I have come to the sudden realization that we are in the final 10 weeks of being homestay parents. There is quite a difference looking back over 3 terms than there is looking ahead to 3 terms. Where has the time gone? I was reading a book on the couch the other day. (It is noteworthy that I should record that activity on the blog, since it happens so infrequently... dat mei ek wol in de krante!!) ....and out of the corner of my eye I spotted the drying rack. I spotted little 10 year old sized sweatshirts and t shirts on there. In 10 weeks, there won't be any . I will miss that. There won't be any little "Kevin trails" throughout the house that are evidence that he was busy doing something, then got busy with something else and left everything laying where he sat. I will miss that (I think). There won't be a pile of lumps on his unmade bed of crumpled blankets, and his pajama pants won't be sitting in front of his closet with two perfect holes where his feet were when he stripped them straight down to the floor and stepped out of them. There won't be anything in that room and the bed will be made all the time. There won't be constant chatter and requests for playing a game.
Homestretch is a melancholy word today.
In other news....my tulips are buried under 10 cm of snow, and most likely Craig's soccer tryouts will be postponed again. I'm out of eggs and I want to make Bahmi, so I have to head out to the farm and I'll pick the boys up on the way home. I also need dog shampoo because the dog stinks. And I baked a cake today and don't have a meeting until Thursday!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Who'd Have Ever Guessed....
That right now there would be three 10 
year old boys playing road hockey on my driveway, and two of them are from Korea! These are the twists and turns that your life takes when you open up your horizons. We just came back from skating at the arena for 2 hours, had cookies and hot chocolate afterwards. One of the parents from our school owns a finance company an
d sponsored free skating for all the school families for a small donation to the local women's shelter. So these three pals and their "big brother" Craig, chased each other around the ice for two hours and helped raise money for a good cause. It was such fun to see everyone again after being apart for the March Break. It was good for them to see someone besides the people they live with!! :):) Of course it was fun for ME to see all the other moms and dads too! For a little while it was just the 4 or 5 of them on the ice! All that wide open space!!!
We had some other really fun outings as well this week...after that crazy weekend!!! We made a trip into London to do some shopping. We began on one side of London and visited the Asian food store. This is a lot of fun for all of us. For Kevin, it was fun to be able to buy some treats from home, things he hasn't had in a long time (since he finished the care package full of delicacies from his mom!!) Mi-Chew, geem, shrimp chips, Shin-cup, Jin-Jin jellies, etc..... For us, we get to buy some of OUR favourite Korean treats, which we have come to love!!! We loooooove the sour lemon balls!! I love Cuttlefish chips, which look like Crispix but taste shrimpy...heavenly!!!! Then we drove across the city to go the Christian bookstore and bought a couple of CD's and used the bathroom. Then we stopped at EB GAmes an
d purchased some games and another guitar for Guitar Hero. One of the highlights of that trip was going to Tim Horton's!! Kevin always talks about the time that he had a coffee at Starbucks, which is almost sacrilege to every true Canadian. We would counter his story with the virtues of Tim Horton's coffee and donuts AND Timbits of course!!!! After helping all morning by raking and carrying wood, I treated all the boys at Timmy's. Kevin and I had a coffee and the other boys had hot chocolate. We all had a donute too. Joe's friend Logan came with us as well. Our family size varies on any given day.
The weather has been nice and warm. We visited the sugarbush this week too. The tree are very straight and tall.
A few trees are actually outfitted with taps and pails but most of them are hooked up to a modern line system. We all dipped our finger on the tap to see what the raw sap tastes like. For the sap to "run" you need warm days and frosty nights, so this past week was perfect sap-running weather. A very Canadian outing. I went with a friend of mine who is also hosting a Korean student for the entire year. We made it a little educational field trip:) We enjoyed a horsedrawn wagon ride, visiting with friends in the sunshine, one of us did not particularly enjoy the horsedroppings, and instead of having pancakes with Maple syrup at the bush, we spent the equivalent amount on a large jug of Maple syrup and made french toast at home. We also picked up a package of breakfast sausages at the store to add to supper. I thought this was very thoughtful since Ray was at work all day and couldn't join us. McLachlan's has a great woodchip 
covered playground, the kids played outside here for an hour on the teeter totters and with the basketballs. They had such fun together and the weather was fabulous.
