Katalijn in Canada

Published author: A Sneak Preview!

2012-01-26T20:46:00.005-05:00

Remember a small project I started working on back in, ehm, 2003? Also known as the Annotated Bibliography? I spent weeks upon weeks writing it, together with three scientists, of which one retired in the process... Once we were ready for publication, we were told it needed to be edited and translated. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the whole process was delayed, but finally, I can now provide you with a sneak preview of our much anticipated Annotated Bibliography of White and Red Pine: Silviculture, Management and Ecology, 1960-2007.

I have to admit I am quite proud. Finally a publication with my name on it ;) As Nolan put it: you're now a published author. True!!

It turned into a project of patience, but I think in the end it was well worth it. If all goes well, I should have the official PDF version by tomorrow (Friday), and paper copies should be ready for distribution by Monday. And trust me, I'll be promoting it far and wide!

In other news, we officially started our marathon training, and actually signed up for the Ottawa Marathon as well. Sunday, May 27th, so at least we still have a few weeks to get into shape. We will need that time. Absolutely. But so far so good, and with our treadmill, it will be hard to come up with excuses of not to run!

Yesterday I spent most of the day facilitating at the Collaborative Management Day (if you want to know more about it, search for #GOC3 on Twitter), and even though I was somewhat nervous, it went quite well. It was a great learning experience (you don't get to facilitate groups of 80 people very often), but the theme (collaboration) was also very interesting and relevant to my job. So all in all, an exhaustive but good day.

For better or for worse...

2012-01-15T16:34:00.002-05:00

The start of the new year has been pretty good, until I got sick on Tuesday. Normally when people in the office are starting to cough and show runny noses, I just keep doing my thing and avoid any of those symptoms. That was, until this year. I felt down and blah for three days, had zero energy and just felt plain miserable. Thursday night something 'broke' and I came down with a full blown cold, which for some reason made me feel better! Well, to some extent...

On top of not feeling fit, we finally got hit by a hint of winter this week. Thursday we were treated to an extended period of freezing rain, which switched to snow Friday morning. After all said and done, we received about 20cm of snow on top of a layer of ice. Falling snow always has something romantic. Until the snow plough comes by and it takes about two hours to shovel the end of the driveway. The driveway itself is not a problem. In less than half an hour, everything is clean. But since we're on a corner lot, we get snow from two streets which simply amounts to a lot. And we haven't even had a real serious snow dump yet! The mess we faced on Friday was about 3 ft high and 4ft wide (~0.9m and 1.2m). Not fun!
We're now seriously considering buying a snow blower. Not so much for the driveway, as just for the snow dump from the street ploughs. Maybe lazy, but if you're stuck it's nice knowing you can get out in a hurry if need be, without having to spend hours clearing a path...

Nolan taking a break in the snow bank after shovelling

Nice view from our living room

Kids playing hockey on the street

After the nice dump on Friday, temperatures dropped significantly on Friday night, with a high of -18 degrees on Saturday... Even though I still didn't feel great, we decided to get out on the snowshoes anyway, and I think that 'fresh' air has actually done me well.

We walked to the Greenbelt (literally 10 minutes away), put on our snowshoes and went! We both love getting out there, watching the sun through the trees, making our own paths in the freshly fallen snow (we stay off the regular paths so not to hinder cross country skiers), and just enjoy being out there. And even though it's 'chilly', as long as you keep moving it's really nice!

Sunday morning, our typical running morning, was even colder. I wasn't sure if I'd be up for a run, but I felt much better, and decided to try at least 6 k. We dressed warmly (almost overdressed!), and we ended up doing just under 10k. Not bad considering I hadn't done anything for a week!

And just in case you're curious, your lungs won't freeze when you run in -23 weather! We cover our nose and mouth, but once you're going, that comes off as well. You should try it!

And this one just because I'm a crazy cat lady :)

Happy New Year!

2012-01-04T10:22:00.000-05:00

2011 - A year in review

2011-12-30T15:52:00.000-05:00

It seems that you can't open a newspaper, turn on a tv show, or check a website without being bombarded with '2011 lists'. News, highlights, music, sports, etc etc. Since I couldn't live without lists (I would forget at least half of the groceries if I didn't have a list, I probably would not get a lot of work done, and it helps me to keep my mind organized!), I thought to look back at 2011, and mention some of the highlights (and lows).

The year started off pretty quiet. We had an average winter with some snow, but everything was slightly different being in the new house. In a good way!
The single running highlight came in February when I ran the Peterbrough half marathon. It wasn't super fast, but it was a fun run, and nice to catch up with Candice. It also marked the last race in a very long time, and we were both ok with it. We took a break from running this year, and it was good. We did run, mainly some shorter distances and on the trails, but no races and it felt great not to have that pressure of having to run all the time.

March saw the biggest low of the year, with my dad being sick. It's those moments that make you realize you're further away, and you can't just go over for a weekend to help out. However, I was impressed with how quickly I was able to fly back, and felt blessed that I could be there for those few weeks. I stayed for a week and a half, and went back home for another week and a half, only to return. This time for a planned Easter visit, to enjoy our family Easter breakfast, where everyone was present, including my dad! It was also a nice visit to catch up with some of our Dutch friends, and to just relax.

The spring and early summer were fairly busy with work, but we also spent quite a bit of time putting our garden in. We definitely added some colour to the garden, and were able to grow some taste tomatoes and parsley to last us a lifetime!
A house in our neighbourhood burnt down in June, which was scary; it hit too close to home! Luckily nobody got injured. I also worked several weekends at the PRF, which was anything but typical. Road washouts became the norm! I don't think they'll ask me back!

Against all expectations, my parents were able to come and visit us this summer. They had bought tickets before my dad got sick, and my mom refused to cancel the trip until she knew for sure they couldn't go. Well, her foresight pay off, since they were able to spend a good two weeks here in Canada.
The summer in photos: click here.

A definitely highlight this year was our trip to Utah. Nolan was in Salt Lake City for a conference and we decided to make it our holiday destination. It was an absolutely amazing trip!
For updates, check here:
Utah part 1
Utah part 2
Utah - Part 3: The Arches!
Utah - Part 4 - Dead Horse Point State Park
Utah - Part 5: Road trip!
Utah - Part 6 - Capitol Reef National Park
Utah - Part 7 - Uinta National Forest
Utah - Part 8 (final) - Antelope Island

The fall was a bit more quiet at the home front, but work definitely made up for it! Nolan and I were both kept busy with our jobs. I also travelled quite a bit; a trip to the Acadia Research Forest in New Brunswick and several trips to the PRF, as well as a trip to Huntsville and North Bay.

A fun trip for both of us was Carrie's wedding in Toronto in October. It was a beautiful wedding, and we had some time to explore Toronto as well, which was fun. I felt like such a small town girl in a big city! In a way, Ottawa, is just a big town and not really a city. Just the way I like it!

And now it's winter! We finally got some snow, unusually late, but it lights everything up. While I write this, it's -14 and a windchill of -20. Toasty compared to the -20 and -28 windchill we had yesterday...

We picked up our running this fall, which we have been able to do outdoors for the most part due to the milder weather until this week. The year off has done us really well. So well, that we decided to sign up for the Ottawa Marathon this spring. The official training program starts in January, but we've been able to build up our basis significantly in the past few weeks, so we'll be ready to hit the road running!

In general it has been a pretty good year for us. We are so happy in this house (have I mentioned that before?), and the cats our happy with us. We're probably boring people, without crazy adventures, but this is the way we like it!

To all of you! Have a wonderful, healthy, happy and prosperous 2012, and that all your wishes may come true.

Warmest wishes from both of us.
Katalijn and Nolan

And big paw from Fertile and Murphy

A wonderful Christmas

2011-12-25T20:46:00.000-05:00

With very little snow on the ground, it was a bit tough to get into the Christmas spirit. We got a dusting later in the week, and it did miracles to our Christmas spirit! And as promised last time, here is a picture of our own Christmas tree and some close ups.

A couple of weeks ago we were at Costco and Nolan pointed out characters from Rudolph. I felt a little out of the loop, since I am not familiar with the Rudolph movie. We picked the characters, and put them up on our door knobs (Rudolph, Clarice, and the snow monster below:)

Once all the classic movies starting coming on TV, Nolan looked up when all of them were on, and he made me watch Rudolph, How the Grinch stole Christmas and Frosty the Snowman. So now I am all up to date on the Christmas movies! And to top it off, we watched Home Alone last week while wrapping Christmas presents. Talking nostalgics...

We started Christmas eve with a 15k run in the bitter cold. A good way to burn off some calories... We attended the Candle light service in the evening (last night), and slept in and took it easy this morning. After lunch, we started unwrapping gifts, and Nolan and I got spoiled. Royally! I got some running clothes, including a bright pink jacket (great visibility at night) and tights that provide warmth while running, which might come in handy this winter! And a new bird feeder, which is always great (especially with my obsession of bird feeders!).

But it was also very nice to spend time with family. We were even able to connect with my parents and brother, who were home in Amerongen, thanks to current technology! Gijsbert took this picture while we were connected with them through Facetime. So I guess we were able to wish them a merry Christmas in person, which made them a little less far away for a bit. And we even witnessed them lighting the real candles in their real tree! Just like the old days.

We were planning on taking it easy this week, but in the meantime our agenda is of course pretty full... We are hoping to paint our bedroom, get a couple of runs in, connect with friends and try to relax as well.

And since I'm somewhat obsessed with our cats as well as our bird feeders, here are some more photos!

This is what happens when I work from home...

Merry Christmas everyone, with hopefully lots of time with family and friends!

Winter??

2011-12-18T20:51:00.001-05:00

This past week was has been slightly busy at work, but I survived! Unfortunately not everything got done, just not enough hours in a day, but I will have a few more days this week to finish it all. Or at least most of it before I sign off Friday afternoon and take a break.

I spent Thursday at the PRF for a meeting discussing long term research sites, and we spent most of the day outside. The weather forecast called for rain all day, but what we got instead was a bit of a surprise. Sure, the odd shower, but it went up to 12 degrees!! Hello!!! It's mid-December, we should be freezing our feet off! It felt really weird, but admittedly made for a great day in the bush.
Friday it started to turn around a bit, and Saturday was officially chill, which continued Sunday morning with a low of -17. Of course, great weather for running! We ran a 16.5 km in the sun. It was a tad chilly, but besides that perfect running weather. It's amazing how quickly you warm up! Not sure what the rest of the week will hold, but a dump of snow would be nice, especially if it stays for Christmas. It's been hard getting into the Christmas spirit without snow.
We did manage to put more lights on our tree, and it actually looks really nice now. I know, next time pictures :)

And some exciting news: We won our curling game on Friday evening! So we really ended this part of the season with a bang. We'll get back on the ice again in the New Year, so hopefully we can continue our winning 'streak'.

From Sinterklaas towards Christmas

2011-12-14T21:12:00.001-05:00

According good Dutch tradition, Nolan and I celebrated Sinterklaas again this year. I had made several dips with crackers for dinner, as well as a salad and home-made speculaas, just as I remembered it! We both had bought a gift for each other, and we also received a box full of goodies from Amerongen. All in all a very nice evening.
Even though we paused to celebrate Sinterklaas, the Christmas bug has definitely arrived! You can't walk into a store without hearing Christmas music or being bombarded with 'ideas for Christmas gifts, most houses have their Christmas lights up and lit, and the number of flyers in our newspaper have increased significantly. Christmas, the season of spending...

We went out to buy a Christmas tree this weekend, a balsam fir! I have a long standing relationship with balsam fir trees. I have cut numerous down, as part of pre-harvesting treatments in pine stands; I've cursed them more than once, when we'd be out measuring trees, and they would dump another load of snow on our backs; and after a day in Balsam country, you'd always find needles in your clothes. Yes, the balsam and I go way back... Due to this dynamic relationship, I never expected that I would actually pay money for one of those suckers! But... this weekend we did. And a beautiful tree it is, by far the nicest balsam I have ever encountered!
We decided to put it in the living room, and started decorating. We bought some nice balls and lights. However, a string of 30 lights is apparently not enough to cover the tree! Nolan bought more lights tonight, but we still have to put them up.

It is somewhat hard to get into the real Christmas spirit since we have none, zero, no, snow!! Something is wrong here! I'm heading to Petawawa tomorrow, and the forecast calls for 11 degrees with lots of rain. Just weird!

Work has been nuts lately, with lots of deadlines and projects on the go. But I'm really enjoying it, and I'm still learning so much. For example, I'm working with our in-house economist looking at the economic impact of the work we do. Slightly different from my normal job, but very interesting. I'm also taking the lead on some strategic work for the research forests, which is always interesting (sorry, I'm slightly biased).

Since I have so much on my plate, I like to work from home now and then, since it allows me to really focus on my work without being interrupted too much. Of course, I like sitting in the kitchen so I can keep an eye on the bird feeder ;)
When I got up one time, this is what I saw:

Do your cats sit on the table as well?

Our running is also going well. We're slowly increasing our distances and are feeling stronger too. Bonus this time of year with all the tasty foods lying around :)

December already??

2011-12-04T18:38:00.000-05:00

Time just seems to fly, as usual. So before you know it, it's December! It just doesn't feel like December at all. Sure, the days are short and most people have their Christmas lights up by now, but there is no snow! We've had two minor snow falls, but that has all since disappeared. Everything is green, and today the temperature hit the double digits again! That, of course, won't help with getting the canal ready for skating...
Otherwise things are going well. Work is definitely picking up again. I have now four major projects on my plate, of which two could have quite the impact on our program. It's actually really cool working on things that really can make a difference, but it definitely adds to the pressure.
Last week I attended a two day session on biomass in North Bay, which was quite interesting. I was the moderator for the two morning sessions as well, so that added a different dimension to it as well.

Another highlight is that we won our first curling game this season! Funny part is that it wasn't even with our own team; we were sparing in JoAnn's team. But it doesn't matter, we won!

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but we bought another bird feeder, which seems to be quite popular with the local bird population. We have chickadees and house finches as regular visitors, and so far the squirrels are able to keep it alone! Next time I'll try to post some more pictures again.

And of course, tomorrow is Sinterklaas! I actually baked some real speculaas today, and the house smelled amazing!! We tried a couple of pieces and it tasted pretty good as well. We will save the rest for tomorrow, when we will have our own Sinterklaas celebration. Should be fun!

Running is also going well. The lack of snow does help with the ability to get out there, and we're really taking advantage of that. But I'm not complaining if we do get a bit of snow, and will be able to get our snowshoes out again!

Writer's Block

2011-11-20T16:50:00.000-05:00

Well, in reality I just don't have much to tell. This week has been somewhat strange because I was in the office for five days in a row! I don't really remember the last time that happened, with all the traveling, a couple days off and teleworking here and there. But work is still good, and so much office time resulted in actually getting lots of work done!
This weekend has been pretty quiet as well. We went for an awesome 15k trail run yesterday morning, during which we were almost chased by a buck! There was a picture in the paper a couple of weeks ago of someone feeding a deer in Kanata, and I have a feeling it might have been the same animal. That's why you shouldn't feed wildlife, they become a danger and will get shot. So much for cute Bambi then. I guess you can tell that feeding wildlife is a bit of pet peeve of mine. Birds at the bird feeder don't count, obviously...
This coming week I'll be spending some time in North Bay, at the Harnessing Biomass Seminar organized by the Biomass Innovation Centre. Should be very interesting. I'll be moderating the Tuesday and Wednesday morning sessions, so a good reason to pay extra attention :)
Besides that, not much excitement happening here. The birds like our bird feeder, but are still shying away from our new one; hopefully that will end soon. And we're waiting for the first snow fall, but that is still not in the forecast. Winter is late this year!

Life at our bird feeders

2011-11-11T13:14:00.001-05:00

I like animals a lot, and for some reason I always get excited when I see new birds visiting our bird feeders. It's something that runs in the family (right mom??). Nolan thinks it's cute, to a certain degree...
We try to be creative in order to keep the squirrels from eating all the food. Squirrels probably don't like climbing spruce trees, or so we thought. Well, it's definitely discouraging them a bit, but not completely:

A grey squirrel is feasting in the exact same bird feeder while I type this...

