Our First Wedding Anniversary

Wakefield, Quebec - March 16-17, 2007

Motel Alpengruss ~ our room

The view from our balcony.


Snuggling in front of our roaring fire!


Restaurant Alpengruss - fine German food ... if bacon and eggs count as fine German food.

The Wakefield Mill ~ now a hotel and spa retreat.

The Wakefield Pont Couverte (Covered Bridge)

Le Mouton Noir (The Black Sheep Inn) where we were privelaged to hear Great Lake Swimmers; an authentic southern Ontario band.

The quaint town of Wakefield in all it's snowy glory!

Surprise!

Guess who came to visit me this weekend? Lorien!!! And guess what else? We both inadvertently bought the same scarf and we have the same shoes too!! Pretty crazy! But not surprising. I think we have a lot of the same taste in clothing. Lots of people in high school used to think we were cousins. Don't you think we look alike? Maybe we did more in high school.

To tell the truth, she didn't come down just to see me. She actually came down for the baptism of her new niece, who is named after her. Our friends, Chris (her brother) and Charlene, just had a baby girl whom they named Helena Rochelle. Rochelle is Lorien's middle name. That's pretty cool! I would love to have a niece name after me ... wink, wink, nudge, nudge .... just kidding. I wouldn't wish my middle name on anyone!! yikes!

Anonymity

You will notice that I have added some more links to the side of my blog. This is mostly for my use, easy access to blogs I read regularly but they could also be considered as recommended good reading for those looking for somewhere to go after reading my blog. You might be wondering why I have just added these links. It's not as though I haven't been reading these blogs avidly every moment I can, I just feel sort of weird about putting the links on my blog. It feels as though I am exposing a bit more of myself by doing it. There's nothing to be embarrassed about by these links, they are all fine upstanding citizens, friends or otherwise.

In other news, I finally started working on scrapbooking our Wedding. It's very nerve wracking because I want it to be perfect but it's also fun because I do love to scrapbook and when the final product is great, it makes me happy! Here's a reminder of our wedding day.

YYC

Another trip means another blog post. This time our trip was business not pleasure, well, business for me, at least.

I had a 2 day training course and Reuben got some time off work to accompany me. We left on Tuesday evening around 6:30pm. The cool thing was that we boarded the same aircraft that my parents had just deplaned from (they were arriving home from Tampa). But we didn't actually meet up with them because they had to go through US Customs although we did see them through a window. Our flight was fairly uneventful, no turbulence and a bunch of interesting shows to watch on TV, although by the time we were landing I was getting pretty antsy.

We grabbed the shuttle to our hotel, the Country Inn & Suites and checked in without any troubles. Our room was quite nice, but upon arriving I realized that I would need to book a taxi for the next morning to get me to the training centre and when I called the front desk, the agent was really hesitant about actually being able to book one for me, which we both thought was sort of strange, I mean how hard can it be to book a taxi for a Wednesday morning. Well, about 20 agonizing minutes later, I get a call back that he had managed to book me a taxi so that was a sigh of relief. We promptly went to sleep. In the morning we partook of the obligatory continental breakfast. We had been quite happy recently with the development of "make your own" waffles at every hotel we had stayed at in the last half year. But although they provided this service, the taste was quite mediocre. How disappointing!

After breakfast, Reuben called the transit company and figured out which bus and train to take downtown and I climbed into my taxi and was off to training. The training was interesting. I met up with some old friends from back when I was working in Toronto for the Maintenance department and the trainer was quite engaging so all in all it wasn't a bad day. The only interesting bit was at lunchtime. They had told us we would be able to pick something up at Tim Hortons, which was just across the street. Well, it was a little further than just across the street and there was no sidewalk or lane to get there. We had to walk through a field and of course, it had been snowing since the night before and we were not wearing adequate footwear. I say "we" because there was another lady there from out of town who also had to purchase lunch. So, at least I didn't have to go alone. Our feet got quite wet!!

