Movin' on up, with alot of help!

I haven't written any new posts recently because it has been a very busy spring and summer: we moved! Not only that, but we renovated too.

We bought this house from Dale's Aunt Alice, about a block and a half from our other house. She was ready to give us the house on 1 May, which of course coincided with about the time that Dale and his dad started to seed the crops. The house is kitty-corner from a gas station, so we get to watch the price of gas rise (or fall, occasionally). It is nearly 3x the size of our other little house. We have kept that house and have rented it out to a single fellow who had recently moved to town, friend of our neighbours.

(I took this picture in March, when we first decided we would take the house)

So, my mom and dad came out for three weeks, and stayed for six, God bless 'em, to help. Mom took care of Aleta most days, while Dad and I painted. I should say, Dad painted alot. I did a lot of running around, spending money, and generally finding my way in the renovation business.

Laura and Tyler pitched in alot. Especially at the destruction end of things. We gutted the bathroom, pulled out a few closets, took up the rug and linoleum, and removed wall paper on the upper floor. Tyler rebuilt the bathroom (Tyler, are you talking to us yet? :) ) Zack came and helped me one day, right at the beginning too.

Eleanor kept the farmers going and continued to take care of Aleta when she can (Monday has become Grandma and Aleta time, since sometime last year). She has had Aleta alot since my parents left too, for which I have been grateful as there continues to be a lot to do.

And when it rained, Dale and Ken put in the laminate flooring in the office, living room and bedrooms. Brian came for a couple of visits during this time and helped with those floors too. Can I also mention, gratefully, the lawn-cutting, Brian? I think of you every time I cut the lawn. Then I, with the assistance at different times from Laura and Ken, put in tiles in the bathroom and kitchen.

Brian also helped Dale get a head start on the move. Then on moving day we had Laura, Tyler and Jeff, as well as Pam, Zack, Rebecca and Hannah. And Brit and Jackie too. Thank goodness for the kitchen unpackers so we could actually start living there right away.

The next day we cleaned out the other house and we were barely finishing when our tenant moved in! And the day after that, we got in the car to go to Lethbridge and High River.

Winnipeg enroute

A special feature of our trip to Ontario was the stopover in Winnipeg on our way there. We stayed with the John and Celoris Miller, who were my next-door neighbours when I was little. They still live next door, and even arranged for a tour of my old house.

The big change in the house, besides a slightly different trim colour, is the lack of the big tree that was in the front yard, which I remember climbing. But I seem to remember the house being bigger than it is (funny how that works). Still, a lovely house, and it was quite surreal to walk through it. I remembered bits and pieces, but I was only not-quite-six when we left, so there's a lot I wouldn't remember. One of my last memories, however, is the temper tantrum I had on the living room floor the night before we left, in the summer of 1973. I really didn't want to leave!

It was so lovely to spend some time with the Millers, who remain probably my parents' favorite neighbours, even though it's been over 30 years since our family lived next door to them. Celoris says she always wished there was a direct tunnel between our houses. I wouldn't have minded that: their two oldest were on either side of me age-wise, and we always played together.

Sarah, their third, is shown here with her son Zachary, who spent a bit of time with Aleta (a few months older than him) on our trip out as well as the brief stop we took in on our way back.

I've often felt that if I moved to Winnipeg again, that I'd want to live right back on the street of my first home.

Ottawa: The wedding of Nousha and Vargha / Touring the Parliament Buildings

Right after Naw-Ruz / Easter weekend, we flew to Ottawa to attend the wedding of my dear friend Nousha Etemad to Vargha Ram. We arrived the day before so we had a chance to rest a bit and be tourists.

We visited the Parliament Buildings, specifically the main building that contains the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as the Peace Tower shown here.

This is beside the Memorial Chamber, a tribute to Canadian soldiers who lost their lives in various wars.

Aleta found the coast was clear so she made a break for points otherwise forbidden to enter...

We had a tour of various parts of the building. Here we lingered in the press gallery area outside the House of Commons, yes in the very spot where many TV interviews take place.

Did I mention that Ottawa had a lot of snow?

After a very interesting tour of the Parliament buildings and a bit of a tour around the city, we came to the Museum of Civilization, in Gatineau (across the river from Ottawa, and officially part of the Capital region), to the site of the wedding. They had the wedding and reception right in the Grand Hall, a stunning location for a wedding.

Enter the bride and groom!

