And what a journey the last several months have been. It has been 6 months since I last wrote a blog entry. Little did I know when I wrote that entry that about one week later Maureen and I would have a major "OOPS"...in fact, it wasn't until May 20th that we found out that we were expecting our first child (due date Jan 25) - and it has taken the better part of the last six months for us to come to terms with it. Not that starting a family is a bad thing at all...it's just that it was not expected and the timing didn't/doesn't quite fit with what we had "planned". We were hoping to start with a puppy, but hey, things happen, and I'm just hoping our kid is really cute so that nobody has to lie when they tell us that he/she is (you know what I'm talking about...you've all done it)

Maureen had been enrolled in a hairdressing program that was supposed to start in August - but due to the due date falling right in the middle of the 9 month program she was unable to do it. Instead, she has been going to school - studying Geography at Concordia University. While it has definitely been an adjustment for her to be back in school again, she has been doing an amazing job so far - even knocking out a 96% on a technical "Air/Water" midterm.

Aside from that, I've been putting on sympathy pregnancy weight and slugging away at bringing in new business for C.H. Robinson here in Montreal. It has been a tough few months in that regard, but our office has continued to expand and we have now hired another person and shuffled the deck a bit so that there are now two of us working in the Business Development group. The rising Canadian $$ has hit hard at manufacturing out here in eastern Canada, but at least it has made shopping trips to the US cheaper.

Speaking of trips...we had an absolutely amazing summer here in Montreal. While the weather took a little while to warm up, we've had a great time visiting family, having family visit us out here, camping, driving...etc.

Where to begin? Well...here's a few pics from the last several months. Click on the PHOTO GALLERY link at the top of the webpage to see the rest of the "best" photos.

Julia's grade 12 grad (Jeremy and Erin, Mom and Dad, Julia, Stephen and Melissa, David and Maureen)

A Cattle Drive while visiting the Esau side of the family in June

on the boardwalk at Virginia Beach - August

Canoing in September

Hiking at Lac Munroe - October

So yeah - it's been a bit busy!!! :-)

In June we went to BC to celebrate my sister Julia's graduation from high school. As of two weeks ago she is now going to school at YWAM in Lausanne, Switzerland. I can't tell you how jealous Mo and I are of her traveling.

Following her grad we went up to BC.....

Once my family went back out west... (by the way, my parents have moved back to BC and are now living and working in Invermere...although they are going to Mongolia this coming spring)...Mo and I started camping - Tremblant, Vermont, Ontario...we also took a week and drove our brand new Mazda 3 sport (Mo named her "Opal") down to Virginia for a week of camping and relaxing at Virginia Beach and Chesapeake Bay before Maureen started school.

What else....we went camping last week at Tremblant for the last time this year. The leaves were absolutely spectacular and we had an amazing time. So what's next? CANUCKS SEASON!!! Vancouver is playing Edmonton tonight and Maureen and I are already going toe-to-toe with each other about who will win. I like to point out that Vancouver has won the last 7 games in a row :-)

.....ok - I've got writers fatigue. I'm done for a week or two...but I promise to update this blog every couple weeks at the most to keep you 'posted' on our world as we prepare for E.T.'s arrival (that's what we've been calling the kid...we don't know the gender and it looks like an alien when Mo's belly moves...kind of cute, eh?)

(see the gallery for more pics of snowboarding and Mo's trip to BC)

- Maureen went to BC last week to see her family so I was flying solo for a little while. I spent a day snowboarding at Tremblant which was pretty fun, but it's definitely more fun when someone else is there as well. I'm not actually sure what I did with the rest of the week but it went by relatively quickly. We also got out to Bromont to go snowboarding back in Feb and in March we spent a weekend at Jay Peak. There are a couple pics from that weekend - it snowed over 20 inches in one night and it took 2.5 hours to drive 100km to the hill, but the conditions were unbelievable. Definitely worth the trip.

-Congrats to my brother Jeremy for winning his second Juno award (Canadian music award) with his band "Downhere".

...click below to keep reading...

-I broke down and finally signed up with facebook. I can't say I use it that often, but it has been really cool to find out where so many people I grew up with are at now. One guy I hadn't seen since elementary school, another has moved to St. Louis, while another one was someone we hung out with in Australia who ended up staying at our place as he was in Quebec last week before flying home to England (while I tried to control my insane jealousy about the fact that he has been traveling for an entire year now).

-what an exciting election in Quebec a couple weeks ago...I know that sounds funny but the political scene in Quebec is never dull so we'll see what a minority government brings. At least the seperatist Parti Quebecois had its worst showing in 40 years.