The training was done by 2pm so we hitched a ride back to the hotel and I hung out and watched TV till Reuben got back. We had agreed to meet at 5 but, fortunately, he came back around 3:30pm. So we watched some TV for a bit and then decided to head out for dinner. Not having a vehicle made our decision quite easy because there was only 1 restaurant within walking distance, Chili's. It's a Mexican Grill place. We walked around the block to get to it and then realized that there was actually a gate in the fence behind the hotel and we could've got out right into their parking lot from there. We did that on the way back home. Anyway, so it was a pretty nice place, quiet and they were playing the Senators hockey game. Reuben had a hamburger and I had this scrumptious garlic shrimp pasta dish. I had leftovers, which I thought would work out well for my training class the next day so we put it in a container we had and put it in our ice bucket full of ice to keep it chilled over night. That actually worked quite well.

The next day, I got a ride to the training with the other lady who was staying at the hotel. And Reuben took the bus/train downtown again. He went up the Calgary Tower. The training, again, was quite painless and I managed to score a ride to the airport after it was done. I met up with Reuben at the gate and we had an uneventful trip home even though there was crazy weather and it seemed like every other flight was delayed or canceled except ours!!!

So that was our trip. Stay tuned for the next one . . .

Stone Road Mall

Click on the picture below to see more pics of Hadassah on our little outing to the Stone Road Mall in Guelph on February 19.

Hadassah

New pics of Hadassah

Just in case you are wondering, I've posted some more pictures of Hadassah on my other site. Enjoy!

The Magic of Winterlude

There is something magical about skating on the Rideau Canal in February. Thousands of people flock to the Ottawa area for Winterlude every year. I think it's the city's biggest tourist draw. I guess we have to do something to help ourselves get through the long, cold winters. As I get older, Winterlude has less and less of a draw for me. All of my memories of skating on the canal are fraught with cold feet, sore ankles, sore back, cold nose, getting left behind because I'm too slow and just generally not liking the experience. The only good thing about Winterlude is the beavertails, those sticky, sweet pastries loaded with brown sugar, cinnamon and just a hint of lemon. But wouldn't it just be so much better to not have to eat them with your mitts on and your scarf sticking to your face??

Winterlude is a time for many gatherings. Our little church swells with visitors during this time. Family comes from far and near and friends jump at the chance to come and hang out downtown during this frigid time. I dread this time of year. As the only chance to hang out with people is to tighten up those skates and join them on the ice, where my feet invariable cramp up and I run out of energy all to quick. Nobody seems to understand the feeling of panic when everyone you know skates out of sight around a corner laughing with delight; not even realizing you are struggling to keep up. Being torn between wanting desperately to take off the dreaded skates and curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and wanting to join in the fun everyone else is having, that's the magic of Winterlude for me. Not very magical.

Tampa Take 2

I thought I would divide up the post a bit. So, read the second one first, ok?!!


This is me on Indian Rocks Beach just taking it all in!!!!!Here's Reuben taking it all in and then using this wash station to wash off his sandy feet.


Here's us in our Mustang Convertible!!!

Here's some pictures of downtown Tampa ... the sun came out in the morning and it was just gorgeous!


And if anyone asks us if it was worth it to go down for under 24 hours, we would both emphatically say "YES"!!! It was just so nice to get away from the cold winter air!! Stay tuned for our next crazy adventure!:)

Tampa

Well, it definitely is a wonderful life. Reuben and I decided at the last minute to go to Tampa this weekend. We just wanted to be warm and do something crazy! So, we hopped on the flight Saturday morning. It turned out that we flew with my friend, Kimberley, from work, Reuben and Jodi and Chris and Charlene Van Popta. They were heading out to Vancouver for Grandma VanPopta's funeral. Kimberley was going to Toronto to visit her family. Our flight was through Toronto, which was ok except we had a delay in Ottawa and we had to go through Customs in Toronto. We had to run to catch our flight only to sit on the tarmac for an hour and a half to be deiced. This was definitely frustrating but we were relaxed because we didn't have a huge agenda when we got to Tampa, we just wanted to be on the beach!


