Christmas Walks

December 25, 2006


December 25, 2006


December 25, 2006


December 26, 2006


December 26, 2006

Christmas Day: Stuart Style

On the 25th, we headed out to the farm in Mission to spend Christmas Day with the Stuart Clan. Although the Jackson Five (Catherine, Jeff, and the kids) were unable to come down, Uncle Rob managaed to come out from Toronto again and Uncle Pete also visited.


December 25, 2006: Christmas Morning with the Stuart Clan (panoramic: click to view)


December 25, 2006: Uncle Rob


December 25, 2006: Chicken Gramma & Grandpa


December 25, 2006: Pat & Bruce


December 25, 2006: Don


December 25, 2006: My (Our) new iMac!

Christmas Eve: Dressel Style

As we do each 24th of December, Christmas Eve was spent with the Dressel family. With both Barb's and Rob's families in town it made for a very busy and exciting time at Oma & Opa's house.

Incidently, this was also the last Christmas Kristina & I were able to celebrate the holidays sans children. We did not take it for granted.


December 24, 2006: The Complete 2006 Dressel Lineup


December 24, 2006: Adam


December 24, 2006: Here, have a present


December 24, 2006: Shannon


December 24, 2006: Kristina & Oma

Baa-ram-ewe

Indy experienced her first foray into herding recently. Just before Christmas, I was given the opportunity to take Indy to a sheep herding clinic in Hope. As soon as we arrived her ears perked up and she was completely enthralled with the other dogs doing their thing.

Since then, Indy was a little less enthusiastic about her second time in Hope yesterday. Next week we plan on going again to try and reignite her eagerness.

Visit www.downriver.org for more information about where we've been going.


December 16, 2006


December 16, 2006


December 16, 2006


December 16, 2006


December 16, 2006

Aloha Suckers

For all of us losers who are stuck in the midst of winter -- and writing report cards -- the closest we'll be able to come to sunny warm weather is reading about the Stuart family's escaped down south.

Teen left with Don & Pat, Catherine and her kids on Tuesday for a short getaway to Hawaii. While they haven't been able to bridge the Pacific gap via telephone, Kristina did Skype me last night shortly after emailing me some photos of their fun so far.

For now, we can only look on and wish....

Bis' ein Dressel

It's not much of a surprise, but our ultrasound results show us that -- yes, it's a Dressel.

Mauketina, Mauket Junior, Syd, or whatever you want to call it appears very healthy. The radiologist say that he, she, or it is developing very well so far. Fingers & toes are all there, the cord looks healthy, and all the major organs seem to be the right size. Amazingly, we could even see all four chambers of the heart eagerly pumping away.


November 25, 2006: Here, you can see its head on the left side looking down, its left arm held forward and its left leg sticking out like it's driving a car.


November 25, 2006: In this close-up image, you can see Syd looking up with its hand held up to its mouth -- almost as if it's sucking on its thumb.

Early to Bed,... Why Bother?

Kristina and I have recently discussed and agreed, at the tail-end of long days, that we are both so exhausted that we have become grumpy and angry. For Teen, work has been filled with nothing but report cards and difficult kids, and for me, it's been nothing but Incomplete Reports and, of course, difficult kids.

We're tired.

So now, after what seems to have been an endless number of days and nights of marking, organizing, and hunting kids down for assignments, I managed to award myself the opportunity to go to bed early. 9-o'clock early.

So, pumped full of Tylenol-3 for a headache and sore back, I trundle off to bed and leave Teen do deal with the dogs. But now after a 2:15am wake up whine from Kirby, and a 45-minute toss & turn in bed, I still can't get back to Never-Neverland.

So what's the point of going to bed early? I may just as well have gone to bed at midnight and wake-up with Philip Till telling me about the state of our water supply.

Which brings me to the weather...

Pretty sucky, eh?