The benefit of the squirrels, or the blue jays for that matter, is that they are not the cleanest eaters, and lots of the food get spilled on the ground. Which attracts more squirrels, but also other animals like:

A female cardinal

A blue jay

And here a blue jay on a feeder, feeding the grey squirrel...

Blue jays fighting over food. No wonder so much food ends up on the ground...

And some house finches enjoying the feeders once things quiet down. They are quite often joined by dark-eyed juncos (no photo)

Today is November 11, Remembrance Day in Canada (similar to May 4 in the Netherlands). People are quiet for two minutes at 11 o'clock to remember those who gave their lives for this country (WWI and WWII, but more recently Afghanistan). I did not go downtown today, but watched the ceremony on tv. I always find in impressive to watch; some of those veterans liberated the country I could grow up in without worrying about war or thinking twice about freedom. It was a given, and they made it possible. So thank you!

I also took the opportunity to go for a run before 11am this morning, and since the trails are in good shape, without snow or too wet, I decided to enjoy them while I can! The sun was shining, the wind cold, so perfect conditions for a good run! I found a new trail, that next time might require actual trail running shoes, but it didn't matter. I was outside, in the bush on a beautiful day doing something I love! If only Nolan could have joined me...

fifty-fifty

2011-11-07T12:55:00.002-05:00

Today I decided to do it fifty-fifty: work half a day, and take half a day off. I needed a mental break to mend my braincells together after last weekend, and some time to just be. The first thing I had to do today though, was return the rental I had for the weekend. Instead of taking the bus home, or catch a ride, I decided to walk home. It's about a 7k walk through the Greenbelt, and definitely a great way to start the day! I was smart enough to bring a camera this time, and was able to take a couple of nice pictures:

Deer season opened today, and I have to admit that I'm glad that there is hunting in the Greenbelt!

OOPS, that should read: is NO HUNTING!!!

A porcupine up in a large white pine tree

See that little ball on the branch? That's the porcupine...

Hairy woodpecker

Ontario Woodlot Association - Chapter summit

2011-11-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

As you might know, I am a member of the Executive Committee of the Ontario Woodlot Association (OWA), both at a local and provincial level. It's an organization that promotes the sustainable management of privately owned forests, and although I don't own a woodlot, I am still allowed to be a member. That being said, we are keeping an eye open for a woodlot, preferably in Renfrew County, but there is not much available right now. Hopefully at some point...
In the meantime I spend quite a bit of time with the OWA, as a board member, but also as the chair of the Business Development Committee (BDC). Our members are all across Ontario, so we don't have many opportunities to meet face-to-face, but this past weekend the OWA hosted a Chapter Summit. This allowed chapter representatives to get together and discuss topics and issues that other chapters face. Since we were all getting together, the BDC decided to meet in person as well before the summit would actually start. I will spare you the details, but it basically comes down to that I drove almost 4 hours to Port Hope on Friday, had the BDC meeting, and then spent the rest of the weekend at the Ganaraska Forest Centre. It was a very fruitful weekend and it was great to meet some of the other members and chapter representatives. The best day of course was Sunday, when we spent most of the day touring nearby forests and woodlots. The area is very different from what I am used to, and it made me realize that I am not as familiar with hardwood management, as I am with pine-mixedwood stands. So all in all an interesting weekend, at times intense, but where I learned lots as well.
The weather was absolutely amazing, which made it a bit hard to be away from home as well. There is still so much we could be doing around the house!
The next few weeks should be low on travel, and hopefully I'll be able to get back into a routine and pick up the running again. Being away so much and the short days don't always make it easy, but at least we have a treadmill at home. So let the marathon preparations begin!

Ps. You might want to consider becoming a member of the OWA. There are lots of interesting benefits, even for non-woodlot owners!! Just let me know if you'd like more info...

Home away from home

2011-11-03T17:12:00.001-04:00

A quick update between all my travels. And again another update written on my BlackBerry while on the bus on my way home. I'm getting pretty good at this!
First of though, Fertile. After an improvement Monday morning, she seemed to be worse when we came home from work. She was still not good Tuesday, so we decided to take her to the vet. They ran a bunch of tests and checked everything out. Also to be sure, they gave her some fluids. The tests all came back negative, but she still didn't really seem to get better. Until Wednesday morning, when Nolan reported that she was pretty much back to normal. She even fought with Murphy again. So we won't know what happened, but maybe the fluids did help.

After I got back from the vet, I headed to Petawawa where I would spend the next few days. AGM of the Friends of the PRF Tuesday evening, and then we hosted a 'take your kid to work day' on Wednesday. With 5 kids and 12 adults it made us wonder if some of the adults also wanted to check out the PRF and maybe just spend the day in the bush. But it was fun to tour some of the Ottawa folks around as well. The weather was absolutely amazing, and who doesn't like to spend a day in the bush when it's so nice, right?
One of my Ottawa co-workers said: so this is where you spend so much time. Nice!
Nice indeed :)

After I got back to the hotel, I decided to go for a run, since it was so beautiful outside. There is a nice trail system in Petawawa, but as usual, I was paying more attention to the surroundings, and not so much to the trail, which resulted in a flat-forward-saved-by-my-hands fall. I didn't really hurt myself, but my right shoulder is a bit sore today.
After my run, I met up with Krista, which was really nice. It had been a while since I'd seen her. It also made me realize that I sometimes do miss the valley. However, I am also very happy with our place in Kanata, and this way I have the best of both worlds!

This morning we toured the Base Commander of CFB Petawawa around, which went very well. If only we'd had more time! Unfortunately the nice weather we had yesterday left us today, and we made due with grey and rainy weather. But still nice to be outside.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Port Hope and then Granaraska for the OWA chapter summit until Sunday. So Nolan is having a lot of alone-time, but I think he is somewhat enjoying that as well. Of course, I will leave him a honey-do list :)
And how could I forget, Monday was Halloween! We had a total of 158 kids, and then had to turn the lights of, because we ran out of candy! I have never seen so many kids on the street. Good thing we ran out of candy: I really had my fair share..

A (photo) update

2011-10-30T20:15:00.000-04:00

This afternoon we decided to go for a walk in the Greenbelt, since it was so beautiful outside. We brought our camera and our sunflower seeds, so we could feed the chickadees. Back home, when I uploaded the photos to my computer I realized how long it had been since I actually cleaned up my camera! So at the end of the post, you'll see some 'spring-like' photos, that were taken a mere three weeks ago before the cold weather set in...
But before the pictures start, a quick update.
This week has been pretty good, with some running, curling and lots of leaves to rake! But the weather was so gorgeous, it just seemed impossible to stay inside for too long!
Even though the weather was so nice, we've finally had some decent frost, so most of our plants are now completely done for. We cleaned up our gardens for the most part, but now it looks so bare! Only a few days ago we still had vibrant colours. We do have many visitors in the backyard, ranging from squirrels and chipmunks to chickadees and other birds. We always try to put a bird feeder up, but the squirrels always eat the food before any of the birds get to them! So now we have a feeder in the spruce tree, which so far has been left untouched. By both the squirrels and the birds... We are now looking for a pole with a squirrel which will hopefully help, since the bird activity is always fun for the cats!
Talking about cats, Fertile is not doing so well. We're a bit worried about her, but will take her to the vet tomorrow, so hopefully she'll be back to normal soon.
This coming week I'll be up in Petawawa this week, and then off to Peterborough for the weekend, so Nolan, once again, will be a bachelor this week :) And of course Halloween tomorrow! Hopefully we won't have too many kids, so there is some chocolate left over for us!! Another reason to keep running...

So here are some photos. The first few are from our walk today. The birds are cute; Nolan is just weird...

And here are some photos from earlier on. This was Thanksgiving Monday, when the temperature went up to 27 degrees (second weekend in October...).

And this last one is specially for Krista:

Week off, wedding-weekend in Toronto

2011-10-25T18:14:00.000-04:00

Nolan and I decided to take last week off to enjoy a break, to finally paint my office, and do some more clean-up outside. Since the weather was pretty miserable, the outdoor stuff was put on hold (indefinitely??)! However, we were able to paint my office, and it is now the exactly same colour as it was in the old house. We liked the colour there, and we had some left-over paint, so easy choice! The painting itself was pretty painless; the cleaning up and moving of all the books and other stuff took a bit longer. But we did it, and it makes me feel good! We also had to do some running around before the big weekend in Toronto (picking up a suit, getting my hair cut, etc).
The 'big' weekend in Toronto was for Carrie and Brad's wedding (Carrie is Nolan's sister). We left fairly early on Friday to pick up Nolan's parents. We offered to drive so they didn't have to worry about the weather, busy highway and crazy city driving.
Once arrived in Toronto, we dropped the folks off at Carrie's place, and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Metropolitan, which was quite nice and the location was great. Friday night was dinner with the MacAfee's, in a nice and quaint Italian restaurant. We walked back to the hotel, and when we got back there, decided that since we were in Toronto, we really should enjoy it! We were a stone throw away from Dundas Square, so walked around there a bit and ended up at the Elephant Castle on Yonge Street. It had been so long since we actually went out and had a beer, and with good music playing in the background, great beer from the tap, and no worries of having to get up early the next morning, we just simply enjoyed it.
So, the next morning we slept in and explored the city a bit more. It's quite a bit different compared to Ottawa, also much bigger :)
After lunch we got ready for the wedding, and made our way over to the Distillery District, the wedding venue. The wedding was small, but nevertheless wonderful. Carrie looked beautiful and happy, and they definitely make a great couple. We didn't take any pictures, so I can't share any right now, but hopefully we'll be able to fetch some from some other people later on! But all in all a great time.
The next day we were invited to a brunch as well, which was also nice (although we were both pretty tired from a short night...), before we headed back to Ottawa.
By the time we got home, we were totally worn out, and pretty much headed straight to bed!
Now it's back to routine and work, and running! We decided to sign up for another marathon next fall, so if you have any suggestions for fun marathons, let us know! This past year we barely ran any races (I just ran the Peterborough half marathon in February, my last race...), but are planning to do the opposite next year, with hopefully many events. Should be fun, and will hopefully get us back into better shape!

Busy but satisfying Thanksgiving weekend!

2011-10-11T20:55:00.000-04:00

For the Canadians among us, do you remember the last time you spent Thanksgiving shovelling snow?? I bet it wasn't that long ago... This year was definitely a little different. Records were broken left, right and centre with a high in Ottawa on Saturday of 27.6 degrees. In case you didn't realize, it's October... In one word: awesome!!

We had a fairly low-key Thanksgiving weekend without any real commitments. We didn't go down to Brockville since we'll all be together in a couple of weeks for Carrie's wedding. Since the weather was so gorgeous, and we had so much time, we decided to spend the time well... outside!! We painted the front porch, front door, garage door and around the garage. We cleaned up the deck (it looks so empty now!) and we cleaned all the windows! We also went running Sunday morning (my legs were killing me though, never thought that painting could be so hard on the legs, but I guess I was bending and crouching down more than I realized), and we went for a beautiful bike ride Monday afternoon. The colours are just amazing right now, and with these temperature and blue skies, you really don't want to spend any more time inside than absolutely necessary. We took some pictures during our bike ride; I'll upload them later. Admittedly, we were pretty tired at the end of the bike ride, and were somewhat cursing ourselves for going so far. But it was so worth it, despite my soar derrière today...

The weekend wasn't totally un-social. We had Debby over for dinner on Friday, which was great as usual, and Ann and Tom invited us over for a left-over-Thanksgiving-dinner on Sunday, which was also very tasty and social. Nolan was able to teach us all some new expressions as well. Not sure if it was him or the Scotch being creative...

So overall a great weekend, that came after a very inspirational and interesting week of training. The course was very good, and I learned a lot about working for the Government; especially at a higher level. Time well spent!

This week is back at the office, but only for a few days. Next week is booked off (for the most part), and we're hoping to tackle the upstairs and splash some paint on some bedroom walls!

It's about time...

2011-10-04T20:51:00.001-04:00

For another update here on my life. I'm doing great!

A bit more elaboration... Obviously things have happened in the last week and a half; and most of it kept me off the street!
First of all, and most importantly, it was Nolan's birthday last week. So today, he is exactly 32 years and 1 week old. I'm still hoping that one day he will be older than me, but I have a feeling that might never happen... He also started this weird tradition to get sick on his birthday. Last year (when I was in Jasper and still don't hear the end of it...), he got sick by himself, and the same thing happened this year. We still managed to have a nice evening with pizza and beer, though. Relaxing!

I was all for a relaxing evening, trying to recover from our first day of the Component Leaders Forum. Agreed, I had some jitters beforehand, but in the end it went alright. Definitely a great experience, and I was glad to be part of it.

Did I mention that I got talked into curling this year? Nolan's team from last year dissolved, but he wanted to keep playing this year. He found another couple looking to play in the non-competitive league on Friday evening, so really I had no choice but say yes :) And you know what? It's actually a lot of fun! I attended one training session last year, but had never really played a game before. And I know I can't really say this about myself, but I didn't even do that poorly. I might have done 'ok'! But most of all, it was fun and I enjoyed it. Surprisingly though, I was actually sore afterwards, and my back is still somewhat tight. Maybe I can talk a certain person into a massage...

On Friday the temperature started to drop, it absolutely poured rain, and Saturday was the first official day of fall. Or so it felt! But it was beautiful. After a very short night, I was on my way to the Outdoor Woodlot Conference in Beachburg early Saturday morning, and the drive alone was worth going. The leaves are turning (although the colours are not super dramatic this year), and the sun came out as well. Jut gorgeous. Besides manning the OWA booth, I was able to join a couple of the guided tours, and talked to a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while. It just shows that the forestry world, especially in this part of the country, is small and tight. And I'm proud to be part of it! On top of that, I also managed to negotiate a great deal for two 4' white pine saplings. The more trees the merrier!

We're also back into the running mode. This past Sunday we ran with Ann, and since Nolan was still getting better and Ann is slowly getting back into it, I did an extra loop at the end. And it payed of since I saw a fox! In full view, in no hurry, and in great shape. Pretty cool in the city!
This evening we went for a run in the greenbelt, and saw several deer and porcupines as well. We're just so lucky where we are and what we are able to do.

This week I'm taking the Essentials for Managing in the Public Service / Delegated Authority Course, and I am loving it! There is so much to learn, our teacher is awesome with a tonne experience and can present many real life examples. It really seems to connect the work we do with the bigger picture (i.e. the Government). It's another step forward...

This weekend we'll be home for Thanksgiving. The weather forecast is great, so hopefully we'll be able to get lots of stuff done in and around the house. We're staying put so no traveling, which is actually nice for change. Looking forward to a long weekend!!

Algonquin's wolves!

2011-09-22T18:28:00.002-04:00

Since I'm waiting for the bus in the beautiful sunshine, I thought I'd might as well update my blog. Thank you BlackBerry :)
I spent the last three days in Huntsville to attend and present at the annual conference of the Canadian Institute of Forestry. The Monday and Wednesday were filled with technical sessions, while the Tuesday was reserved for a field day. The venue? Deerhurst resort on the edge of Algonquin Park. Deerhurst is probably well known for hosting the G8 last year (and the millions it received for upgrading...). But the location is beautiful, especially with the colours starting to turn as well.
So all in all three days well spent!
A quick recap:
I arrived Monday around noon after a four-hour drive through beautiful surroundings (it made me want to move back to the valley!). Monday evening was reserved for the banquet and award gala. The Canadian Wood Fibre Centre (my group!) won the forest management group award! Pretty cool for sure.
I had signed up for the Hardwood Management Tour which was quite good. I don't work a lot in hardwood, so it was very interesting to see that side as well. The weather was absolutely amazing and it made for a great day in the field! That evening we had the visitor centre of Algonquin Park to ourselves with an outdoor barbecue! We also had the great opportunity to listen to the park naturalist, who gave an incredible presentation on wolves in the park, and the history of the public wolf howl.