After this delay, our flight was uneventful and when we landed in Tampa and saw the snow-free, sunny runway we were so glad we had done this. As we exited the plane, we caught a breeze coming in through the cracks in the gate and were even more excited, a fresh, warm breeze! sigh! So wonderful!!!!

So after getting our luggage, we went to get our rental car and lo and behold they had a Mustang convertible available so we snatched it.




Then we drove to the beach, put our toes in the sand and even into the ocean(it was cold!!). It was cloudy and windy but still a lot warmer than Ottawa and we just basked in everything.

I made a QUILT

Here's a picture of the quilt I made for Hadassah.
I'll admit that Karin helped me quite a bit but I did all the cross-stitching and most of the sewing of the pieces together. YAY!! I hope she likes it.
We'll be going down for her baptism this weekend. Shhh!!! It's a surprise (the quilt)!:)

Tim's Christmas Poem

Check out Tim's Christmas Poem. It's simply amazing! Touching, really.

Hadassah Rein

My new neice was born! Check it out at http://diaryofanaunt.blogspot.com.

Our Holidays

Well, it's the New Year and time for a recap of our holidays. As my husband has done this with pictures, I shall do it with words.

Finally, a week off together since we've been married and did we ever enjoy it. On Friday, Dec 22 we stayed home and had a scrumptious dinner of ham and perogies along with a bottle of homemade white wine given to us by one of Reuben's colleagues. Then
we opened our gifts to each other.

Reuben bought me the most beautiful jewelry box from the Bombay company and along with it a necklace, which he'd found, which I'd lost on our honeymoon. I got him tickets to an Ottawa 67s game and a gift certificate for dinner beforehand.

The next morning, we had a scrumptious breakfast of waffles and then headed out around 12:30pm for Waterdown. The drive was uneventful and a lot more pleasant than when we drive at night. That evening we spent catching up with the Helder family with good food and a fun game called Hoopla, a variation of Cranium.

On Sunday, we did the church thing and for dinner we had a steak fondue with lots of different sauces, yum, yum. Then we exchanged gifts. We also had to write poems. Lawren had Reuben's name so he adapted a Spirit of the West tune and sang it to him. Reuben's mom had my name and she also got me a jewelry box!! I really like it to so I decided to keep it but also thought I could share it with Reuben as it's not too girly! We also got chocolate letters and other small things.

On Christmas day we went to church in the morning and then relaxed the rest of the day. We had Oma Helder over and had a feast of turkey and all the fixings!!

On Boxing Day, we got up and drove straight to Arthur to hang out with the Buist clan. My parents with Rich and Emma had driven up the night before and Karin and Josh arrived about the time we did from their shindig in Port Stanley (Josh's hometown). We had hors d'oeuvres for lunch and then dove right into the gifts. We always have lots of laughs at this time. This year, my dad decided to count how many gifts there were. Suprisingly, there were 101! Craziness. Well, our family has now grown to 11 people so it's not a surprise. The big surprise was that my Mom bought my Dad, a James the Butler. We have been eyeing this statue for so long that it has become a long running family joke. Come on over to my parents' place and you can see him in his rightful place serving my Father. I couldn't find a picture online.

For dinner we had lasagne and then just hung out the rest of the evening, talking and walking and playing Sequence. We drove back to the Helders that night.

On Thursday, we drove home during the day and except for the traffic in Toronto it was also uneventful.

For New Year's Eve we went to the Wildeboers and had a nice time with the church congregation ringing in the New Year.

Our weekend

Raclette at my parents with Mom and Dad Helder and Karin and Josh.











Us at the Museum of Civilization with the Parliament Buildings in the background. We didn't have a tripod so it's pretty blurry. We were trying to make a nice Christmas card picture but as you can tell, it didn't quite work out. Also it's freezing cold and pretty windy.









Reuben and his dad dress up at the Canadian War Museum. We had a really nice time there. If you're in the area you should really check it out. It's definitely worth it. We were there for 3 hours and we didn't get to see half the stuff.









Here we are outside the Canadian War Museum with another attempt at a good picture of us with the Parliament Buildings in the background. Again, very cold and windy. Oh well.