Oh yeah, those escalators behind? Aleta discovered them, and did she ever take to them. Up and down, up and down, all through the wedding and reception. If we weren't going up and down them, we were supervising a treadmill-like move at the bottom of the down escalator, with Aleta walking up the escalator at the same pace that it was coming down.

In between escalator rides, I had a chance to chat with several friends, some of whom are shown here: Layla, Hoda, Rose and Neda.

We had never met Vargha before, so we finally had a chance to meet him a bit and have a few moments with Nousha too. They really seem to like each other, a lot, and we wish them our best for a long and happy marriage.

A maturing 20-month old

The little munchkin acts more and more like a little girl all the time. So often we catch her imitating things we do. I recently had a cough that took weeks to go away. In the midst of a coughing fit, I noticed Aleta grabbing a kleenex, putting it in front of her mouth, and coughing in time with me.

This farmer in training likes to peruse the canola reports and promotional literature that her father gets in the mail.

Below, Aleta takes in a photography exhibit recently sponsored by the Esterhazy and District Arts Council. Thelma Pepper's show Untie the Spirit shows the little village that is the Sherbrooke Community Centre, a long-term care facility in Saskatoon. http://www.sherbrookecommunitycentre.ca/docs/Untie_the_Spirit.pdf

Aleta and her dad discover exciting things on the Internet, such as Norah Jones singing to Elmo, the Travelling Wilburys and other musical selections of great interest to both.

Now, I don't know how Aleta convinced Lulu that this would be a good idea, but this dear dog, cousin Lee and Linda's lovable mutt, let Aleta ride her like a horse for a few moments. Aleta has tried to convince our cat that she should submit to such ideas, but Zeddie will have no part of it.

Finally, Aleta prepares for her trip to Ottawa for Nousha and Vargha's wedding: which dress shall I wear? How, at 20 months old, did she already become so captivated by pretty dresses and admiring herself wearing them?

Lunar eclipse (the "blood moon")

Tonight I became quite fascinated by the lunar eclipse, "the last one until 2010" (okay, only 2 years from now). I also became quite interested in figuring out how to use my camera to take night shots, of the moon, so I took some 50 shots over the course of a few hours. I plan to be in bed before the eclipse is complete (because of a little girl who gets up every day by 5:30 a.m.), but I thought I'd post a few of my shots, as imperfect as they are.

The first was at the beginning of the eclipse, at 19:48 (f5.5, 1/125 sec, ISO 800)

This next shot was taken at 20:47, f5.5, 1/80 sec, ISO 400

The next two shots are the same, at 21:03, F5.5, 1 sec, ISO 400. I a) figured out that the slower the speed, the better a picture I would get, especially when the moon turned blood red, and b) found the tripod I haven't used in over a year.

Hence, the nickname "blood moon"

The next shot, taken at -23 degrees C, at 22:38, F5.0, 1/25 sec, ISO 400. As the moon became brighter, I had to adjust the shutter speed again

At the same time as the above image was taken here in Esterhazy, this is what the moon looked like in Argentina (image taken from http://www.aaaa.org.ar/eclipse/index_eng.html) - the Asociacion Argentina Amigos de Astronomia has much better equipment, obviously, and a different perspective

Finally, the last shot taken at 23:10, as the night gets ever colder, was at F5.5, 1/160 sec, ISO 400.

And with the Hedleys over New Years...

Our first morning in High River, we went to the home of my cousin Blaine and Pauline, with most of my family, as well as several other Treloars (Aunt Wilma, Cam & Donna and her daughter, whose name I have completely forgotten, sadly).

They live west of High River, where the view isn't too shabby:

Cam and Donna and daughter

Leila, Aleta and their new friend

Spying on Mom, David and Pauline

The kids played on the stairs for awhile and wore right out.

Budding musicians, Sutherland and Aleta

Momma and Poppa

Another highlight of our visit included a visit with my high school friends Meryl and Van (hadn't seen Van in almost 20 years!), and Van's kids Karl and Thor

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2007

You might not know it from all the pictures I took at Christmas with the Leftwich clan, but there were a few other people besides Aleta and Sebastian present. Alas, I took very few photos of anybody but these two.

Mmmm



What a little clown!



Psst, Sebastian, check out my bellybutton!



Apparently they weren't the only ones who wanted to (and could) sit in those little chairs

There are four people in this photo: Sebastian and his great-grandma, and Aleta and her grandma