*** Algonquin's Public Wolf Howl information ***
The first public wolf howl was organized in 1963 (almost 50 years ago). There were a couple of staff on hand, and expectations were blown out of the water when 565 people showed up!
Since that date 111 public wolf howlings have been held, normally on Thursday evenings in August, and on average 1700 people attend these sessions!! I had no clue! And apparently they are as quiet as can be. It must be quite the sight.

We were treated to our own private wolf howl that evening, but unfortunately no wolf decided to respond.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had our session on partnerships and knowledge exchange, and that went quite well. We decided to shake it up a bit and make it interactive after we finished the case studies. After 35 minutes of conversations, I had a hard time getting people back as a group, since they we're so engaged in their discussions. I guess that's a good sign?

Now it's back in Ottawa, where we are finalizing the details for our component leaders forum next week. Did I mention that I am one of two facilitators? Not sure how, when or why that happened. Hopefully all will go well.
This weekend should be good. We're heading to Brockville on Sunday (or so I think) to celebrate Nolan's birthday. It's his birthday on Tuesday, in case you want to congratulate him. And unlike last year, I'll actually be able to spend the day (or at least evening) with him!

Oops, we did it again...

2011-09-18T20:00:00.000-04:00

The beginning of this week, I had the pleasure of spending two days at Acadia Research Forest, in New Brunswick. Canada has two national research forests, Petawawa and Acadia. As is probably well known, I spend quite a bit of time at Petawawa, however, the National Research Forest Program encompasses both forests, and I therefore need to spend more time at Acadia to get a better understanding of research and management priorities there.
The two days were very well spent, especially since we were outside for most of it, and as we all know, a bad day in the field is always better than any day in the office! I got to see several active management sites, as well as some old research sites that we need to decide on what to do next with. It was great talking 'shop' and management options with both managers and scientists. Always so much to learn and absorb, but I also feel like I can actively participate in the conversation and have the odd smart suggestion as well :)

I caught an early flight back on Thursday, and spent the rest of the week in the office, which was a bit of an adjustment... On Saturday, Nolan and I decided to go on a shopping spree, since we both need clothes, and I needed a dress for Carrie's upcoming wedding. We said to each other before hand that whatever we do, we're not to buy art!
In case you didn't know, I seriously hate shopping, especially for clothes. So by the time I found some nice shirts and two dresses, I had mentally checked out for the day. How do people enjoy shopping with so many people around them?
We ended the day in an art gallery, trying to find a wedding gift for Carrie. We looked around a bit, and the sales person noticed we were interested in one specific artist. We had looked at her work before, but were never totally sold on it. He told us he had another piece in the back, which he could show us. I started laughing and said that it might not be a wise thing to do, since we have a history of buying art impulsively. He brought it out anyway, and we fell in love. Darn it!!! We negotiated a bit, and indeed bought it... So yes, we did it again.
We hung it up in the living room, and that evening I looked up some info on the artist, Maya Eventov, and noticed that the picture of the painting on the website was upside down. We looked some more, and more, and noticed that the actual painting was framed upside down! We both hadn't noticed it, and understand how the mistake could have been made. But now knowing that it was upside down, we wanted to fix it. We called the gallery this morning, and they told us they would fix it for us, but since it was just a matter of changing a couple of screws, we did it ourselves. So now we have a new, beautiful painting in our dining room! It almost feels like we bought two :)

This picture is not great, I'll take another one soon, but it is really cool how it shows the sunlight coming through from upstairs. We're both really happy with it!

This morning we went for a great trail run in the green belt. Over 12 km on beautiful trails, with leaves already changing. We saw deer, two porcupines, heard lots of ravens, and saw lots of other wildlife like snakes, squirrels, chipmunks, and many birds. So great to virtually have this in our backyard. Any complaint about my commute just seems unjustified knowing we live in such a great place!

I'm off to Huntsville tomorrow to attend the Canadian Institute of Forestry Conference, and actually moderate a session on Wednesday. Should be fun, and the drive through Algonquin Park will be amazing with the colours slowly starting the change.

Labour Day Weekend

2011-09-06T20:24:00.000-04:00

Labour Day Weekend, aka the last long weekend of the summer, or also known the last weekend before the kids go back to school, and for me also known as the last little break before 'officially' the busiest time of year commences. Fall is traditionally busy; fieldwork is drawing to an end, September and October are popular times to organize conferences and workshops, and really is the only time to organize field days without the bugs, before the snow flies, but you also need to be thoughtful of hunting season. Long story short, life is about to get really busy!

We spent the long weekend at a friend's cottage, about 2 hours north-east of Ottawa, and it was absolutely amazing! The group consisted of our running-partners-in-crime, although the average miles covered by the group is seriously decreasing, with only Debbie and Nancy training for a half marathon, JoAnn still on crutches, and the rest of us trying to fit a run in whenever we can find the time. If all goes well, we'll be meeting up with Ann to finally get a Sunday morning run in this weekend.
Of course, exception to the above, is Tom. He just qualified for Boston, but is hoping to improve on his time to actually be able to register for the world famous marathon.
The weekend itself was very relaxing, with lots of good food, delicious drinks, and a nice hot tub! The cottage was on a lake, but Nolan and I managed to get a quick paddle in, but it was a little too cold for a swim. Especially after we got drenched on Sunday night, and then again Sunday afternoon. But it didn't dampen the spirits. And of course, we had to very cute, but quite flatulently dogs... Overall a great weekend thanks to some great friends!

The next few weeks might be a bit more quiet when it comes to blog updates... I'm leading a Lakehead University Tour at the PRF this weekend, then heading to New Brunswick on Monday for a few days, then off to Huntsville to present at the CIF Conference, after that I'll be busy with our Component Leader's Forum in Ottawa, followed by a week of training in October. I'll check in when I get a chance though. Told you it would be busy...

Utah - Part 8 (final) - Antelope Island

2011-08-28T19:58:00.001-04:00

SLC is famous for its large Great Salt Lake. A very large, and mostly a very salty lake. It is so salty, only brine shrimp can live in it. There are also lots of brine flies, lots and lots of them.

The day started with thundershowers, but it cleared up after a bit. Pretty funny how we managed to get two days of rain in one of the driest places in North America... Antelope Island is known for its bisons, antelopes and deer and of course its many, many birds. It's a famous island for migrating birds to fill up on brine shrimp before they head further south (in the fall) or north (in the spring).

We also came across some other creatures...

Distant rain

All those black dots are birds

Our first bison!

A deer with a huge rack!

More bison

We went into this shed, which was part of an old farm on the island, and we saw this snake. At first I thought it was fake, but then it moved. Definitely the largest snake I'd ever seen in the wild.

You can somewhat make out the clouds of brine flies flying away in front of the running boy. we took some footage as well, that I'll try to upload somehow as well.

At the end of the day, we had to return the rental back, and we found a really nice Mexican restaurant where we had an awesome meal with even awesomer (!) guacamole! A good way to end our fantastic vacation!

This is it for Utah, now back to our normal life :)

Utah - Part 7 - Uinta National Forest

2011-08-28T19:20:00.003-04:00

After a night of great sleep in Richfield, we decided to head up north towards Salt Lake. We took some back roads, and ended up in Uinta National Forest. There we took the 'scenic route' through the forest, which got us up to over 9000 feet!

You can definitely tell how it's starting to get greener out there.

An interesting thing happened in Uinta National Forest though… We took a little side road, which ended up on a campsite but provided a good view of Mount Nebo, the tallest mountain there. We got out of the car to take some pictures (still didn’t have enough!) and we were approached by an older lady in a car. She told us that she lived nearby and loved this area. She also told us about a bridge crossing a small creek with a nice area on the other side, and if were where to go there, she wouldn’t mind come with is since it had been a while for her to visit that spot.

All fine and all, but then she pointed to a truck with two guys and she mentioned how they had been following her. All of a sudden I had this really weird gut feeling, and I just wanted to get away from there. We politely said that we had to go, and before we knew it she took off. We left the campsite area as well, back to the main road. She was nowhere to be seen, and the guys in the truck didn’t follow us. I’m not sure what it was all about, but we were wondering if they were trying to get us away from the car, so they could rob us? Not sure, but we felt a bit uneasy for the rest of that trip, despite the fact we climbed 3000 feet and you could see the road below us with nobody on it. Nothing happened, and maybe there was nothing weird about it, just our imagination, but it just didn’t feel right.

Anyway, we were still able to take a few photos. It's 'open range', which means that cows can roam freely. Hence the cows.

Guardrails anywhere??

Even here you can find those red rocks.

Dreams get broken in Vegas

Close to 3000m

Photo op!

Lake Utah

Just to make sure we're going the right direction.

Are you sure we need to turn right??

After we left Uinta Forest, we decided to do something else. We checked the CAA book (which proved pretty valuable in the past week), and looked up stuff to do in Provo (just south of SLC). It turns out they had an aquarium. SInce we were getting a little tired of driving, and the temperature started to climb again, we headed to the aquarium. It was pretty fun actually. Of course, more photos were taken...

Also, did you know that scorpions glow in the dark?

Utah - Part 6 - Capitol Reef National Park

2011-08-24T20:56:00.000-04:00

Wednesday - Hump day!

After a bit of a disappointing dinner in Green River, but good night sleep, we headed south towards Capitol Reef National Park. The highway there was very similar to what we had seen the day before; lots of nothing! But that in itself is so impressive. How often do you see something so 'empty' but still so full? I was really intrigued by it, and just loved the vastness of the landscape and the ruggedness. The numerous rocks of which none looked the same, the colour and the shapes. All in all just very different to what we are used to, and I loved it!

Really, really dry, in case you were wondering

A tree trying to survive

Another Arch, although they called it a bridge, this time in Capitol Reef National Park. Still impressive.

Cool colours and lines

Wild wild west!

The gooseneck at Capitol Reef NP

After Capitol Reef, we planned on driving to Richfield, but we saw a little side road to Fish Lake. After seeing all those rocks and deserts, it was somewhat weird, but also very familiar, to see a lake and trees! In a way very familiar to what we have in our own 'backyard', but here it just seemed somewhat out of place!

Fish Lake

Utah - Part 5: Road trip!

2011-08-24T19:33:00.000-04:00

After we left Dead Horse Point State Park, we decided to take a detour back to Green River, and it was so worth it! The drive was beautiful, with the first part very rocky and the second park very, well, empty. One way to describe it: a whole lot of nothing!

Our proud little vehicle :)

The Colorado River

Some really cool rocks

An intriguing dead tree

Nothing, nothing and more nothing...

Utah - Part 4 - Dead Horse Point State Park

2011-08-23T13:30:00.002-04:00

Tuesday
At dinner on Monday night, the waiter asked us about our plans. Since we didn't really have any besides visitng Dead Horse Point State Park, he suggested we go to Bryce Canyon, the miniature version of the Grand Canyon. After checking out the map, we decided it was a great idea, but not to do it. We went to Dead Horse indeed, but took a scenic tour to get us somewhat back closer to I70 (a main Interstate in southern Utah). No regerets at all! The drive was beautiful, amazing and just stunning. Good choice!

The first bunch of photos (I know, too many...) are from Dead Horse; the next post will have photos from our road trip!

Utah - Part 3: The Arches!

2011-08-21T20:37:00.001-04:00

Monday
Today was the big day: we were visiting Arches National Park! We both had no idea what to expect, but are really glad we made the decision to go there. It was very well worth it, and we both loved it. We got up early, and were in the park before 7 am! The main reason: trying to beat the heat! We wanted to do some hiking that day as well, and the temperature as expected to go up to 95 Fahrenheit, or 35 or so Celsius. It was hot, but there was absolutely no humidity, so the heat felt very different compared to 'our' heat.
We managed to do a couple of hikes, and saw some pretty impressive arches.

Looks like a sheep, doesn't it?

Balanced Rock (wonder where it got its name from...)

Delicate Arch, apparently the most famous arch of the park.

Delicate Arch in the distance

Little friend

Some really cool trees

Broken Arch

Looking at something...

Some sort of blue bird

The Landscape Arch

The Window Arches

Can you see the Elephants??!!

We ended the day with a great dinner at a local diner. Awesome veggie burger, and some more than delicious desert!

Utah - Part 2

2011-08-21T20:03:00.001-04:00

Sunday

After a good night sleep, we started our trek down south. It was a bit of a dreary day, with actual rain in the desert! But since we were driving, it wasn't too bad.

Pretty soon after hitting the road, the countryside started to look very interesting and very ‘rocky’. We took some of the back roads, of which some were absolutely deserted, but it was very impressive. We hit some real mountains, which were really cool but also somewhat scary since guardrails are pretty much unheard of. Luckily we didn’t get of the road…

Not much wildlife around, but we did see this hawk.

View you expect in movies, not in real life!

Gorgeous driving

Pretty funny sign...

After a long day of driving, where the landscape became rockier, dryer and less populated, we ended up in Moab, southern Utah. Moab is most famous for its two national and one state park nearby: Arches and Canyonlands National Park, and Dead Horse Point State Park. It’s a small, but very busy city and it was not easy to find accommodation. However, we ended up finding a room at Super 8. No comments…

Getting closer to Moab!

Lots of red rocks

Not too clear, taken through the window

A double rainbow above our hotel

Utah - Part 1

2011-08-21T15:39:00.021-04:00

We’re back in Ottawa after a wonderful, beautiful and remote week in Utah! We were completely disconnected from really everything. No email, blackberries, newspapers and only the few minutes of news we caught at the hotels. It was great! Let’s start from the beginning.

Friday

As I wrote before, Nolan left the Sunday before to attend an Agile conference in Salt Lake, which was really the reason for us to decide on Salt Lake and Utah for our vacation destination. So twice within one week I got up at 3:15 am (!), this time to get myself to the airport to catch a flight to Detroit, and then on to Salt Lake. Everything went smoothly, except for the first two hours of my flight to Salt Lake which was very bumpy, but the second half was indeed smooth sailing and I was at Nolan’s hotel before noon. After a quick nap, Nolan came back from the conference, and together we explored the city. He had seen some of it, but not much. We walked around and saw Temple Square (the main gathering place for followers of the Mormon church), the Capitol and some other sights.

Temple Square

A large convention centre at Temple Square that holds 21,000 people (!!!). Very interesting given the fact there are no pillars. An engineering feat for sure!

Capitol Hill, where Utah's laws are made (or so I think)

Some funky fountains, playing in the wind

Me getting excited about this trip!

SLC is an interesting place. It is relatively poor (or so it looks), especially the down town area. The climate is warm, we are in the desert after all! But all in all we got a nice impression of the city, and topped it off with some excellent pizza! Interesting thing about SLC, and really all of Utah, is that it is so dry. But everybody (well, almost) has green lawns and blooming flowers. They irrigate everything all the time, which you really need to do in order to obtain some green space. It seems very intensive, especially for farmers. Obviously, you see most of the farming taking place in the near vicinity of a water body.

Saturday

The next morning we went to pick up the rental, when we stumbled upon a farmers market, which was the perfect place to pick up some fruit and veggies for the road. At the rental place, we got ‘talked into’ a GMC Terrain, which is a larger SUV, 4WD, which turned out to be a good pick. It was spacious and had enough power to get us through the mountains. No regrets and definitely better than the Charger they offered!!

The GMC Terrain, served is well

Some sights leaving the city

We left SLC through the University area, which was an important part of the Olympics of 2002. It was not really all that impressive… We then left the city and got into some more mountainous area and headed down to Park City’s Olympic Park, the second venue for the Olympics. Here they hosted activities such as ski jump, bobsledding, luging, etc.

Olympic Park

Then on to our next stop, a ski resort with some decent hiking trails. We went up in the gondola, not realizing what kind of ‘valley’ we would actually cover… But we made it, and the hike was definitely worth it!

