this episode of MTV Cribs: Windsor Edition. Hope you'll tune in again soon for another blog entry on something equally exciting!

This Just In...

chicken thighs are gross. don't eat them.

Things...that are cute

Many of you know about a game called "Things" that we like to play. It involves drawing a card from the pile and having all participants complete the sentence.
The topic for this round is: Things...that are cute.

How about this:

One of the German ladies made it for us...it is an Easter cake in the shape of a lamb, complete with raisin eyes and a little bell around the neck.

Or, how about this:

I love the Teeny Little Super Guy. Something triggered this song in my head the other day and I started to sing it...everyone around me thought I was crazy. Apparently I am the only one who paid attention to Sesame Street.