And this is our bench, finally at home in our home. We just love it. It fits perfectly and adds a nice touch to our appartment. Thanks Dad!!

School - UPDATED

Ok, so I was going to quit until my wonderful husband convinced me that he would take care of all our house chores until I was done. So I took a deep breath and am planning to dive into it again tonight. Wish me luck!

School

I don't know how people do it. 40 hrs of work a week plus a night class that includes hours of homework especially as the semester comes to a close and things get more advanced in the class. At the same time, Christmas is coming and you have a home to regularly maintain.

I've overstayed my welcome in this class.

Bye COBOL ... it was nice getting to know you but I hope I never see you again!

Wet Cement

Ok, so does anybody else like the smell of wet cement? I know this sounds really weird but I do like it. . . a lot! I love walking through the tunnel at our church, it's so old and cementy! One of the first times I noticed the smell was walking in the parking garage at Carleton University. I loved the smell as I climbed the stairs. And today, I noticed the smell again as I took my daily walk through the parking garage at the airport.
I tried to google it to see if I was just weird but I found one forum where they were talking about pregnant women and the weird smells that they like. One woman really liked the smell of gasoline!? Now that is crazy!

Our bench

Dad Helder is making us a bench out of an old church pew. It just needs a couple of coats of varnish and a way to get to Ottawa and we'll be able to sit down to tie our shoes. We can't wait to see it in place.
We plan to put a shelf with some hooks above it. I keep threatening Reuben that I will fill the shelf with nicknacks and hang dried flowers from the hooks. Wouldn't that be nice?!

Raleigh Pictures-UPDATED

I thought I would add some descriptives of these pictures.
This is my attempt at rollerskating. I look pretty confident don't I? Good thing you can't see me that well:)
While in Raleigh we did a quick tour of some show homes that were decorated. They were all quite lovely. This is Reuben having some fun.
Reuben has wanted to drive one of these since doing a project on it in highschool. It's a Lexus IS300. And it's my aunt & uncle's. So he finally got the chance.
While touring the Capital buildings downtown Raleigh, we got to test out some of their stationary canons.
These are some of the flowers blooming around the Capital building
My favourite cousin with my favourite man, what a sweet picture!

This is for my Mom

*This program is intended to collect savings account data
*and store it into a text file.

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. SAVINGSDATA.
AUTHOR. IRENE HELDER.
DATE-WRITTEN. OCTOBER 25, 2006.

*Maintenance Log
*Name Date Explanation
*--------------------------------------

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT PRINT-FILE ASSIGN TO 'A:\SAVINGS.DAT'
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL.

DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD PRINT-FILE
RECORD CONTAINS 36 CHARACTERS.
01 PRINT-LINE PIC X(36).

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
*All the variables needed for storing the data.
01 WS-SCREEN-SAVINGS.
05 WS-ACCOUNTNUM.
10 WS-ACCFIRST PIC 9(5) VALUE 0.
10 WS-ACCHYPHEN PIC X VALUE "-".
10 WS-ACCLAST PIC 99 VALUE 0.
05 WS-NAME PIC X(17) VALUE SPACES.
05 WS-AMOUNT PIC ZZZZZZ9.99 VALUE SPACES.
05 WS-TERM PIC 99 VALUE 0.

*Other variables needed for running the program.
01 WS-OTHER-VARIABLES.
05 WS-COUNTER PIC 99 VALUE 0.
05 WS-MORERECORDS PIC X VALUE 'Y'.

*Variables for printing data to the file.
01 WS-PRINTLINE.
05 PR-ACCOUNTNUM PIC X(8).
05 PR-NAME PIC X(17).
05 PR-AMOUNT PIC 9(7)V99.
05 PR-TERM PIC 99.

*Control variables.
01 WS-CONTROLS.
05 WS-SAVE PIC X VALUE SPACES.
88 SAVE-DATA VALUE 'Y','y'.