Pictures from our hike and gondola ride

We then went on to Park City, which was a total tourist trap and needless to say we did not spend a lot of time there. We were planning on spending the night there, but followed our instincts and kept going to Heber City. Smart choice as it turned out! Dinner at a steakhouse was good. I even nibbled on some bbq’ed meat…

Heber City storm coming in

BBQ'ed meat!

Life is busy!

2011-08-10T21:34:00.000-04:00

Busy but good that is! Maybe the getting up at 3:15 on Sunday was not that great, and the fact I wouldn't see Nolan for five days wasn't fun either, but everything else is great! We actually had some rain this week, which I normally would not have been happy about, but this time it was quite welcome. Two nights in a row where I didn't have to water the plants! Have I mentioned before that I really like our garden?! The tomatoes are about to come out of our ying-yang, even with just four plants. But we pick three or four every day. Since it's just me this week, I'm falling slightly behind on the tomato consumption... With the rain, it also looks like I'll have to cut the lawn tomorrow. It's greener than it has been in a long time! Funny thing is that the four little oak trees we have dotting the lawn are all surrounded by taller and greener grass! The grass obviously benefited from my loyal watering practices!

The cats have found their spots on the bed again. Maybe because it has cooled down a bit, or maybe because they know it's just me?
Oh, and just because I felt like sharing... I made the most amazing hummus this week? Not sure what it was so bowl-licking good, but I have a feeling that the addition of basil from our own garden might have had something to do with that!! Now the challenge is to reproduce it :)

And the heat continues...

2011-08-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

The one upside of the hot, dry weather we've been experiencing this summer? We haven't had to cut our lawn in over a month! We cut a part of it last week (that is beside the house, thus in the shade), but when we tried the do the rest, you couldn't tell the difference, and we want to keep a bit of length to prevent it from burning too much. Although I am sure it's to late for that now.

Not much to report this time. Life keeps on going, and we're having fun doing it. There are a few things that I can share with you though:

- I found a giant water bug on my way to work this week. It was flat and dead, but still very impressive. Not sure what it looks like? Here is the wikipedia link, and here is a link to the image search of Google. Pretty creepy, eh? I brought it to work, and gave it to my friend Debby. She loves bugs.

- Nolan is leaving for Salt Lake City tomorrow to attend a conference. He's excited to go, meeting new people and exploring a new city. I'll enjoy some nights alone, however with too many meetings planned in the evenings I won't have too much downtime. So much for a break! Oh, and his flight is at 6:00 am tomorrow morning. Which means we have to leave the house at 4:00 am, which means the alarm clock will go off around 3:15??!! Nuts!!

- We love our back yard, which we have mentioned many times, I think. But you know what's really cool? The squirrels gave us four oak trees! Well, the probably left the acorns behind and they sprouted. They are all in good locations, so I am looking forward to watching those grow into majestic trees. Well, maybe not that big in our lives, but a good way up there.
About those squirrels though. We like them, they are cute and all, but they also steel all our bulbs! So not sure how many tulips and crocuses will come up, but time will tell. Last week they were extremely blunt; they used the bbq for a dining room table and left the evidence in plain sight. Grrrr!
And just so you know, this is what squirrels in our neck of the woods like to do:

Not sure what to say about that...

So I'll leave it at that!

Just some random photos

2011-08-02T21:14:00.001-04:00

That's what happens when you get a new camera, you want to show the moments it captured! Which of course also allows for a very rare glimpse of our lives :)
They are reduced in size, otherwise it would take days to upload them, so the quality is not as great as the original photos.
First set of photos is from our visit to the Experimental Farm and Agriculture Museum in Ottawa. Lots of animals!

To be clear, I do understand English.

Calves were only a couple of weeks old

A cross between a goat and a poodle, or in other words a goodle. Ok, we made that up but it sure looked like it.

Taken through the glass, a cuddly bunch of piglets!

Just like Annigje, a goat we used to have growing up.

Murphy!

My mom looking cold, despite the 30+ weather (and we keep our A/C at a comfy 25C when it gets too hot)

Look at all the tomatoes!

Our basil plants completely grown out of control

Our little wildlife corner. The birds love the bath.

A reminder of the fire from a few weeks ago. You can see it from our deck...

Our colourful deck!

Nolan took this picture at Horserama in Brockville

A regular guest in our backyard. It's taken through the window, so the colour is not great.

During our walk around the pond, a blue heron

A typical weekend

2011-07-31T14:01:00.001-04:00

Remember last weekend I worked at the PRF? Roads washed out and we had to close the gates due to safety reasons. You can read about it here.
This weekend I am up at the PRF again, but it looks like this might be a more typical weekend. Yesterday was pretty quiet, and the fire index was low enough so I didn't have to send the student up the fire tower. This morning it was still pretty low, but when we checked at 1 pm, it had climbed enough that I decided to send a student up, just to make sure everything is ok.

Now I can hear you thinking, what is the fire index? The fire index is the Fire Weather Index, developed based on fire research done at the PRF. It takes several components into account, such as rainfall, temperature, wind speed and humidity, and based on those number calculates the FWI. At the PRF we rely on it when deciding on whether to man the fire towers or not. Normally you man one fire tower when the index goes up to around 4, and two towers when you get close to 7. We normally check the index at 9 am, and again at 1 pm. In the afternoon, it also provides you with an 'predicted FWI', which we use in our decision to send someone up. There are two weather stations, so we receive two different FWI's. Since rainfall can be very local around here, the numbers can vary quit a bit. The weather stations closest to the office gave us a number of 3.2, and a prediction of 9.2. The station further away had a current FWI of 2.1, and a predicted FWI of 6.9. The station further away received more rain, and has therefore a lower number. Pretty cool, eh? So to be on the safe side, I sent one student up to the tower nearest by. Normally you would send someone to the further tower, and then if smoke is detected, someone else can quickly go to the nearest tower to get the second bearing. However, the far end of the property is still pretty wet, and there is no activity on the base, so the chances of seeing anything on that side are pretty low (knock on wood!). Hopefully there is no smoke detection today!

Another task is to make sure the roads are in good shape, no washouts or fallen trees, etc. It's one of the perks of working weekends, I get to see stuff like this:

Not bad, eh?
But I also get a lot of work done on the weekends, since there is minimal interruption from email or phone. The only thing that is hard: to be inside on a gorgeous day like today when the woods are calling...

Birthday and time off

2011-07-26T21:07:00.034-04:00

I really should write my blog more often, because now I risk writing too much, generating too much text and becoming boring...
Remember that freak storm we had last week? Here is a picture of it rolling in:

So last Thursday was my birthday. It was also by far the hottest day of the year! We got up to 37 degrees, and just under 50 with the humidex. Pretty hot indeed. So what do you do on a day to celebrate but where you also want to stay cool? Indeed, you go to the Diefenbunker! The Diefenbunker was built during the cold war to create a safe haven in case a nuclear bomb would be dropped on Ottawa. It was actually quite interesting, also since everything was left in the state of the late eighties, when they left the building.

The rest of my birthday was special as well. Of course my parents were still here, and I got spoiled rotten by both Nolan and my parents. Nolan bought me a new office chair, and my parents gave us money for a new digital camera!! (The rest of the pictures below are all taken with our new camera.) All very nice. And to top it off, East Sides Mario's for dinner! Maybe not the most exciting place, but the food was good, and the beer was even better!

Mom and Dad at East Sides

Nolan and I at East Sides (after a beer or so...)

On Friday Nolan and I went for a long bike ride, which was really nice. It had cooled down a bit, but it was still pretty warm to go for a run. A bike ride proved to be a great alternative!

Nolan

Me adjusting my helmet

On Saturday we dropped the parents off down town, and Nolan and I went on a date and saw The Lion King! It was very, very impressive and very well done. We both really enjoyed it. Afterwards we met up with the parents again and first went to Darcy McGee's for a beer (really, we're not alcoholics...), and then went to Royal Thai for dinner. It was delicious. Good thing I had the vegetarian pad thai; all the other dishes (with meat) were a tad to spicy for me.

Sunday was pretty quiet with a visit to the Agriculture Museum in the morning, and Nolan and I went for a nice run in the Greenbelt in the afternoon.
Monday we had planned to go to breakfast, but when we woke up we found out that my parents had been rebooked onto another flight after their original flight had been cancelled. First we thought they were booked onto an earlier flight, but it turned out to be an earlier flight the next day! So I made some phone calls, trying to get the airline pay for a hotel, since we couldn't really drop them off on Tuesday due to work commitments. After talking to several people, I was able to get them on a direct KLM flight that same evening! So it took a bit of determination, but it all turned out for the better!

Now our lives are back to normal. Work is still busy and interesting and the weather is still gorgeous. So really, we are very happy and lucky people!!

To end, here are some photos taken with our new camera!

Fertile (I will dedicate a post to her soon, also to explain her name...)

Yellow rose

Nolan's reflection

An EMPTY wine glass ;)

(If you click on the picture, you can really see the reflection; photo credit: my dad)

Parents - Update

2011-07-20T17:29:00.000-04:00

It's been a week now since my parents arrived, and it seems like time is just flying by! But by the same token, I can barely remember what we did do yesterday. I'll try to give a bit of a recount...
I had to go to the PRF last week for a tour of our HQ group out of Ottawa. I wasn't feeling great, but decided to make the trip anyway. I was supposed to spend the afternoon there for meetings, but decided to go home since I just wasn't feeling great. My parents spent the night in Kingston after visiting with the Belleville gang, and would visit with Nolan's parents on Thursday. I love the fact that they are here, but it was also nice that since I wasn't feeling well, I could just go home and crash on the couch without being social!
The next day the cold really hit me, and I actually called in sick. I think it's the first time ever that Nolan has seen me sick! Needless to say we took it easy Thursday and Friday, which we both had off, and just did some work around the house.
On Saturday we went to the Museum of Nature which was quite impressive. The best part? The bug department!! We saw grasshoppers mating and laying eggs, and we say really cool bugs emerging from the soil! Nolan and I were both mesmerized, and had to be removed by staff when we were hanging around for too long...
Sunday we went running with Ann, and were actually able to do 16 km! Quite the achievement (if I may say so), since we hadn't run an awful lot in the past week, and the mercury was started to climb as well. But we took our time, and ended up having a great run! We had some conversations that I would love to post here, but I was sworn to secrecy...
Nolan's parents showed up for lunch, and the parents took over the house. We really had nothing to control anymore! But it was great to see how well along they all get.
It had been a hot and muggy day, and by the end of the day, a sudden storm rolled in. We watched it come in, but it still hit us quite unexpectedly. Strong winds, heavy downpours and lots of lightning made for a very impressive storm.
Luckily we didn't have any damage, but some people were not so lucky. The main stage at Ottawa's Bluesfest collapsed (maybe two storms in just over a week was too much??). Luckily there were only two injuries and nothing more major. It could have been so much worse.

I worked Monday morning, but in the afternoon my mom and I went for a great walk in the Greenbelt. We say a buck with a huge rack and some other small animals. It was just nice to be out in the woods, with great company. We stopped at Don Cherry's (!!) for a beer, before making the track home. Well deserved, right?! We also went for Indian food for dinner. Of course we ate too much, but it was worth it!
On Tuesday I had to head back to the PRF to host the Meet and Greet for the judges of the Canadian Forces Sustainable Communities, but the storm knocked down a tree on the Visitor's Centre, and it damaged the displays and the building, so that option was out. A new venue was quickly found, and the Ottawa Valley Waste Recovery Centre offered to host the judges. I was still allowed to present on the PRF (and the judges were quite interested, just like rest of the group), but on top of that got a tour of the centre, which was very interesting!!
My folks in the meantime decided to spend the day in Mont Tremblant, and ended up liking it so much that they decided to spend the night there as well. They are expected to come home tonight, and then we'll make some plans for the next few days. Nolan and I have time off until they go back home Monday night, so time to do stuff.
However, we are experiencing a heat wave, which can make it a bit harder to do a lot of stuff outside. They are forecasting 35 degrees for tomorrow, but also a humidex of 47... In other words, a sauna!
We're now trying to find something to do for tomorrow, which is a very special day since it's my birthday! So to be continued...

Parents arrived!

2011-07-12T20:53:00.000-04:00

Last week we were mainly busy running around trying to get things ready and organized before the grand arrival of my parents! We took Friday off to do some final running around, but did find time to go for dinner with Debby, Pete and Andrea before heading to Bluesfest. There had been some issues with line ups earlier in the week, but the organization had promised to fix the issues. So when we arrived Friday around 8 pm, we were surprised to see huge line ups. We were so confused about the start of the line ups (there were two, one for entry and one for ticket sales) that we jumped the line quite a bit. Oh well... We still had to wait for about 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad and made us feel a little less guilty about not getting tickets in advance, as we had promised Andrea to do...

Once one site, we had to use our elbows to get passed the first stage where Rise Against was playing. Not really my type of music, but a lot of other people thought differently about that... We managed to get to the Hard Rock Café stage, where we saw the final part of Midwest playing, which was enjoyable. After a short wait, during which we found Pete and Debby, but also noticed that Craig and Connie where sitting right behind, Hey Rosetta came on stage. The band we came to see!! The first song was good, the second one too, even though the rain slowly started to fall. During the third song, the weather gods decided to have no mercy, and showed us what they had in store for us. The rain came falling down in drops I have never seen so big. The wind picked up which made the rain fly sideways, and it even looked like we saw a funnel cloud in the distance! Hey Rosetta kept playing very bravely, even when their crew started covering up their equipment with tarps... When the song was over, the announcement came that the show would be put on hold 'temporarily'. That was it, no other news. In the mean time, Pete and Debby had moved on to the main stage to check out Black Keys, the big show for the night. They texted us that they never even started, and being wet and cold decided to return to Debby's place. The atmosphere was a little interesting to say the least, since not only the bands had stopped playing, the beer tents were no longer serving beer.

After having waited for an hour, we decided to return to Debby's place as well, where we had our car, and go home. Disappointed since we dropped a good buck for the tickets, but mainly because we missed a what was going to be a great show!

The following day we heard that Hey Rosetta played for a bit, but quit after their sound system broke down. Black Keys came back up at 10:40, and played for almost 40 minutes, but I am not sure if an hour and a half wait would have made me want to watch that. Maybe next time?

The next morning we had breakfast with them as well, to celebrate Debby's birthday, after which we headed to Montreal to pick up the folks. They had a good flight without any issues and had no problems coming through customs, so that was great. Now we are trying to get used to each other's company :) but also just relax and enjoy having them here.

Also a quick garden update: my mom bought us a beautiful Hortensia which we put in our front garden. Our hostas are also about to bloom, and our tomatoes are looking very promising!

In my travels around the yard, I found two little treasures...

Meet the future Nolan

2011-07-04T21:08:00.004-04:00

Nolan underwent a transformation, dyed his hair, and now looks like this:

Ok, maybe not. But the torture machine you see here is not an illusion.

So back up a bit... We used to go to the gym a lot, but stopped going regularly last year, and opted out of a gym membership this year, especially after we started talking about perhaps purchasing a home gym. We both like to work out and lift weights and it is something we have been doing for years. Earlier this year we looked at some options, but never went ahead and bought something. Both our birthdays are coming up this summer, and we wanted to treat ourselves to something that we would both use and like. Enter our new home gym. Admittedly, it was a bit of a rush purchase, and getting it downstairs was definitely the biggest challenge! But we managed, and after at least four hours of labour we were actually able to put the thing together. Tonight we did our first workout, and we both realized how much we actually missed lifting weights.

If all goes well (and really, when does that happen?), we'll both be fitness buffs by ... (fill in date on the dotted line). Therefore, to be continued. I do think I will be sore tomorrow though!

This past Friday also was Canada Day, a beautiful day this year with lots of sunshine. We decided to forgo the Royal Visit (William and Kate were in Ottawa), and enjoyed our annual pool party at JoAnn's place. We had a great time, but the pool was too cold to actually enjoy. All the sunshine didn't warm it up enough, just yet.

Sunday we went running, and by the time we were done at 10 am, we were all very close to catching a heat stroke. And there it was: JoAnn's pool! Still bloody cold, but it did the job of cooling us down!

