kitten

It seems that my animal census was out of date. The mice are gone and so is the dog, but here is the new kitten, Bebe, the third cat. He was watching us whilst my son and I (mostly Terry, he is the expert) spent the afternoon making sushi. Then we had a great meal with all five of the boys.

out again

Today Tommy's dad was home from work so he went along on our latest geocaching adventure. Here they are in a redoubt, all that is left of fortifications put in place in 1689 to defend the settlers against the Iroquois. Then we were of the the bank of the Saint Lawrence to find another cache. We wandered home tired and needing to replenish ourselves at the depanneur along the way. A depanneur is a convenience store where Tommy indulged in a chocolate bar.

snow fun

This morning Nathalie, Nico, Tommy and a friend went geocaching with me. Here they are opening up their third cache. In all they found five. Now we have converts, with Nathalie wanting her own GPS receiver and thinking up a name for their team. Lots of fun: we returned tired and hungry, which is how it should be.

boxing day

In Canada the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. So early on Boxing Day morning I packed up and left for Montreal, or at least the "South Shore" to spend a few days with my son and family. The plane ride was, thankfully, uneventful and today I got my computer hooked up. So I am back online, and now everyone has trooped off to bed and silence has descended upon the household, I can think and write. Does anyone out there know what its like to have the latest version of "Guitar Hero" non stop? Well this evening we took a short break and looked up all the nearby geocaches. Tomorrow we shall hunt them down. That will be a new game for the boys.

nativity ball

I am writing this earlier in the day, being Christmas Eve, the evening is filled with Chrfistmas at the church. So each of you have a blessed Christmas. Tomorrow, after the morning service there are various invitations, and then the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, I am going to visit my son and his family near Montreal. So I expect the blog enteries will be a bit more sporadic - but I shall try inbetween the fun. At last count there were, five boys, two cats, a dog, betwen ten and twenty birds, some fish and white mice and their very patient mother, my lovely daughter-in-law.

leather bell

Last evening was spent carolling. We went around to all the shut-ins taking small gifts and singing the carols. There were six of us: three men and three women. We were in fine form, but the rain had started, falling on the snow, and so it was very icy underfoot and took longer than we had anticipated. Then we went to a home to admire their tree, drink cider and munch and talk. I collapsed when I got home and so no blog yesterday.

I would be out again this evening, but the rain, although intermittant, has not stopped and now a weather warning has been issued anticipating a sudden drop in temperature, so we are all staying home. The evening at the movies was set aside.

This bell, made from leather hide and beaded by a Cree woman, was given to me to hang on my tree. The leather would have come from moccasin scraps.

tree

Well it isn't much, but I was looking at these decorations that I had been given and wondering what I would do with them. I am going away for over a week after Christmas so I didn't want to leave a live tree in the house, especially the cats are staying home. The friend who originally foisted them on me is coming over each day to feed them. And I really dislike articial stuff, unless it is really articial and not trying to look real. But the Sunday School had used a couple of fake trees in a play and they had been brought over to store in the manse. The living room looked a bit bare so I stuck one in each corner. So this evening the cats and I decorated one of them. It doesn't show up too well. Maybe I should go for some close ups.