For anyone living outside our 778,... er... 604 area code, you'll be surprised to hear that Vancouver and the rest of the Lower Mainland is now in Week 2 or 3 (I've lost track) of 40 Days and 40 Nights.

If our zoo wasn't actually an aquarium, I'd suggest that someone had better build a boat and start packing it full of animals.

Because of all of the rain and storms, the local watersheds have suffered extreme "turbidity" (the latest catch-word) thereby resulting in a region-wide water-ban and boil-water advisory.

Luckily for most of us, the water bad ended after a little more than a day, but therre are still some ("some" meaning 1+ million) unlucky people like Mom & Dad and Rob & Shannon in Vancouver that are still living (if you can call it that) without tap water.



Well, good nig-- morning, then. I think I hear Kirby whining again.

Seeing Double

Last weekend, after my game, I bumped into another Cattle Dog owner in North Van. Fortunately, I like to bring Indy along to as many games as I can, so she, too, was present for the meeting. At first, they were kind of stand-offish, but eventually it was pretty evident that they were new friends.


October 28, 2006: Indy(right) & Niko.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun...

...Which isn't really the best description for the last four weeks. Four weeks? Has it really been that long?

If I may paraphrase some anonymous reader's recent comment, this is piss-poor blogging. But as my more annoying grade 8's often say to me: it's not my fault.

Life in and around the Coquitlam neighbourhood has been busy and sickly. My job with the grade 8's has left me working regular 10-12-hour days, and each Tuesday & Thursday has my night-school teaching adding on another 2-hours.

Meanwhile, Kristina has been getting the shaft on this whole pregnancy deal. She feels sick all the time, has trouble holding her meals & drinks down, and is feeling more tired than she's ever felt in her life.

Kristina is just beginning to show now, which, by the way, makes me happy since it's actually starting to seem somewhat real for me as well. Up until now, the only change I've noticed in expecting a baby is that I've ended up doing more housework. She hasn't said as much, but I imagine that's about the only thing Kristina would be able to get used to.

Last month, I had to leave Kristina to fend for herself for a few days. My grade 8's and I went on a camping trip to Loon Lake for three days. It was a good experience -- much like last spring's -- but fatigue was a big concern. From seven in the morning to eleven at night, it's virtually constant supervision of a bunch of hormonally-charged, sugar-high (they snuck their own candy up), attention-deficit 13-year olds.

I brought up some Tylenol, and that was a good thing.

In recent news, there was a incident where an Indo-Canadian, 30-year old, pregnant, elementary school teacher was found dead and burned in Delta. That alone has been a huge, disturbing, and very sad story; but last week I suffered my first, real, serious experience of worrying.

Kristina had gone out for the evening to a book-club meeting with some girlfriends from work. But after midnight, as I was getting ready for bed, she still hadn't returned home. This was very much unlike her, particularly in light of her continuous sickly feeling.

Then my mind started going on it's own... That murder victim was 30. Teen is 30.

The victim was pregnant. Kristina's pregnant.

She was a teacher. Kristina's a teacher.

And she was a elementary school teacher. Teen's an elementary school teacher!

... Beep-beep-boop-beep. Ring-ring... ring-ring. No answer.

Crap. Where is she?! Then, a few minutes later, she calls back. "I'm OK. I'm still at book-club."

This parenting thing is going to be a nightmare.

Slow & Steady Wins the Race

Like The Rolling Stones once sung, "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

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Hurricane Indy

Only 1.5 hours before Obedience Training Level 1...


September 25, 2006: Her next poo will be self-wiping.

If She Would, I Could

This morning I discovered a neat little video by a guy who took a photo every second day during his wife's pregnancy. Then he stitched them altogether and set them to music. I'd love to do the same, but Teen would never want pictures of herself like that.

Here's what I saw:

Happy Equinox

As we now revolve our way in to the realm of short days, Kristina & I visited with Amber & Vince at a Langley dog park. Although Indy continues to improve on her group socialization, we've still decided that today was just the first of what is to be many weekly visits to that park.