Of course....we werent' on the road everyday! This just shows the enduring appeal of Archie comics! Excuse the coffee table....I call it the lived in look. And if you ever come over...please put your feet up on it! We ALL do. (PS- I spy, with my little eye, something that is black and white....Joe made this fabulous little cow bowl in art class at school. He is soooo proud of it. It is has the cutest...Wallace and Grommit type of face on it. He talked about it for weeks, giving us the latest updates on it each Tuesdays and all things his teacher said about it to him. He even named it...that's just Joe.)
year old boys playing road hockey on my driveway, and two of them are from Korea! These are the twists and turns that your life takes when you open up your horizons. We just came back from skating at the arena for 2 hours, had cookies and hot chocolate afterwards. One of the parents from our school owns a finance company an
d sponsored free skating for all the school families for a small donation to the local women's shelter. So these three pals and their "big brother" Craig, chased each other around the ice for two hours and helped raise money for a good cause. It was such fun to see everyone again after being apart for the March Break. It was good for them to see someone besides the people they live with!! :):) Of course it was fun for ME to see all the other moms and dads too! For a little while it was just the 4 or 5 of them on the ice! All that wide open space!!!
We had some other really fun outings as well this week...after that crazy weekend!!! We made a trip into London to do some shopping. We began on one side of London and visited the Asian food store. This is a lot of fun for all of us. For Kevin, it was fun to be able to buy some treats from home, things he hasn't had in a long time (since he finished the care package full of delicacies from his mom!!) Mi-Chew, geem, shrimp chips, Shin-cup, Jin-Jin jellies, etc..... For us, we get to buy some of OUR favourite Korean treats, which we have come to love!!! We loooooove the sour lemon balls!! I love Cuttlefish chips, which look like Crispix but taste shrimpy...heavenly!!!! Then we drove across the city to go the Christian bookstore and bought a couple of CD's and used the bathroom. Then we stopped at EB GAmes an
d purchased some games and another guitar for Guitar Hero. One of the highlights of that trip was going to Tim Horton's!! Kevin always talks about the time that he had a coffee at Starbucks, which is almost sacrilege to every true Canadian. We would counter his story with the virtues of Tim Horton's coffee and donuts AND Timbits of course!!!! After helping all morning by raking and carrying wood, I treated all the boys at Timmy's. Kevin and I had a coffee and the other boys had hot chocolate. We all had a donute too. Joe's friend Logan came with us as well. Our family size varies on any given day.
The weather has been nice and warm. We visited the sugarbush this week too. The tree are very straight and tall.
A few trees are actually outfitted with taps and pails but most of them are hooked up to a modern line system. We all dipped our finger on the tap to see what the raw sap tastes like. For the sap to "run" you need warm days and frosty nights, so this past week was perfect sap-running weather. A very Canadian outing. I went with a friend of mine who is also hosting a Korean student for the entire year. We made it a little educational field trip:) We enjoyed a horsedrawn wagon ride, visiting with friends in the sunshine, one of us did not particularly enjoy the horsedroppings, and instead of having pancakes with Maple syrup at the bush, we spent the equivalent amount on a large jug of Maple syrup and made french toast at home. We also picked up a package of breakfast sausages at the store to add to supper. I thought this was very thoughtful since Ray was at work all day and couldn't join us. McLachlan's has a great woodchip 
covered playground, the kids played outside here for an hour on the teeter totters and with the basketballs. They had such fun together and the weather was fabulous.
Of course....we werent' on the road everyday! This just shows the enduring appeal of Archie comics! Excuse the coffee table....I call it the lived in look. And if you ever come over...please put your feet up on it! We ALL do. (PS- I spy, with my little eye, something that is black and white....Joe made this fabulous little cow bowl in art class at school. He is soooo proud of it. It is has the cutest...Wallace and Grommit type of face on it. He talked about it for weeks, giving us the latest updates on it each Tuesdays and all things his teacher said about it to him. He even named it...that's just Joe.)
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Day My Sky Got Bigger
I've always been content with my little piece of sky. I have to look straight up if I want to see the stars in my backyard and then only if you're not standing under one of the trees. On some very convenient moon cycles, I can set up my telescope in the livin
groom where we get a few hours of lower horizon....we even caught a lunar eclipse that way once.
Yesterday, the big walnut tree in our backyard was cut down. (Go Hughie go!!) I really love my tree and the abundant shade that it provided. I love any tree but by no means am I a tree hugger...well...I HAVE hugged that particular one, so maybe I am. But now it is down...not gone, that will be finished tomorrow....
It's passage saddens me somewhat...but I'm getting a bigger sky in return. I'll see more of the sunset, God's signature blessing that signals nightfall every single day. I'll see more of the same stars that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saw. I'm trading off...it's a fair trade.