-my parents are moving back to BC this fall after 6.5 years in Saskatchewan. Dad has taken a 2/3 time veterinary position in Invermere starting in October. It will allow Mom and Dad to continue exploring the mountains around there and they'll also be able to take a few months each year to go do international veterinary work as well.

-how nice would it be to live in Australia? 6 weeks vacation every year. The problem is we'd spend at least 4 of those flying back and forth to Canada to visit family because it's such a big trip.

the problem for me isn't that there is no shortage of things (and people) to write about - the problem is that such people may in fact read this blog at some point and so I have to be diplomatic in my story telling to the point where I don't write as much as I once did. It was much easier to write about Indian men or a guide in Nepal or a crazy karaoke character on a bus in Thailand than about my coworkers or Mo's coworkers (who all believed for a while that I had no social skills - not too far from the truth I guess)......anyway...

...if you're wondering why Mo is wearing 4.3 lbs of makeup you'll have to keep reading.

Mo's brother Chad flew in yesterday with his friend Bud from BC. We've gotten smoked over the last couple of days with -35C (-20somethingF) weather and over 15 inches of snow, so their plane got delayed and their luggage was two hours behind them. However, the made it in last night and came straight to Java U where Mo was modeling (see the photo gallery) and serving at a big Valentine's bash and I was doing some music with Jisca. Mo got a pretty sweet deal - haircut and coloring from a prestigious salon and lots of free clothes. It was a pretty cool night - although there's only so many times digging and pushing the car out of a snowbank can be considered a "good time". I took the day off today (although I fielded a number of phone calls regarding new customers) - the plan was to go snowboarding but it was -38C (-35F) at most of the ski hills so we weren't able to take advantage of the new snow. Instead, we did the dowtown tour. Bud managed to buy himself a black cowboy hat from Simons so we're blending in just fine...

BY THE WAY - our good friends Danny and Kerri Dibski (and their daughter Hayley) welcomed a new addition to their family 1 week ago today - a beautiful little girl named Maren Elizabeth. She is just amazing - I have to point out that she bawled like crazy in Mo's arms but I put her to sleep right away...must be those social skills...

...what else is happening...work has been going ok - slowly I'm developing new accounts for the company, but it has been really tough slugging at times too. I feel strongly supported by the management team there though so that makes a real difference even though I often am frustrated with where things are at.

I'm also doing some independant studying on the side...just for my own knowledge. David has dug out some of his favourite articles and studies, etc from his BA for me to read and write little summaries on. I just finished reading one yesterday on the outbreak of World War I...how and why it happened.
It was very interesting but frustrating too as I realized that so many people died for the pride and/or disillusionment of a few men and their main advisors. So much of it doesn't make sense to my standards. It seems like leaders then believed almost that there was no choice but to go to war...the wheels had been set in motion and it was inevitable...however I believe it was just one miscommunication after another. I wonder if things would have been different if there had been telephones and they could at least hear eachother's voice...as it is impossible to hear the intended tone in a telegram.
It's hard to believe that it's almost been 100 years.

Those are my thoughts for the day.

Speaking of pictures, we have now posted the photos from our Christmas holidays so make sure to check those out.

We watched the season premiere of 24, season 6 last night...2 hours jammed pack full of stress. I don't know why I do it to myself...or encourage David in his desire to be Jack Bauer...but nonetheless, we're hooked:o)

I've started one of my courses now. I have French on Monday and Wednesday mornings and Cross Cultural Development on Fridays mornings. I haven't started French yet but I've one of the CCM classes and it seems really awesome. I'm really excited about it...so far I'm the only Canadian in the class so it makes for very interesting discussion and input.

David is back at work today and it is our first day of real snow this winter. Maybe we'll get to use our snowboards yet. The snow plows haven't been able to keep up at all so the sidewalks are covered in about 6-8 inches of snow. I'm not complaining though, I have been waiting for this!

There is a lot of money in oil. A lot. Like...it's silly. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

The sun sure doesn't spend much time in the sky here. It starts to rise above the horizon just after 9am and it isn't fully "light" until 10...then it is setting before 4pm for a grand total of just over 7 hours of daylight (according to Environment Canada). Throughout the day the sun seems to hang in the southern sky not more than 30 degrees or so above the horizon...

Mo went snowboarding yesterday and ended up in the hospital briefly due to torn cartiledge in her ribs. She's been sick for a while and a week or so of violent coughing caused some damage there. I woke up this morning with a sore throat of my own so I'm not looking forward to what is most likely coming.

...anyway - how 'bout that Canadian hockey team? Nothing quite like beating the US in the 7th round of a shootout to brighten one's day.