September 23, 2006: Direct correlation -- excitement goes up, hair goes up.


September 23, 2006: Alfie


September 23, 2006: Kirby & treats -- like peanut butter & jam. Inseparable.


September 23, 2006: Diva, Alfie & Indy.


September 23, 2006: Hot dog.

Goal in Mind

This just goes to show that Indy's got a long way to go in her training.

Genetic Variability

Recently, Kristina & I generated a unique combination of genes in order to enhance our genetic fitness and variablity. A few weeks ago, we discovered that this random recombination of our existing alleles succesfully resulted in a healthy and happy diploid zygote. At this point, we are little more than just past the point of rapid cell division, but we expect that some outwardly visible signs of human reproduction may appear in a few short months.

Surprise.

When It Rains, It Pours.

During the last week of summer -- while Teen went North to visit Fort St. John -- I stayed behind to go from school to school to search out and last minute teaching positions that were avaible in Coquitlam. As luck had it, I found a 0.4 (2 days a week) at a middle school around the corner from our house. With less than a 10-minute bicycle ride from home, I was eager to prove myself in the job that the principal decided to test me out for.

Meanwhile, as I wowwed the Coquitlam School District, I was offered 0.8 (4 days a week) at the 11th hour in New West. After extensive self-debate, I decided to go with the New West job and began a hectic week just this past Monday.

Funnily -- that wasn't the end of the story -- I received a call from another principal in Coquitlam offering me a third job (0.5 ESL).

Didn't someone once say everything comes in threes?

London Calling: Part IV

And finally, on the next to last day of our stay in Ontario, we just puttered around the house, ate, relaxed and watched the dogs enjoying themselves. Indy really managed to make a great friend in Coda -- we now know that anytime she needs a good pick-me-up, Coda will be happy to oblige her. What buddies!


August 26, 2006: Pals for life.


August 26, 2006: Indy can't help but want to herd Coda.


August 26, 2006: This is FUN!

London Calling: Part III

On the Thursday of our trip, we went to take a short tour of The University of Western Ontario. It had been almost 10 years since I'd last been there and I was curious to see if any major changes had taken place. Apart from a couple of new residence buildings and some building renovations, it was just about exactly the way I remembered.


August 24, 2006: Indy & I posing on a sidewalk of goose poo.


August 24, 2006: I never thought that one day I'd be hanging out with my dog infront of Middlesex.


August 24, 2006: Teen was thrilled with the campus.

Afterwards, we met up with Barb & Zach (Jay had to work) to watch Suzy's soccer game. Suzy played goal in the first half managing a shut-out, but ended up leaving the game early in the second after twisting her ankle.


August 24, 2006: The Byron Cougars or Lions or Coyotes or something.


August 24, 2006: Suzy works on her shut-out.


August 24, 2006: Her ankle ended her game.

London Calling: Part II

Back to our trip again...

On Wednesday -- with the best weather of the trip -- we took a couple of hours with the kids to go and hit some golf balls and sink a few putts. There was lots of swinging but not whole lot of sinking.


August 23, 2006: Barb knocks one out of a non-existent bunker.


August 23, 2006: Jay demonstrates his Niagra-Style hockey stance.


August 23, 2006: Does this look like the face of someone who's hitting the ball well?


August 23, 2006: By the looks of my form, you might actually think the ball went quite far. You'd be wrong.


August 23, 2006: Jay with the putt of the day -- 20+ feet, at least.

Afterwards, we spent the afternoon playing in the pool and lounging in the hottub. Even the dogs got to play a bit around the pool.


August 23, 2006: Jay cools off.


August 23, 2006: Zach & Brendan take break from picking up poo 24/7.


August 23, 2006: Stow-away.


August 23, 2006: Throw-away.


August 23, 2006: Corny.


August 23, 2006: This is how they played without making a sound. All week.