Five more sleeps and my parents will be here in Ottawa! Pretty amazing considering everything we went through earlier this year, so needless to say I am really looking forward to it. It will be a fairly low-key trip, but I think that will be perfect for all of us. I won't be 'allowed' to plan too much, which will make some people happy :) And I am also looking forward to having some time off. Time to relax with the folks. Oh, and of course work that exercise machine!

Stuff we talk about during our runs

2011-06-29T21:10:00.001-04:00

We quite often run with our good friends Ann and JoAnn, and in an attempt to start running more often, we have decided to commit to running with them on Wednesday evenings as well. We meet close to my office, so it's not that difficult to do. Some of us are struggling with injuries, and it is just like long runs, you something start talking about the weirdest things to distract yourself from the actual running part.
An excerpt from tonight's run:
Ann: we saw this huge splash in the canal last week
Nolan: Maybe it was a dolphin.
Ann: I don't think fresh water dolphins exist
Nolan: Well, maybe in the future they might have evolved to fresh water dolphins. Maybe we can create a salt water canal and add the dolphins!
JoAnn: Yes, and then we can have lobsters in the canal
Me: And create a whole new industry for Ottawa!

I guess it is quite clear that we sometimes have the weirdest conversations that go in any direction possible. But it's fun, and we do have the occasional serious conversation as well. Although they are a bit of a rarity... Also important, we had a great run!

On another note, my weekend started today! This week and weekend has been nuts; after a interesting weekend, Monday was not much better with ad hoc requests fro DG's and other interesting developments, but definitely a lot of fun. However, as of now, my BlackBerry is off, and work is miles and miles away, only to reappear on Monday. This weekend is filled with time for us, for the house, and our annual pool party on July 1. The weather forecast is actually quite promising this year, 28 degrees and sunny. Perfect weather for a pool party if you ask me. But I guess also nice weather to accompany a royal visit. For the people that have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, Will and Kate, yep, the Royal couple, are visiting Ottawa this week. Arriving tomorrow, and in town for Canada Day (July 1). On of their events will be attending a citizenship ceremony. Obviously that hits close to home, and I have to admit, I'm slightly jealous. It would be pretty cool to receive your certificate out of the hands of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge...
A few weeks ago, Nolan was talking about perhaps heading downtown. But after watching the Queen last year, and stories about half a million people expected downtown, we quickly opted for the televised version this time. At least then you know you will always have the front seat.

Water

2011-06-25T20:15:00.001-04:00

I recently finished Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, and if you are familiar with that book, you know that the four elements (water, fire, air and earth) play an important role. In my last post, I wrote about the fire. This time, it's time for water...

This weekend it was my turn to supervise the fire crew at the PRF. On a normal summer weekend, that would mean that two students would be in, manning the two fire towers for fire detecting. However, with all the rain we have had in the last few days, there would be no need to have the students come in, and I would mainly be working in the office, open and close the gates (the PRF is open to the public in the summer, mainly for fishing), and keep an eye on the place. Nothing too crazy, you'd say. It was looking like it would be quiet and I was actually looking forward to catching up to some of my work and get things done. Well, it was not to be...

Take a look at this and try to find the differences:

The photos are taken from a slightly different angle, but they were taken at the same place, about 2 hours apart... If you click on the top photo, you can see a beaver dam in the distance (where the green ends, and the darker colour starts, is where the dam is), and the water is obviously lower on this side of the dam. The second picture shows the water to the road, and the dam in the distance. The water is just simply flowing over the dam. There is a serious threat the road here can break, if the culvert can't handle all the water.

Now look at these:

Yep, same place again and about 3 hours apart as well. So a complete wash out. We had opened the gates this morning, but luckily nobody got stuck on the other side of this wash out, and we were able to have everybody out by 3 pm. I decided to lock the gates for the rest of the day, seeing that this could be a potential hazard... Once I found this wash out, I decided to follow the water to see if this wave had taken out more culverts. Well, unfortunately it did, and a I came upon a smaller one at the far end of the PRF. Some other crossings are not very stable either, and all the crossings have humongous water levels. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

In the midst of this all, a lady came to the office, obviously upset, telling me that her husband had left to go home, and was supposed to be home two hours ago... Luckily that ended well, and I think he probably just lost track of time.

At least I will have some help tomorrow, so we can check out all the crossings and culverts and make sure they are either well marked, or cleared from any debris. So much for trying to do office work. But it sure makes for a fun and interesting day!

Fire

2011-06-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

Last night, around 9 pm, we heard the sound of a fire truck. We didn't think much of it, since you hear them more often, although this one did sound a bitter closer than normal. Nolan looked outside, and he could see the reflection of fire in the windows of houses across the street! That made us realize it was a bit closer than usual. We ran outside, and first thought it was one of the houses on our street, but quickly we noticed the huge flames and large amounts of smokes coming from a house at the end of our street, across the road. I have never seen a fire like that; the house was complete engulfed in flames and you could see and hear several small explosions. Fire trucks kept arriving, and it was quite amazing to see how quickly and efficiently they went to work. When the fire spread to the other house, you could hear a common awe among the dozens of people watching the fire. The fire fighters were able to knock the fire down in about 45 minutes, and were able to save most of the second house. Watching last night, we really thought they would knock the first house down; it sure didn't look like any of that would survive. Luckily nobody got hurt, and everybody was able to get out on time. Nevertheless, two families were displaced and lost so much.

The Ottawa Sun newspaper has a story and some dramatic photos, which shows quite well the intensity o the fire. The Ottawa Citizen article gave it some attention as well, and it was on several newscasts. Which in return turned our street into a huge parking lot for media vehicles.
I just walked by it from my way from work and took this picture with my BlackBerry:

All in all a pretty scary situation, and you realize how quickly things can take a turn, and change your life forever. One our to-do list this weekend: make sure we have a decent inventory of our house... They have not figured out yet what caused the fire.

On a more personal level, Nolan will be a bachelor again this weekend. I have fire duty (how peculiar...) at the PRF this weekend. Luckily we've had quite a bit of rain this weekend, so I won't have to worry too much about actual forest fires, but I will be there to keep an eye on the place, and it's also a great time to catch up on a lot of work without too much interruption. Who else works on the weekend??

Intense weekend

2011-06-20T12:26:00.000-04:00

The down time I was hoping to get only partially materialized. We went up to Mattawa on Saturday to attend the memorial service for Michael Pineau. The service was very well done, but also very intense. It's so sad to see a young life go, especially somebody as caring and intelligent as he was.

When we came home Saturday, we found out that our neighbouring street had a street party! Somehow we missed the invite, but we were still welcome to go, and met some of our neighbours. Apparently they do this every year, so we're sure to be there again next year. It's great to see that everybody gets along so well, and all of our neighbours seem really nice. Bonus!

We spent the rest of the weekend 'taking it easy'. We decided to sleep in on Sunday, and instead of running in town go for a run later in the day. We should have known that was not going to happen... We did our chores and at least the house looks cleaner, but we (well, mainly Nolan) also spent two hours trying to get a ceiling fan up, having to use the crooked electrical box installed by the builder. After a couple of hours of struggling we gave up and put the old light back up. However, even that didn't go well. So I guess we'd better get a new fixture before the parents show up in a couple of weeks (it's in the guest bedroom).
After this debacle we felt too pissed off to go for a run, so we ended up going for a nice walk. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous lately, lots of sunshine and no rain to speak of. We actually watered our lawn last night, trying to salvage some of the grass before it all dies...Most of our plants are doing quite well, but some are struggling a bit. It seems to coincide with whether we put extra top soil and fertilizer down. I guess a lesson for next year?

Today is the first day of a 10 day work week. Almost like the old days, when I first started working at the PRF, we would work 10 on and 4 off. It will feel a little like the old days as well, since I'll be supervising the fire crew on the weekend. Fun! I'll be keeping an extra eye on the weather this week, that's for sure.

Busy Expo, heat wave and my life in general...

2011-06-17T10:17:00.000-04:00

Expo 150 turned out to be a bit more attractive to people than first anticipated. The last estimations say that about 40,000 (!) people visited the site! No wonder if felt somewhat crowded on Saturday... But all in all it has been a huge success, for the organizers, but also for the PRF. We drew a lot of attention to our booth, which was exactly what we were there for! But by the time I came home on Sunday, I was pretty zonked. At least I had about 5 hours of weekend left!

The last few days have been nice and warm, although not as warm as the one day crazy-warm-humid-hazy-sticky-42 degree day we had last week. The interesting thing was that after this crazy hot day on Thursday, the temperature on Thursday never made it above the 20 degree mark. Funny how climate and weather do their own thing. I like it! Although I do prefer the warm weather over the I-wish-I-had-a-sweater-day. The last few days have been nice and warm as well (30 or so), and the weekend looks awesome. Mid-twenties and lots of sunshine. We could use a little bit of rain though, especially since our grass is starting to turn yellow. We also haven't cut it in over two weeks. It just doesn't grow. Somewhat opposite to earlier this spring, when everything was way, way too wet! The bush is still pretty moist, with lots of mosquito-producing puddles...
A recent study confirmed that Canadians like talking about the weather. I bet you that study only focused on Canadians, because I think everyone likes to talk about the weather! At least the Dutch :) Makes you wonder how will fund a study like that. Couldn't they do something a bit more useful?

After twelve days of work, I'm happy it's Friday. It's been a good, but long two weeks, and I'm ready for some down-time. And perhaps trying to get a run in? It's been a week now since I went out for a run, so hopefully I am able to get out tonight. But sometimes life gets in the way. Or OCTranspo, our city bus company... Last Wednesday it took me exactly two (!!!!) hours to get home. Isn't that ridiculous! It normally doesn't take much more than an hour, which is enough as is. But this time the first bus got cancelled, the second was full, after which I got frustrated and took another bus, which meant I had toured our neighbourhood... At least the bus driver was nice!
On a said note, remember the two baby raccoons we took to the vet a couple of weeks ago? The vet decided to put them down. I know it was the right decision, but it still sucks...
Fertile was at the vet yesterday for some teeth cleaning, and apparently she made a tonne of friends among the clinic staff. Everybody loved her! No wonder, when we picked her up she had those big eyes which looked even bigger on her already tiny head. Just really cute.

Expo 150

2011-06-11T08:52:00.000-04:00

This week and weekend I'm excited to promote the Petawawa Research Forest during Expo 150. You might wonder what Expo 150 is? It is a massive Expo to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Renfrew County, while in the meantime promoting and recognizing local organizations, companies, townships, etc. There are at least 150 exhibitors, a huge military section (surprise!), but also a really nice forestry section (yes, that is where you can find us).
After the scorching heat we had on Wednesday (with a humidex of 43 degrees...), the days of Expo have been rather cool. Today a high of only 19, and tomorrow we might be lucky if we reach that. In the meantime we're also keeping our fingers crossed that we won't get rain.
But all that aside, the event is definitely worth while visiting. There is so much to see and do, and a tonne of information. You can tell that people get saturated with information, so much there is to see.
The responses we get to the Research Forest are what we had expected: Are you still open? Is there still research happening there? I thought it shut down? We have told several people now that we're still alive and kicking, so we reached our goal already: creating awareness among the local public. And especially today should be a busy day, so many more opportunities to get the word out that we are very much alive and active!

Nolan and his love for cats

2011-06-04T09:09:00.000-04:00

People who have known me for a while, know that when I first met Nolan he had to get used to the cats. Growing up without any pets, he just wasn't just to them. It didn't take long for him to start loving them though, and there is even talk now about getting a dog!
Just to show you how much he and Murphy connect, here are some shots from Murphy's daily belly rub rituals...

Raccoons...

2011-06-02T21:08:00.000-04:00

This afternoon when I came home from work, I decided to water the plants outside, so I opened the garage. In the garage, I heard this fairly loud noise, almost like a bird. It came from the side of the house, but when I checked it out, it turned out it was not a bird. There were two baby raccoons and one of them was making a lot of noise. The other one was too weak to really move or produce any noise. It really was a heartbreaking sight. I called several organizations, the city, the humane society and wild life sanctuaries, but nobody was willing, or able, to help. It was obvious they were suffering, dehydrated and desperately looking for their mother. We don't know what happened to the mother. Maybe she got killed, or perhaps she decided to abandon the young. Whatever happened, it was clear she was not nearby and I felt we had to do something for them. You can't just leave them there!
In a last resort, we called our vet, and asked them if we could bring them there, and take them out of their misery. They were very helpful and accepted them without any trouble. We left them there, and they told us that they would assess them, and decide then whether they would try to keep them alive, or do the humane thing and euthanize them. They said they would let us know what they decided, so I'll keep you posted.
Raccoons can be a nuisance, but seeing two small babies is absolutely heartbreaking. They are very, very cute but also very helpless. And yes, I know I have a huge soft spot for animals in need. Nothing wrong with that!

As for a follow up on last week, especially with regards to our presentation: it got cancelled... The ADM received last-minute notice that he needed to be somewhere else, so unfortunately, we will have to postpone. I was quite disappointed, but there is nothing we can do, and we'll try to get him out there later this summer. And we didn't waste our time too much; we will be using an adapted version of the presentation for our neighbouring base commander next week. Can't hurt to recycle presentations :)
Work has been good, but it is also busy. The good thing, however, is that it is very diverse and exciting, and also rewarding. So all in all, I can only say that I love my job!

Life is keeping me busy!

2011-05-30T21:49:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted, for which I apologize... Life has definitely kept me busy, but in a good way! As I mentioned before, we had a long weekend, and instead of getting a cottage ready for the summer, which is what the majority of Canadians is doing but since we don't have a cottage, we spent the Monday in Brockville with Nolan's parents. It had been a while since I had seen them, and we had a really nice time catching up and just hanging out. Perfect!
Wednesday I was up at the PRF again, to attend some site visits for a new biomass study that will hopefully be put in and harvested later this year. It's very exciting and includes some leading edge harvesting equipment and other technologies. I actually spent the other days in the office, which doesn't happen very often anymore these days!
The weekend was great. Well, it started with a visit to the vet which went well for Murphy, but unfortunately Fertile might need some more dental work done. But first we have to wait and see what her blood tests will say, since there is also a chance she might have hyperthyroidism. But besides that she is very healthy! On Saturday we had our running friends over for a lunch and birthday cake for Debbie. Lots of food and lots of sun. Tom decided to stay home, since Nolan has been nursing a cold for the past few days, and he had his hopes on a Boston qualifier time the next day during the Ottawa Marathon. Saturday morning was quite chilly, we even had the heat on since it was so cold and damp in the house. However, by the end of the day it got really humid, sticky and warm. I went for a 9k run at the end of the day, and got back completely soaked! Strange how it can change so quickly.
On Sunday we ventured downtown to watch the Ottawa marathon and half marathon, which was somewhat strange. We both have ran it so often that it felt weird to be on 'the other side'. But it was fun cheering people on, and it was quite impressive to see how many runners in as many shapes and form are participating! I knew several people who participated, but missed half of them just to the sheer number of people. The half marathon had about 11,000 runners, and the full around 5,500 runners. Quite a few!! It was really fun to watch, although the steady rain did make it a bit tough. By the end we were soaking wet and cold. Especially for Nolan, who still didn't feel great, the rain didn't help. But we still had a great time!
Tom did manage to get his BQ, which was very exciting! Now it will be a challenge to actually sign up for the race. Last year it sold out in about 6 hours... JoAnn was the only one running the half from our core running group, and she did really well and finished strong. So proud of her!
But I'm also proud of all my other friends that ran a race (there were also a 5 and 10k) that weekend: Debby, Julia, Ann Marie, Julie. Did I forget anybody?? Well done ya'all!!
I am currently back in Petawawa. I spent the day in Mattawa at the Canadian Ecology Centre, to meet up with some of my FRP and CIF colleagues. It was nice to see everybody again, had some good meeting, a great bbq lunch and nice walk (despite the mosquitoes...). The weather has also greatly improved. After all the rain we had last week, this week proves to be more sunny and also much warmer! Tomorrow they're expecting a high of 32...
I have to admit, I'm a little nervous for tomorrow. Our new ADM is visiting the PRF, and Pete and I will be presenting. It is a great opportunity, but I am also a little scared. I know he is a nice guy, but I don't know him well enough to know what to expect. But on the other hand we'll be talking about something that is dear to our heart, so it might come naturally! We also planned a field tour for the afternoon, so hopefully the bugs will behave themselves... I will let you know how it went!
This evening, so distract myself from the presentation tomorrow, I went for a great run along the Fish Hatcheries in Petawawa, a great trail system. I guess I did have some energy left to burn. I felt really good, and I have good hopes that I might actually get back into our running routine. At least it's going into the right direction!