We flew out of Montreal Dec 24th to Saskatchewan - by the time we drove the extra hour from the airport to my parent's place we had 1/2 hour to chow down on supper before my whole family led the music portion of the Christmas Eve service at my parent's church.

We've got a bunch of great pictures but I think I'll hold out for a few days before posting them so that I can post some pics from up here with Mo's family as well.

The CH Robinson Christmas party at Mont Tremblant was awesome - we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed staying in the Fairmont Hotel - although it definitely was a bit weird to have people waiting on us hand and foot.

However......

After the reception, we all got to stay at the most spectacular place I've ever been. It even managed to make the 5-star Fairmont of the previous weekend seem cheap...

It was a special Intrawest time-share place called "Storied Places" - membership costs $250,000 one time "admin fee" + $10,000 monthly fee - all this for 6 weeks each year. Unbelievable...but it was so beautiful. I posted a few pictures, but the real quality of the house was in all the small details - maybe if I work really hard for a few more years... :-)

And CHRISTMAS!

We fly to Caronport, Saskatchewan on Dec 24th for 1 week to see my family before then flying up to Clayhurst, British Columbia for another week to see Maureen's family. We're really looking forward to our time there and will be sure to post some pics and update our blog over hte holidays.

Merry Christmas!!!

We absolutely took advantage of every moment we had as there was so much to see and do in such a short amount of time...

We walked by Bloomingdales and Trump Tower where we got to see a somewhat larger than life size cardboard model of "the Donald". There was some space for rent next door with a huge sign the said "the world's best rental space"...surprise, surprise.

We made our way to Rockerfeller center, saw them putting up the huge tree...one guy told us it's 80 ft tall and 45 ft wide...massive! I wish we could be there when they light it up... I think that happens this weekend. I think New York has got to the best place to get into the Christmas spirit...all the stores get so into it with their display windows and music. I loved it!!

Times square always blows me away. We saw it during the day and at night and it almost seems the same for all the people that are there...plus with all those lights, you almost don't notice the sun go down. When I'm in TImes Square, I feel like I'm in the centre of the universe... with all the information and huge screens showing news updates and advertisements. It seems like if anything were to happen anywhere in the world, you'd be the first one to know if you were standing in Times Square. I'm know it's not true, but I don't know how else to describe the epxperience of being there.

We got tickets to a comedy club for the evening (the same club that Jerry Seinfeld used to start and end each episode), so while we were killing time before the show, we checked out Canal Street and had some amazing New York pizza in Soho. I loved Canal street because it reminded me of Bangkok...with all the small shops selling "brand name" stuff and being able to barter for a good deal. Market shopping...it's the way to go:o)!!!

Before the night was out, we still hit Grand Central Station, the Empire state building and Times Square one more time...oh my gosh, by the time we got back to our hostel, our feet were dying and it wouldn't have mattered how hard the bed was, there was nothing preventing us from falling asleep:o)

Sunday was a bit more laid back... we checked out Wall street and Ground Zero. It was good to go back to ground zero to see the progress they're making. The last time I was there, it was just a hole in the ground and now they have done a lot to start building again and there are is more in the way of memorials and pictures to bring more emotion to it. It felt like there's some definite healing that has taken place, although the pain is still very real.

After a bit more time in Soho, we had to hit the road again. The driving was a half the fun too. Rounds of "Celebrity 20 Questions" and "I've never" provided hours of entertainment:o)As for the rest of our life at the moment; we've been keeping very busy with work and friends. It's hard to believe how much of our lives we spend at work...seems like way more than we spend with friends and even spouses. I really feel like rebelling against this trend and yet...what can you do, money is one of those necessities of life. But I'm working on a plan...:o)

(We've finally posted some photos from the last few months. Check out the photo gallery)

Last weekend we made a roadtrip to Boston...

Things back in BC are going fairly well. My mom is still in the hospital and working very hard in physio everday to improve her walking skills. However, she is still not at the point where my dad can take care of her on his own (she needs 2 people all the time), so at the moment she's on a waiting list to get into a local care home. She'll stay at the hospital until a bed opens up there. It has been a very difficult process and decision, but my mom is actually in very high spirits and she is still very motivated. We/she have realized that this is the best thing for her at the moment, but by no means does it have to be permanent if she does get to the point where she can go home again.
My dad bought a van with a wheel chair lift in it so that anybody can take her out and about...so that will be great for expanding her world outside of the hospital and care home. For those of you who pray, please keep her and us in your prayers as we continue down this path that we really can't see any further than our toes.

There are all kinds of corresponding photos in the photo gallery (click on the link at the top of the page)