Inside though....the dog....was.....going....bananas!!!! You see, our roof was being replaced too. Two crews, three trucks, three trailers and all the vehicles belonging to the tree and roofing crew AND the ones that belong to this household. People walking in her backyard, people breaking trees, people pounding overhead and things shaking on the walls. It was time for an outing.
A two minute walk from our house feels like a million miles away. I'm a big fan of the middle of nowhere. It's the closest middle of nowhere I have access to at any given time, so I make do with what I'm blessed with. As we leave the house Blixie tugs at the leash with anticipation, knowing exactly where we are headed. I let her off the leash by the carwash where it always smells like cherry detergent. She is off like a shot.
We walk along the ATV trail at the edge of the stubble fiels. It is quite sandy there and she runs along taking in all the tantalizing fragrances that are unearthed as the snow cover recedes. So many fresh burrows. We follow the drainage ditch between fields to the still frozen bog in the back forty. We spot a deer through the thicket although she has heard us long ago. We slow down to savour the stillness. All you can hear is the distant drone of traffic, a robin, and a long freight train is coming, heading west, laden with double stacks of containers. We have to cross some standing water but there is just enough of the furrow sticking out, still frozen, that my feet stay dry. Blixie, on the other hand, has been places that I choose n
ot to follow. She is covered with mud, sand and burrs(it's been much, much, much worse)....but this is what a happy dog looks like. My spontaneous outing will end with a bath and a haircut, so I stay out a little longer, not ready for chores. We step onto the edge of the bog, find skunk cabbage already starting to poke out, and climb onto the back of an old bent willow to see if we can
spot that deer again. Eventually the time comes to round the furthest point of the field. This means that each step will take us closer to home. I slow down even more to stay in the quiet but we're dragged along the rows of corn stubble with its generous infringement of pokeweed. It will be even wider this coming summer since all the prickly pods have burst open scattering seed already. No matter, this dog is happy, she flushed out a ground hog....what's a little grime.
groom where we get a few hours of lower horizon....we even caught a lunar eclipse that way once.Yesterday, the big walnut tree in our backyard was cut down. (Go Hughie go!!) I really love my tree and the abundant shade that it provided. I love any tree but by no means am I a tree hugger...well...I HAVE hugged that particular one, so maybe I am. But now it is down...not gone, that will be finished tomorrow....
It's passage saddens me somewhat...but I'm getting a bigger sky in return. I'll see more of the sunset, God's signature blessing that signals nightfall every single day. I'll see more of the same stars that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saw. I'm trading off...it's a fair trade.
Inside though....the dog....was.....going....bananas!!!! You see, our roof was being replaced too. Two crews, three trucks, three trailers and all the vehicles belonging to the tree and roofing crew AND the ones that belong to this household. People walking in her backyard, people breaking trees, people pounding overhead and things shaking on the walls. It was time for an outing.
A two minute walk from our house feels like a million miles away. I'm a big fan of the middle of nowhere. It's the closest middle of nowhere I have access to at any given time, so I make do with what I'm blessed with. As we leave the house Blixie tugs at the leash with anticipation, knowing exactly where we are headed. I let her off the leash by the carwash where it always smells like cherry detergent. She is off like a shot.
We walk along the ATV trail at the edge of the stubble fiels. It is quite sandy there and she runs along taking in all the tantalizing fragrances that are unearthed as the snow cover recedes. So many fresh burrows. We follow the drainage ditch between fields to the still frozen bog in the back forty. We spot a deer through the thicket although she has heard us long ago. We slow down to savour the stillness. All you can hear is the distant drone of traffic, a robin, and a long freight train is coming, heading west, laden with double stacks of containers. We have to cross some standing water but there is just enough of the furrow sticking out, still frozen, that my feet stay dry. Blixie, on the other hand, has been places that I choose n
ot to follow. She is covered with mud, sand and burrs(it's been much, much, much worse)....but this is what a happy dog looks like. My spontaneous outing will end with a bath and a haircut, so I stay out a little longer, not ready for chores. We step onto the edge of the bog, find skunk cabbage already starting to poke out, and climb onto the back of an old bent willow to see if we can
spot that deer again. Eventually the time comes to round the furthest point of the field. This means that each step will take us closer to home. I slow down even more to stay in the quiet but we're dragged along the rows of corn stubble with its generous infringement of pokeweed. It will be even wider this coming summer since all the prickly pods have burst open scattering seed already. No matter, this dog is happy, she flushed out a ground hog....what's a little grime.
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