Colourful garden and nice couch!

2011-05-21T17:14:00.003-04:00

We finally had a beautiful Saturday and we took full advantage of it! We got up early and hit the garden centre before it would get too busy (trip #1). We bought mainly annuals, since we would like to do some more serious work in the garden next year, with perhaps the help of a landscaper. All the colours make such a difference! The first two pictures shows the front, and you can see that there are a lot of grape hyacinths in there, which will hopefully come back next year.

Below used to look like a massive litter box. Perhaps an old san box from the previous owners? We're not sure how this will work, since it was pure sand. But hopefully with the help of some top soil, it might actually turn into something (this was trip #2 after we decided that we need much more top soil to fill this box)!

Right behind the house you can still see the magnificent tulips. They've been at it for almost two weeks now, but still going strong! They are absolutely beautiful. We planted annuals around them, so if they tulips go, there will be lots of colour around it. On the far left, we planted two basil plants, and parsley, and in between four tomato plants. Yum!

The planters are hard to see, but we put several different plants in there as well. Hopefully they will all grow well and fill in nicely. I guess time will tell! But needless to say we feel very satisfied and proud. It turned out really nice and we love our house even more. As Nolan said, it looks like a show home now!

On Friday night we finally got our couch that we had ordered back in January... It took a while to come, but it was worth the wait. It's beautiful! And yes, you see it right, it's white... We had to have a shower after all our hard and dirty work in the garden before we could even get close to it! It fits in really nicely with the curved stair case, and it also makes the TV room more like a separate room. It's big, which we might have to get used to, but it's comfy, big and totally ours!

Loooooong weeekend coming up!

2011-05-19T13:37:00.002-04:00

We have a long weekend, and boy am I looking forward to it! Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and life, and all the extra curricular activities that I tend to get busy with, but this long weekend, with one extra day of sleeping in is very much appreciated! The other thing that would be much appreciated is day without rain. We have had so much rain in the last little while, that I’m sure we must have broken some record here or there. Spring is still struggling to really come to full life, although it is definitely looking greener outside, and even the black flies are starting to appear… They are currently calling for a gorgeous Saturday, which we will take full advantage of by finally planting some annuals in our garden, and perhaps start cleaning up underneath our deck… So nice of the previous owners to leave a s#$%-load of junk underneath the deck. No wonder raccoons like it there. We’re also hoping to finally get our bikes out, and start preparing our behinds for longer bike rides this summer. And to end this weekend with a bang, we’ll be heading to Brockville on Monday to spend the day with the in-laws. Good times, good people and good food! So perhaps we should try to get out for a run as well, otherwise we’ll never lose those 10 pounds…

Look at the sky!

2011-05-15T20:53:00.000-04:00

This is what we saw tonight:

Friday came, and went...

2011-05-15T19:40:00.000-04:00

Friday came much quicker than I had expected, and the week ended on a very good note. Why? Even though I came home late on Thursday, and managed to get about 6 hours of sleep, Friday turned into an extremely productive, successful and rewarding day. Time flies when there are lots of things to do with a tight deadline, and I love it!
The next few weeks will also be chaotically busy. I'll be at the PRF quite a bit; on average 2-3 days a week for the next few weeks, plus a tonne of meetings for the OWA. Both provincial, our chapter, and for the business development committee I lead. So no reason to sit still for too long!
In the meantime, we're also trying to get our garden in order, continue the fight against dandelions, and also enjoy it. The rainy weather has returned, but hopefully spring will return shortly. It was too nice to let go of already!
Besides our busy lives (Nolan is slightly less busy, but also has no problems keeping himself busy with work and the house), we also take time to do other things. We went to the NAC yesterday to say 'i think i can'. A dance performance by the Toronto Theatre for Young People. Very impressive! We also watched a movie last night, Zodiac. I hear you think: big deal. Well, actually it was. We realized it was the very first time we actually watched a movie since moving into this house... We normally watch shorter shows; especially I have a really hard time staying focused (or awake...) during movies. But this was an evening well spent!
In other news, we might be going to Salt Lake City this summer!! Well, it depends on whether Nolan gets approval to attend a conference. But if he does, our summer vacation destination has been decided!

Is it Friday yet?

2011-05-11T11:32:00.000-04:00

This week feels long. Already. I also know that this week will be long. It started Monday evening with a meeting in Renfrew. Luckily it didn’t run late, and I was home before 11pm. Tomorrow night I have to go to Belleville for a meeting. I don’t have to drive, so that will make it easier. Hopefully I can sleep part of the three-hour-drive-home. Just to be clear, I am not complaining! I’m just not doing very well when I don’t get enough sleep, and it doesn’t happen very often that I have two evening meetings in one week.

But tonight should be different. JoAnn is training for the half marathon in Ottawa this month (did I mention we did too but decided to sell our bibs due to a lack of training?), and she asked if we wanted to come out with her tonight. The plan is to run along Dows Lake (yep, lots of tulips!), and then loop through the Arboretum. Chance will that we enjoyed a tour of the Arboretum last Sunday, and the Magnolias are blooming and look magnificent! So something to look forward to! It also helps that the weather is finally starting to look more like spring. We spent all day Saturday in our backyard, fighting the war against dandelions and other weeds. We even had to cut the lawn for the first time! It’s definitely rewarding, but also frustrating if you see little yellow flowers popping up again.

In the meantime we’re starting to feel like a zoo… We have birds now nesting in our bathroom vents, there is still some evidence of mice in our house, we probably still have raccoons in our backyard, there are a lot of bunnies around, and of course our own two cats. Never a dull moment for sure. So far we haven’t seen any damage, so that is good. We will have to do some work this summer though. Once the birds are gone, we’ll put a mesh cover on the vent, we’ll try to scare the raccoons away and then prevent access underneath our deck and shed. And those mice… Well, that’s why we have cats, right?

More photos!

2011-05-06T13:10:00.000-04:00

If you're just like me, you like looking at other people's photos. Am I right?! I finally backed up my BlackBerry today, and also downloaded the pictures I took with it. Some of them might be worth sharing so here we go. The past nine months or so in photos:

Our finishers medal and bib number from the Montreal Marathon, September 2010

Fertile loves boxes...

And so does Murphy.

Jasper, AB. September 2010 during the CIF AGM.

It doesn't happen very often that our cats sleep close together...

Especially this close!

Murphy learning from Fertile: how can I sleep on the smallest bag...

Winter wonderland at the PRF. Needless to say I love my job!

Me, severely jet-lagged.

My brother Gijsbert, aka Max

Willem (my parents cat)

Sien (my parents other cat)

Willem trying to type some emails as well

And this happens when we're not home

Our cats love our house. So do we!

A couple of photos

2011-05-05T18:48:00.000-04:00

Before they got covered in dust, here are a few (literally the only ones we took) from our trip to the Netherlands. Unfortunately no people-photos (well, except for the ones of Nolan), but that just means that we have a good excuse to go back! And yes, I like trees, ok!

Is that the sun I see??

2011-05-05T09:17:00.001-04:00

It sure is! After days of rain and grey skies, we finally woke up to some sunshine this morning. It's amazing what that does to your overall perception of life. Ok, maybe that's a bit too much, but I can't deny it's making me feel so much more positive! The fact that the bus this morning again, was really fast also helped. I'm still struggling with the bus in the afternoon, it takes me 45 min in the morning, 75 in the afternoon, but hopefully I'll get that figured out as well.
This afternoon I have another dentist appointment and will get my 4th set of trays as part of my Invisalign treatment. So far so good. I can tell a slight difference and the pain has been pretty much non-existent. On the 'down-side', they are so easy to take out and put back in, that it hasn't really affected my coffee intake, which I was secretly hoping for. However, it has helped me snack less, since I really have to brush my teeth every time I eat something, so at least that has been good!

We went for a run last night. Big deal you might think. Well, actually it was. I think it was our first run in about three weeks. Yikes! But we did it, and I think the first one is always the hardest. Now we have to keep it up, and keep getting out there. However, with the nicer weather in the forecast, it might become a bit easier. We both pledged to lose 10 lbs by July 1st, so we need to start doing something! Oops, I guess I just made ourselves accountable! There's quite a bit of travel in the near future for me, mainly to the PRF, so hopefully that won't derail my efforts too much...

Flying over Amerongen

2011-05-03T11:50:00.004-04:00

This past Saturday we returned, once again, from the Netherlands. This time it was a trip that we had planned a long time ago. But the timing was well suited, since we had a chance to see everybody again, were able to witness the slow but steady improvement of my dad, and to meet my sister’s new boyfriend for the first time (approved!). The trip really felt like a vacation. Sure, we spent quite a bit of time around Amerongen, with my parents, but we also had lots of time and opportunities to do our own thing. We spent a day in Arnhem, had lunch with Anja and Susan, and absolutely enjoyed the wonderful weather: mid-twenties for the most part, lots of sun, and really no rain to speak of. So all in all a really good trip.

Saturday we flew back via Frankfurt, Germany. A bit of a detour, but Air Canada flies directly from Frankfurt to Ottawa, and it’s so nice to Ottawa, rather than Montreal. On our flight from Frankfurt we actually flew just a little south of Amerongen, but since had seats facing north, we could see Amerongen, the castle, the ‘Lonely Oak’, surrounding towns and the forest we had walked in many times during that week. Really cool to see! And what are the chances you fly over the area you just spent the last week! Ok, maybe not that impressive for some people, but I thought it was rather cool.

When we came home, the cats were completely relaxed and happy. I think we found the perfect cat sitter! Our neighbours kept an eye on the house, and their middle son looked after the cats, actually befriended them (which is not always easy to do with Murphy), and spent time with them while playing the Wii. When we asked if he would do it again, he said yes without any hesitation. It’s just really nice to see it worked out so well. Definitely one less thing to worry about.

When we returned we had to shift back to ‘spring that is about to come’; quite a change from the full blown summer feeling we had experienced the week before. However, slowly but surely spring is finding its way to our area as well. That is to say, the grass is getting greener, buds are about to burst and daffodils are popping up. If only the temperature would rise a bit, and perhaps the rain could hold of for a day or two? Is that really too much to ask for??

Our running mojo is gone, but we decided that now we’re back in

Canada

, we’ll get back at it. Although we won’t run the Ottawa half marathon, we will start training again, and aim for lots of trail running this summer. So May will be our ‘getting back to running and eating healthy’ month. Our vacation definitely made us fall off the wagon a bit, so many delicious foods, cheeses, and wine! Which we made sure we enjoyed…

This week, we also moved back to our totally refurbished office on Booth Street. I’m one of the lucky ones that got a cubicle with a window. That is the good news. The bad news is that is somewhat chilly here, so I might have to bring a sweater in next time…

Looking for spring...

2011-04-20T12:18:00.002-04:00

It looks like spring has forgotten us this year. Today we have a freezing rain and winter storm warning in effect. It’s April!! Is there anybody we can remind that spring actually started a long time ago?? The trees and shrubs are showing buds, but no leaves yet. Are grass is still brown, and the crocuses are just poking their head above the ground. And then they are being chewed up by our local bunny. It looks like some of the tulips are coming up as well, so hopefully in not too long we’ll actually have some colour in our back yard! That would be nice! But I am sure that summer is just around the corner, right?? But in the meantime, if you happen to find spring, please send it this way.

Besides the crappy weather, life goes on. My dad is slowly but surely heading in the right direction, which is good news. By the way, thank you for all the messages, notes, etc. Much appreciated! Nolan and I are both busy with work (what’s new?), but we are somewhat in limbo when it comes to our operating and research budget for next year, since we don’t have a sitting government right now. Our government fell and elections are called for May 2nd, so hopefully we’ll get some more clarity after that date. That doesn’t mean it’s quiet at work! But I’m definitely not complaining, I still love what I do!

Running is not going so well. Between crappy weather, busy at work and lots of travel, we just don’t seem to have the energy. Maybe once the weather is getting nicer we can pick it up again. We decided to pull out of the Ottawa half marathon, just because we didn’t want the pressure of having to run right now. Running should be a fun thing to do, and we’ll get back into it this summer for sure. When we’re ready.

Real life

2011-04-05T04:50:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I had to fly unexpectedly to the Netherlands. My dad was really sick, and we were encouraged to have everyone close by. I received the call Friday night, was able to find a ticket for Saturday, and set foot on Dutch soil within 30 hours. The first few days remained very critical, but the past few days have shown an improving pattern. He is stable enough for me to fly back to Canada tomorrow morning, but I also know I will be back in a few weeks for Easter.
I apologize for the short message, but I will write a more detailed update later.

Toronto!

2011-03-21T13:10:00.003-04:00

This past weekend we were in the Toronto area, due to the AGM of the Ontario Woodlot Association. I’m on the executive, and am also the chair of the business development committee, so a busy weekend! Nolan dropped me off at the hotel in Milton on Friday afternoon, after which he went back to Toronto to spend the night and next day with Tina and Riley. I, on the other hand attended a very successful, albeit long business development committee meeting. By the time the meeting was done, I was done as well! First a long drive, then a long meeting. But it was all worth it. The next day was the actual conference and AGM, which was interesting. It always provides great opportunities to network, as well as to catch up with people you see about once a year. Every year, there is a silent auction in support of the AGM, and last year Nolan tried to get a miniature wooden skidder, but in the end someone else got to take it home. This year, they had a very similar one, and I decided to bid on it. Luckily for us, I was able to offer the highest bid, which was well under last year’s highest bid J

The highlight of the business meeting was, of course, the election of the board members. I was once again elected to the board, and on top of that, I received the highest number of votes (together with the current president!). I have to admit I stand out a bit with most members having reached retirement age, and male…

Nolan picked me up at the end of the meeting, after which we went back to Toronto (again), to visit Carrie. She lives really close to downtown (you can see the CN tower from her window, which is about 3km away…), and we walked to a nice little Mexican restaurant on

Queen Street

. The food was great, but the margaritas and sangria made the night! The next morning we left fairly early to drive back to Ottawa. The weather was awesome, lots of sun, which made the drive so much easier. All weekend, and most of last week, it felt like spring was in the air, so nice! But today we got a brutal wake-up call that winter has not forgotten about us just yet. As of yet, we received about 10 cm of snow, covering the grass that had just started to appear again. Ironically enough, we are getting our summer tires put on the car today. Maybe not so wise?!

The Invisalign is going really well. It’s an adjustment that I have to take them out every time I eat, which can be a bit of a hassle at events such as last weekend’s, but nothing too crazy. And most of all, they don’t really hurt, which is nice.

Invisalign time!

2011-03-14T19:42:00.001-04:00

Today was (finally) the day that I could pick up my first set of Invisalign aligners (see previous post on Invisalign here). They are clear, so they are not super obvious to see, but you can definitely tell they're doing something. And they are really hard to take off, so I'll only take them off for a meal, but will have to cut down significantly on coffee and snacks. However, that could be a really nice side effect! I wonder if my teeth will really be as straight and perfect as my dentist makes me want to believe. I guess to be continued?!

This past weekend we were in Brockville to celebrate Aimee's birthday. It was a fun, relaxed and great weekend. We ate some amazing foods, albeit too much, but it was worth it! I'm very blessed with my in-laws, that's for sure.

Not much else to report on. The weather has been pretty good, and the forecast is even better so hopefully some of that snow will melt soon. I went for a run on the trails today, and that was challenging, trying to manoeuvre between ice, slush and deeper snow where the sun doesn't hit the ground. But it was really, really nice to get out there again!

Oh, I guess one last thing. We have some additional animals around the house. With some of the snow melting, the raccoons decided to get out of their hiding places. Not sure we're very happy with them, but they make for some cute pictures:

I guess it's time to bring the bird feeders in...

Good night!

Winter Wonderland

2011-03-09T12:18:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of spending the past couple of days at the Petawawa Research Forest, and helped facilitate the session for the National Research Forests Research Program. Our training last week came in very handy, and the techniques we used then were a perfect fit this session.
However, part of the session was spent outdoors. We all know that the best conversations take place in the bush, right?

The PRF got close to 30 cm of snow on the weekend, which created some pretty amazing pictures.

Needless to say I love my job :)

We're apparently in for another snowstorm tonight as well, so perhaps another change to go snowshoeing!

Murphy's love affair

2011-03-06T19:45:00.001-05:00

In one of my previous posts, I talked about Murphy's love affair with our humidifier. Here are some photos that tell the story better than a thousand words...

Training and the return of winter...

2011-03-06T17:36:00.000-05:00

This past week I was lucky enough to take a three day training session on Learning Organization Community of Practice (LOCoP) for advanced practitioners, focusing on strategic planning. The session was facilitated and led by Sylvie Lapointe, who is an absolutely fabulous teacher. She started her own company, L2Emerge, a few years ago but used to work for CFS. If you ever need a facilitator, I highly recommend her!
The days were intensive, but very productive. The funny thing is that we never thought that we would actually talk about strategic planning, vision, etc. Beforehand I thought the session would more focus on the preparation before you facilitate a session, which we talked about as well, but it was so much more! And on top of it all, it fit in perfectly with our National Research Forests session that we planned for Monday and Tuesday. We received some great guidelines for a 'Taking Stock' exercise. Guess what was on our agenda for Tuesday morning? Indeed: Taking Stock. We thought we would just talk about it for a bit, and move on, but now we actually have the tools to make it successful. Same for a mission statement we're trying to come up with; we now know how to tackle this effectively without it being too dry, and making sure everybody is involved and have their say!
This training also fits in very nicely with the SRI International training I took in the fall. The approaches are slightly different, but they both offer very valuable points and advice, and we'll be using both strategies next week. It is just really nice that an investment in training is actually useful.

I was supposed to leave for Petawawa this morning to guide a group of university students around the PRF, but woke up to a crazy blizzard! It was a bit unexpectedly, especially since we received 30mm of rain yesterday, and were maybe secretly hoping that winter would come to an end. No such luck! So I decided to cancel my trip, and now I'll go up tomorrow morning instead. Missed my coffee date with Krista though :(
We almost went running as well, but decided last minute that it would probably be a disaster and went snowshoeing instead. Never knew that snowshoeing in wet, fresh snow could prove to be such a great workout! We were both sweaty and had our heart rates racing! We put them on about 5 minutes from our house, and just snowshoed down the streets. There was more than enough snow, and now plough in sight! Until this afternoon of course, when we could go out and shovel the end of our driveway again. I guess being on a corner lot does have one disadvantage: we seem to be getting an awful lot of snow dumped on our driveway. And consequently, our snowbank is the highest in the street!

Peterborough Half Marathon - race report

2011-02-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the day that I would redeem myself. Flashback to four years ago: Candice and I both signed up to run the Peterborough half marathon. I was living in Cobden at the time, and had a leg that tended to act up every once in a while during training runs. Long story short: 13 km in the Peterborough half, I was forced to step out. But yesterday was my chance to make up for it! Fun fact: I've started this race three times now, and all three times the course was different... All of them were hilly.
I drove up to Tweed on Saturday to be able to spend some time with Candice before the race. This included some wine, but that might have helped keeping our nerves under control...
After a good night sleep we headed to Peterborough. We had lots of time since the race did not start until 12.30. It has snowed a bit the night before, but the roads were not bad. Our biggest worry was that the roads would be wet and soggy. It turned out they were in pretty good shape. There were definitely a number of puddles, but they were all avoidable.
Since we got to Peterborough fairly early we had some time to kill, and just sat around for a bit. We got approached by two Fleming massage therapist students, offering us a pre-race massage! Well of course we are interested! It probably helped us relax and calm our nerves a bit as well. It felt good, but it was hard to get up afterwards. All we wanted was a nap!
There were about 500 people starting in the half, and at first I was planning on sticking close to the 2.20 pace bunny, but at the start I was right in between the 2.10 and 2.20 pace bunny. I just ran my own race; Candice had taken off at the start (as usual :) ). I forced myself to take it easy, and ran a comfortable steady pace until 5km. Just after 5km a huge hill appeared around the corner. Knowing that I had not done a lot of hill training, I decided to walk up for the most part. Experience has taught me that hills can kill your race. After the hill I picked up my pace again and ran a steady pace along fairly hilly roads, but nothing too crazy. I grabbed some water and a gel at the half-way mark and turn-around point (it was an in-and-out race), and continue my journey. However, at that point it had started snowing a bit, and the wind had picked up as well, but it did not stop me from going strong! The hill I mentioned earlier showed up again (for people that know Peterborough a bit, it's the hill you go up after you go under the Lift Locks), and I walked it up again, now from the other end. It was the same hill down again, but even going downhill didn't feel too comfortable. We were around 16km at that point, and I was getting a bit tired... I crashed slightly at 17km, but a 30 second walk break fixed that, and especially the last 2km I felt strong, and I was even able to pick up my pace a bit at the home stretch and passed a couple of people just before the finish.
My final chip time was 2.15.00. Not bad, considering it was hilly, snowy and I didn't really start training until about 1 month ago. I was actually very happy with my time!
After the race, we drove back to Havelock to drop Sarah, grab a coffee, and go back to Tweed. After collecting my stuff etc., I hit the road to go back to Ottawa. In short I spent the majority of the four and a half hours after the race sitting still in a car. Not sure if that was a very smart thing to do, since my legs are slightly sore right now. However, I'm sure that will pass as well.

When I came home last night, Nolan had just finished painted our guest bedroom, vacuumed the whole house, and even made lunches for today. I have an amazing husband!

The original weather forecast called for snow on Sunday, and then up to 13 degrees on Monday. Sunday was not too bad, not even a couple of centimetres of snow. However, Monday turned out slightly different than they had expected. We woke up to freezing rain, which quickly turned to snow, and we have about 15 cm of fresh white fluffy stuff on the ground right now! Just when I thought the trails would be accessible again... Oh well, now we might be able to go skiing!

Half marathon - Weather forecast...

2011-02-24T19:10:00.001-05:00

Ok, it's only Thursday and the half marathon is not until Sunday. However, they currently predict between 10 and 15 cm of snow for Sunday. That is on top of the 10-15cm they are predicting for tomorrow. Maybe I should bring snow shoes instead of running shoes?! I am still anticipating that we are going, but I also know that safety for everything, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that the weather won't be playing too much havoc. I personally think this race is jinxed...

Work has also picked up quite a bit in the last few days. Meetings, reports, Research Forests session next week, training, articles... Lots and lots to do. But it's fun, and I much prefer being busy over having 'to look for stuff'. I'll update after the half marathon for sure, but it might get quiet for a bit after that :)

Just a quick update on Murphy. Well, really not that much to update on. He is still madly in love with his humidifier girl-friend. Never knew that cats could be so passionate and romantic!

Refreshing and colourful

2011-02-21T21:00:00.001-05:00

Nolan enjoyed a nice long weekend (he had today off due to Family Day, I had to work...), and decided that this was a good time to start painting. From the day we moved in, we've been saying that the one thing the house need, is some colour. The previous owners probably painted it just before they put it on the market, but a) the whole house is the same cream colour, and b) the paint job is terrible! We really wanted to add some (moderate) colour and make it feel like our own. A couple months before we moved out of the old house, we pained both our offices and we liked those colours so much that we picked those colours again for our offices in this house (Nolan is blue-grey, mine is more lavender). We picked a grey colour for the bathrooms, a lighter grey for our bedroom, and a brown tone for the guest bedroom. The colours are all from the same family, so they match nicely.
Nolan started on Saturday (OK, I admit, I might have been procrastinating a bit, by doing other things first, such as making date squares, which were delicious by the way!), and we (I did do my part as well) finished his office and the guest bedroom, and it looks so refreshing!! The ceilings are white again, and so are the trim and windows, and the walls more colourful. It's a huge change, but it looks great. We're both very happy with it. The guest bedroom is next, which Nolan will tackle next weekend when I'm in Peterborough running a half marathon.... We did take before pictures, and we'll take some after pictures as well, which I'll post once the rooms are all ready.
We do have a nice incentive to get it done: My parents are coming for a visit in July, so we want to make sure that at least the upstairs is ready by then.

So next week is my half marathon, which I'll be running with Candice. I hope the weather cooperates, although we've had enough opportunities to train in cold weather... As I mentioned before, I don't really care about a fast time, I just want to make sure I finish. Last time I started in this race I had to pull out around the 13k mark because of an injury. So there is some unfinished business here that I want to get out of the way! I'm in a way looking forward to the race, but also to the girls weekend we're planning around it. I guess we just have to be careful with the 'carbo loading' the night before, and make sure we don't count wine as carbs... Obviously, a report will follow next week...

On a side note, we have a cat, Murphy, that is absolutely obsessed with our humidifier in our bedroom. Really, it's a full blown love affair! It's funny to watch, since he won't leave it alone when it's running. We're not sure what sparked the affair, but think it might be the gurgling noises that come out of the water reservoir. I wonder how long this will last for, but he's losing sleep at night, that's for sure!

And finally, some people that have followed my previous blog, might know that I have a Orchid that is very dear to me. It receives no special treatments (except for a little bit of water 1-2 a week), but it is blooming for the fourth time now! Nolan gave it to me in the summer of 2008, just after we moved into our previous house and I kept it once the flowers were gone. After about 6 months, it flowered again, and the cycle repeated itself two more times, to flower for the fourth time. Pretty impressive, eh?! It's nice to see the bright coloured flowers when there is very little colour outside. Although it did feel spring-like on Friday, with temperatures jumping to +11, and melting a lot of snow, but that night it dipped to -15, and now we're back in the deep freeze. But hey, it is February after all!

Invisalign and Cats

2011-02-14T16:20:00.003-05:00

Last week feels like a blur. It was good, but it just all went by so quickly. I guess that’s what happens when you’re busy, and have fun at the same time!

I spent one day in Kemptville last week, attending a meeting to discuss short rotation woody crops opportunities in Eastern Ontario, which was very interesting and shed some light on the challengers, but also possibilities. More to follow…

On that same day, I spent about an hour in my dentist’s chair, to have impressions taken in order to start my Invisalign treatment. I had an initial assessment done over a year ago, and after some hard thinking I decided to go ahead with the treatments. If all goes well, I’ll have Invisalign retainers (which are basically clear plastic trays that go over your teeth, and should be invisible), for the next year or so. I’m really curious to see how they will feel, and how it will impact my life. I will have to take them out when I eat, or drink coffee (or other dark drinks, such as wine…), but you need to wear them about 22 hours a day to be effective. Hence I can see a significant decrease in my coffee intake (and my grazing behaviour, but that might not be a bad thing…). I’ll receive my first pair on March 1^st, and I’ll make sure to let you know who it will be going.

On Saturday we went to see Cats, the musical. The reviews earlier in the week were not very promising, but the show itself was very well done. Sure, the first half might have been a tad slow, the second half absolutely made up for it. I was just plain incredible, with amazing talent, both vocal and dance. Well worth it!

We got a bit of snow on Sunday, which made for a tough run Sunday morning, but despite the poor footing I was still able to get (another) 18.5km in. The run being so hard, I think that should count for a 20km run as was scheduled, right?!

Active and fun weekend

2011-02-07T21:11:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was one of fun, friends, activities and fresh air! On Friday we met up with Denise and Dimitri to catch a glimpse of the opening of Winterlude. D&D are a Dutch couple that moved to Toronto last year, and we'd met them before in Ottawa a couple of years ago. We decided not to go to the Quebec side to actually participate in the opening activities, but we were able to watch the fireworks from Parliament Hill. And admittedly so, we were are very impressed with the quality and the duration of the fireworks. It seems like they wanted to make up for not having any for New Year's eve... After the fireworks we went for a stroll through Confederation Park, where the ice carvers were in full swing creating the most beautiful ice sculptures. We'll have to go back soon to admire the results. There were some smaller sculptures ready, and they were truly impressive! Dimitri took several pictures, maybe I can see if I can post some of his pictures.
The next morning we all slept in (so deserved!), and D&D were impressed with how quiet our neighbourhood is. Nice to hear! After some blueberry pancakes (homemade!), we headed to the canal to go skating. The ice was absolutely amazing and the weather could not have been better with temperatures around freezing and lots of sunshine. A real pleasure! By the time we left around 3pm, the canal was over-crowded with people, but it was really nice to see so many people out there enjoying the ice.
Afterwards we went for a bowl of soup at Pub Italia. Next time we'll have to try some of the beers there as well :) Denise and Dimitri left for Kingston at the end of the afternoon, and we took it easy for the rest of the evening and called it an early night, since we'd have to get up early the next day to go running.

It was just the three of us this time, since Ann is still on her cruise... So JoAnn, Nolan and I set off, but unfortunately JoAnn had to cut her run short due to some rib pains. Nolan and I kept running, and did our loop around the Government General office, a favourite, although it's even nicer in the summer when everything is green. But nonetheless we had a great run and I manage to get over 18km in, which gave me a much-needed confidence boost for the half marathon, which is only in three weeks!

That afternoon we had more friends coming, Scott and Bonnie, who are friends from Nolan from university. It was really nice to see them and their two kids and to spend time with them and catch up. So overall it was a great weekend, it just went by so quickly!

Snow!

2011-02-03T12:14:00.001-05:00

In a previous post (see here), I showed some pictures of Murphy, showing off his cute self. Since he's really good at that, I decided to add some more. Just one warning, there are a few of them...

But Fertile can look cute as well:

Quite the princess:

Murphy loves the stairs. His favourite place to sleep when we're watching tv.

Yesterday we finally had a bit of a snow storm. Sure, in some place it caused some havoc, especially in the United States, but I guess we got a little bit as well. I think in the end we might have ended with another 20 cm, but it was the blowing snow that really made it feel like we received a 2-foot dump.
A few more photos to get an impression. Next time there will be more text!

The treadmill

2011-01-28T19:56:00.001-05:00

First the good news: Nolan and I have both pretty much recovered from our ‘colds’, or whatever it was we suffered from. I’m not sure what it was, perhaps a chest cold? It felt like constant pressure on my lungs and sometimes coughing. It was interesting when I went for a run Wednesday night. It felt quite good and the legs were fine. But I had to walk for half a minute halfway through, just because I couldn’t get enough air in! Luckily I was still able to run about 5 km.

So now the ‘bad’ news: the thought of running that half marathon in February is only slightly worrying me an awful lot… What was I thinking??!! But I decided to get back at it, starting today. So once I’m done writing, and Nolan is done on the treadmill, I’m planning on running an 8k. Sunday I’m supposed to run 16km. We’ll see how that goes, but I am not too worried. A week and a half of taking some time off is not the end of the world, right?

In general I feel more lethargic simply because I have not run or done anything in the last couple of weeks. It’s funny how much of an effect that has on your daily feeling.

Work is going really well, though. It is quite busy, but most of it is fun, and I’m involved with some interesting projects. One of which is the Petawawa Research Forest and the National Research Forests in general. We also have a seminar next week on enhanced forest inventory, which I am also looking forward to. Always so much to learn. So yes, in general it’s all really good!

We passed the cold snap from last week. Sunday morning it was -39 with the windchill, and I didn’t even feel guilty for not going running. For me running is about having fun, and running in -39 weather does not qualify of having fun in my vocabulary.

Nolan is also doing well. He’s enjoying his new position and likes the group and his work. He’s also trying to get back into the running groove, but we both signed up for the half marathon in Ottawa, the last weekend of May, so we have something to train for again.

Well, he’s done on the treadmill, so my turn J

Sick...

2011-01-22T11:54:00.001-05:00

It happened. It finally did. I am sick.

It’s the first time that Nolan has seen me sick, so I guess on average I’m not sick very often. I’ve tried to fight it all week, but Thursday night I couldn’t pretend anymore. I was coughing the lunges out of my body, and let me tell you, it did not feel good. At first I thought I would be ok, and could make it to the CIF meeting on Friday, but that was a little too optimistic. I’m feeling better now, although a grocery run this morning tired me out some. But it was worth it, now we have a fridge stocked with fresh veggies and fruit again. And OJ to make sure we quadruple our Vitamin C intake

We’re in the midst of a, somewhat minor, cold snap. It was -23 this morning, and tomorrow we’re supposedly getting a high of -22. Crisp for sure! I’m not sure if I feel like running tomorrow, but if so, I might chicken out and hit the treadmill. Although, it is beautiful right now (or so it looks…), clear blue skies, lots of sun and white snow. But oh so deceiving when you step out of the door.

With my cold, or whatever it is, my running is definitely suffering, unfortunately. But I decided to just take it easy and feel better, before I really get back at it again. The half marathon is in 5 weeks, so I don’t have a lot of time, but as long as I can get some long runs in, I’ll be fine.

Work is definitely picking up as well. We have a lot of activities coming up in the near future, together with (year-end) deadlines, which makes for interesting times! But it’s all fun, so that’s good.

When we were in the Netherlands last year, Anne Mieke and Hugo gave us a painting of Rome, which my mom actually brought to Canada in October. We finally got around to get it framed, and we are vert happy with the result. It looks beautiful, both the painting and the frame. Look for yourself!

Below some photos of Murphy. For some reason he always manages to look cute. Next time I’ll try to snap some photos of Fertile as well, she can be cute as well J

Lucky!

2011-01-13T18:42:00.002-05:00

This past week I read a Dutch article, in which they talked about how Canada has changed its immigration laws, and that it has become virtually impossible to emigrate to Canada. I’m not sure if it is really that bad, but I realize darn well that I have been incredibly lucky that I was able to move to Canada when I did. And it didn’t stop there, looking back at how far I’ve come in the past 5 and some what years, it just was a big of a realization how happy I am that I made the decision to move to Canada, but also how lucky I was that I could do it.

In general life is just really good right now. Except perhaps that Nolan came down with a cold, but he is starting to feel better again. Or at least a little bit.

Work is picking up again, which I actually like. Last week was a little too quiet. My computer at work died this week, which was not fun. But now I have a brand-new little laptop, which is about half the size of the beast I used to have, so that is a bonus!

Winter has also returned, and we have snow again! Not a whole lot, but enough to cover the trails but still make them ‘runable’. Running is actually going quite well. I’ve picked it up a bit, and decided to run a half marathon at the end of February in Peterborough, together with Candice. I’ve run this half marathon before. Twice. But only finished it once, so I also see this as an opportunity to finally redeem myself! It also gives me a goal again to train for, especially since we decided not to run the half marathon in Ottawa this year.

Downhill skiing

2011-01-10T15:18:00.003-05:00

Last Friday it winter seemed to have made a comeback. We finally got treated to some fresh snow, and by the time it stopped snowing on Saturday, it had probably accumulated to about 20 cm of fresh snow. Finally! Our friend Kristina had asked earlier in the week if we were interested in going skiing with her on Saturday afternoon/evening. Nolan has saying for many weeks that he is going to take me skiing – something I had never done before. And so it actually happened! On a snowy Saturday afternoon we made our way up to Edelweiss, on the Quebec side. The drive itself was beautiful and helped with my slightly elevated levels of anxiety… When we arrived at Edelweiss, it turned out that we were not the only ones who had thought that going skiing on the first day of acceptable snowfall was a good idea. Deep down, or maybe not that deep at all, I just wanted to turn around after I saw the line up. However, we stuck to it (thanks guys!), and after about 45 minutes we had our passes, and another 10 minutes later I was fitted with skis. My boots were a tad too large, but I didn’t think that would be a problem, and would me keep my toes warm (or, better said: help them warm up again since waiting for 45 minutes with your feet in the snow makes for some very cold toes).

Kris and Nolan helped me getting started and the three of us ventured up the bunny hill. ‘All you do is make sure you slow yourself down and stay in control,’ said Nolan, while Kris demonstrated how you would do that. Sure, no problem, I though while setting off to go down the hill. But as it turned out, I was unable to slow myself down, or stop for that matter, and it didn’t take long before I had a close-up with the snow. After some struggles to get up, I tried again, and same story. I started to get a little nervous, which is really not helpful and thought that I would never learn! However, during the third attempt something seemed to click, and I was actually able to go down the hill without falling. And I kept going down the hill over and over again, and felt better and better. In the meantime Nolan and Kris decided to tackle the big hill, which was fine. The last thing I wanted was for them to babysit me! Although before he left, Nolan did help me out a lot and had some really good advice. He’s a good skier, but also knows how to pass on words of wisdom. Much appreciated!
I felt quite confident at the end, and would have gone down the bigger hill, but by that time it was dark, and that last thing I wanted to do was lose my confidence. The only thing I would do differently next time is the boots... They are a little bit on the large size, and to compensate that we tightened them too much, with the result that my lower legs were a little sore at the end and I have swollen ankles. However, they don't hurt and I didn't notice the swelling until after running.
So long story short, I actually really enjoyed it! I have to admit I was a little apprehensive at first, but was glad that they made me do it, and am happy to report that I found a new winter activity that I can see myself doing more often!

I was told I would probably be sore the next day… However, that was not even that bad. My calves were a bit tight, but nothing too crazy and we were able to go running Sunday morning, which felt good. However, today I can really feel my legs and my back is a bit tight as well, so I’ll have to stretch those out tonight. But it was worth it!

Back to Normal

2011-01-05T15:28:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year to you all!

And as the title says, life is back to normal. In more than one aspect. First of all, the holidays are over and we’re back to work. Nolan started his new job, and so far so good!
We spent some days over the holidays unpacking the last few boxes and cleaning up the basement. Now it looks even bigger! But it’s nice to have that space for sure. We already had a little work-out area with some mats and our treadmill, but now we’re dreaming of more equipment… Who knows, maybe someday?

Most of the snow melted on New Year’s Day after some heavy rainfall, but we received a new dusting yesterday, so at least it looks white again. We tried to go for a run on the trails Monday afternoon, but that was cut short since all the rain that had fallen on the weekend had frozen over (since it couldn’t be absorbed by the frozen ground), so the trails were better accessible on skates, unfortunately. But we are getting back into the running mode again. We both ran the 10km Resolution Run on New Year’s eve, and although perhaps not our fastest times (it’s a non-timed event), we had fun and it was nice to run in thinner tights and not having to dress up in 7 layers… Afterwards we had a great get-together with some friends to celebrate the New Year. This year we had a Thai theme, i.e. everybody was asked to bring a Thai dish. Huge success!

On New Year’s Day we went to see Legally Blonde, the Musical. Perhaps because our expectations were not super high, the show was actually cute and well done. Time well spent!

We also received some new furniture this week, so our house is looking more and more like a well furnished palace J I should take some pictures again soon. My laptop is about to die and is almost out of memory, but I’ll try to upload some pictures soon.

One last thing: we booked tickets to go to the

Netherlands

for Easter. This time it will be special, since we’re not the only out-own-town guests…

2010 in hindsight

2010-12-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

2010 has been quite the year for us. In a good way, for sure. Below is a summary of all the highlights of this past year. I'll try to do it in chronological order, although sometimes the exact date is a bit of a blur.

The winter of 2010 was marked by an unusual mild weather pattern. The snow was gone by mid-March, and the month of April was the first on record that did not produce any snow. We were able to go out snow-shoeing once, and even that one time we had to be careful not to hit any rocks. Needless to say that the mild winter meant a really good winter for running! Not that cold weather or snow scares us too much, but it was definitely easier to get out the door.

In early spring, both our jobs started to get quite a bit busier. Nolan was getting used to the management position, but it also meant additional responsibilities, and at times longer hours. I had a few trips to Petawawa, and one to Sault Ste. Marie, On. Besides those trips, I also applied for a job within my own group, and despite some stress and sleepless nights, and I manage to do alright, and got the position. So finally after many years of 'sticking to it', I got a permanent position with the government, but most important I got a job I really enjoy! For 2010, we were also in a different office building, while they are upgrading our main building. Our current building is much closer to our home, so I was quite happy with it. Most of the summer and fall I rode my bike to work, which was nice. We're scheduled to move back to our Booth Street building in April, if everything goes according to plan. The original plan was to move back before Christmas, but progress got delayed, so we're all curious to see when we'll be moving back. If it's up to me, they can wait until next winter ;-)

We went to Europe the end of April for just over two weeks. We spent a week with my parents, and then headed to Rome for a week, which really was our honeymoon. It was really nice, with gorgeous weather and so much to see! Since we didn't like the public transport (or any kind of transportation there!), we decided to explore the city on foot, and must have walked 20 km each day. Great way to somewhat stay in shape, while also enjoying the great food and wine! Definitely a place we recommend, and it sure felt like a honeymoon.

The spring also marked the beginning of our marathon training. We decided to sign up for a marathon earlier in the year, even though we remembered from last time that the time commitment was not to be underestimated. However, we figured this year would be different, since last time we moved into a new house, got engaged; so really a lot of other things happening in our lives as well. This year would be more relaxed, or so we thought....

Early in the summer, I also received a letter from Citizenship and Immigration saying that I passed for the Citizenship Test I wrote in February. Not really a surprise, since the test was quite simple. However, it was still an honour, and I went to the ceremony in August. Now I'm officially Dutch and Canadian! I'm happy I can keep my Dutch, but feel very privileged to be a Canadian now as well.

Early July, we started talking about perhaps moving to a single family home. Not that we did not like our town home any more, we felt this could be a good time to start looking for a new home. Not really thinking too seriously, we were about to contact our realtor, when coincidentally she had sent us a message, seeing how we were doing! We saw that as a sign, and started checking out some houses with her. To our own surprise, we fell in love with a house fairly early on, and decided to put an offer in. It got accepted, and we agreed on a closing date 6 weeks later. A little tight, considering we still had to sell our house! However, that went like a charm, and we sold our house one day after putting it on the market! We're very happy with our new house, and are currently deciding what colours we want to paint, what reno's we might do at some point, but we are also really enjoying our house! It has so much more space, privacy, great back yard, very bright and the cats love it as well. What else can we ask for!

During the house hunting phase we were still training for the marathon. Since we were the only two of our running group training for the marathon, we did most of the training on the trails near our home. Even though sometimes early (more than once we got up at 5 am to start running at 6 to beat the heat), we really enjoyed just being out on the trails compared to the pavement. Funny was that despite everything else going on, we found the training remarkably easier compared to the previous marathon. Maybe the next one will even be easier?? The marathon itself was far from easy. Never knew Montreal is so hilly, and the fact that we had a strong head-wind most of the time didn't help either. We didn't reach our goal, but still finished, and both felt afterwards that we should do this again to redeem ourselves! But not in Montreal, that's for sure. Any good suggestions?

Less than a week after we moved into the new house, I left for Jasper for a week, to attend the Canadian Institute of Forestry AGM and Conference. It was very interesting and a great way to meet some great people! Even though I enjoyed the time there, at the end I was ready to go home and actually enjoy the house. A week later my mom and Annette showed up for a visit. Luckily both Nolan and I were able to take some time off to spend with them, and we had a really nice visit. It was Annette's first time in Canada, but it sounds like she might be coming back someday! Too bad the visit was only a week long. Time just seems to fly during those visits!
A couple of weeks after their visit I went back to Edmonton and Jasper for a week for our annual employee forum. I'd been pretty busy with the organization beforehand, and was happy that everything went really well. The forum included a field tour which was interesting, since the temperature dipped to -28... But leave it to some foresters to still get of the bus and listen to the talks (and especially lots of respect for the people giving those talks! Brrrr!!).

Once back home, we didn't have to wait long for our next guests. Gijsbert and Anouk came for a visit, which was really nice. We all celebrated Sinterklaas together, and just had a great time.

Since I wasn't busy enough with work and everything else in our lives, I was also asked to join (and did) the Executive Committee of the Ontario Woodlot Association, as well as the Chair for the Ottawa Valley Section of the Canadian Institute of Forestry. I need more hours in a day!! But they are both great organizations, and I like working with them.

So a lot of text, but 2010 was worth while reflecting on. We'll have to wait and see what 2011 will have in store for us, but Nolan and I are very excited about our future together.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and we wish you all the best for 2011.

Katalijn & Nolan

Photos of...

2010-12-24T17:18:00.001-05:00

To start the holidays with a bang (and because I had to clean up my computer...), here are some photos of the recent past.

This is the result of one month worth of facial hair. All for a good cause, but I have to admit I like him better without it!

Remember when Gijsbert (aka Max) and Anouk visited? Well, somebody got a hold of the camera and started taking some artistic photos...

And below are photos of us snowshoeing this afternoon. It was a wonderful afternoon, and it was great to be out there, especially knowing that the rest of the world was still frantically trying to get those last groceries and get ready in general for Christmas. Christmas should be about peace and we definitely felt like that in the woods today!

It was the day before Christmas Eve...

2010-12-23T14:47:00.000-05:00

It was the day before Christmas Eve… Yep, that’s today, 23^rd of December. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, followed by Christmas Day on Saturday, and then stay-away-from-the-stores-day Sunday, also known as Boxing Day. I’m looking forward to the Holidays, that’s for sure. It will be nice to have a break from work, and more time for each other. As you might have noticed, the last couple of months have been busy for both of us. Work, house, running, life in general. Work has slowed down a bit in the last couple of weeks, but to be able to really get away from it for a week will be nice. Since work has been a bit more quiet lately, I was actually able to get a nice run it at lunch time today. And really, I should do that way more often! It makes you feel good, and helps with the energy level in the afternoon. New Year’s resolution perhaps? We also had a nice run last night, and it makes me realize that I miss not running more often, but life sometimes just gets into the way. Or do we let it get in the way? Maybe this year we can focus on doing more speed work and perhaps run some shorter races. It might help balance the time commitment...

Nolan will be starting a new job when he goes back to work on January 4. It’s still with the same company, but a different group. He’s looking forward to the new adventure and challenges, so he’ll start the New Year with a bang!

We’re hoping to take it easy the next few days. Try to finish unpacking those last boxes in the basement, get our snowshoes out (if there is enough snow that is), make sure we get our runs in, and just enjoy the season. We’ll be spending a couple of days in Brockville as well, which will be nice. Besides that, nothing too exciting planned, which is exactly how we want it!

Merry Christmas to all!

A little strange

2010-12-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

Just to throw it out there, I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or any of that stuff. However... Ever since we've moved into this house, we've heard some strange noises, which we normally just blame on the 'newness' of the house, the wind or other elements, and we'll just get used to those subtle sounds. So really, nothing too crazy.

Today was slightly different. We came home, and the Christmas lights around our deck were on, which is normal. But we also have about half a dozen regular lights that were installed mainly for use in the summer. In order to turn those on, you need to flip a switch outside, which is protected by an all-weather cover (similar to those covers that cover outdoor outlets). To our surprise, those lights were on! We haven't had those on in quite a while, and were quite surprised to see them on. Since there is snow on the ground, I went outside to see if there were any footprints. Perhaps one of the neighbour kids decided to turn them on? But no suck luck. The only prints that we saw (and that were in the direct neighbourhood of the switch), were prints of a squirrel. Now the question remains: do we really have a squirrel that is so thankful for all the bird food that we leave out, that it decided to turn on the lights for us? But if so, how was it able to lift the cover of the switch?
Or is there another explanation??