*Details how the screen will display.
SCREEN SECTION.
01 GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE ACCOUNT NUMBER:"
LINE 2 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC 9(5) USING WS-ACCFIRST LINE 2 COLUMN 34 REVERSE-VIDEO.
05 VALUE "-" LINE 2 COLUMN 39.
05 PIC 99 USING WS-ACCLAST LINE 2 COLUMN 40 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTNAME.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE NAME:" LINE 4 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC X(17) USING WS-NAME LINE 4 COLUMN 24 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTAMOUNT.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE AMOUNT:" LINE 6 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC ZZZZZZ9.99 USING WS-AMOUNT
LINE 6 COLUMN 25 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTTERM.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE TERM:" LINE 8 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC 99 USING WS-TERM LINE 8 COLUMN 24 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 SAVE-RECORD.
10 VALUE "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAVE THIS RECORD?"
LINE 10 COLUMN 2.
10 PIC X USING WS-SAVE LINE 10 COLUMN 37.

01 MORE-RECORDS.
10 VALUE "WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD ANOTHER RECORD?" LINE 12
COLUMN 2.
10 PIC X USING WS-MORERECORDS LINE 12 COLUMN 39.

01 ERROR-MESSAGES.
05 SCR-FIRSTERROR.
10 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER 5 NUMBERS BEFORE THE HYPHEN"
LINE 3 COLUMN 2.
05 SCR-SECONDERROR.
10 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER 2 NUMBERS AFTER THE HYPHEN"
LINE 3 COLUMN 2.

01 CLEAR-SCREEN.
05 LINE 2 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 3 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 4 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 5 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 6 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 7 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 8 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 9 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 10 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 11 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 12 BLANK LINE.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.

CREATESAVINGSACCOUNTFILE.
PERFORM A100-STARTUP.
PERFORM A200-PROCESSRECORDS
UNTIL WS-MORERECORDS = "N" or "n".
PERFORM A300-FINALIZE.

STOP RUN.

A100-STARTUP.
OPEN EXTEND PRINT-FILE.

A200-PROCESSRECORDS.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED A200 PARAGRAPH'.
DISPLAY CLEAR-SCREEN.
INITIALIZE WS-SCREEN-SAVINGS.

PERFORM B100-GETDATA.
PERFORM B200-SAVERECORDS.
PERFORM B300-MORERECORDS.

A300-FINALIZE.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED A300 PARAGRAPH'.
CLOSE PRINT-FILE.

*I left the code in but commented it out because I can't get it to
*work properly.
B100-GETDATA.
DISPLAY GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.

* PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL WS-COUNTER = 5
ACCEPT GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.
* INITIALIZE WS-COUNTER
* INSPECT WS-ACCFIRST TALLYING WS-COUNTER FOR CHARACTERS
* BEFORE '-'
* IF WS-COUNTER <> 5
* DISPLAY SCR-FIRSTERROR
* END-IF
* END-PERFORM.

* PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL WS-COUNTER = 2
* INITIALIZE WS-COUNTER
* INSPECT WS-ACCLAST TALLYING WS-COUNTER FOR CHARACTERS
* BEFORE '-'
* IF WS-COUNTER <> 2
* DISPLAY SCR-SECONDERROR
* END-IF
* END-PERFORM.

* DISPLAY CLEAR-MSGS.
DISPLAY GET-ACCTNAME.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTNAME.

DISPLAY GET-ACCTAMOUNT.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTAMOUNT.

DISPLAY GET-ACCTTERM.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTTERM.

B200-SAVERECORDS.
DISPLAY SAVE-RECORD.
ACCEPT SAVE-RECORD.
IF SAVE-DATA PERFORM C100-PRINTVALUES.

B300-MORERECORDS.
DISPLAY MORE-RECORDS.
ACCEPT MORE-RECORDS.

C100-PRINTVALUES.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED C100'.
MOVE WS-ACCOUNTNUM TO PR-ACCOUNTNUM.
MOVE WS-NAME TO PR-NAME.
MOVE WS-AMOUNT TO PR-AMOUNT.
MOVE WS-TERM TO PR-TERM.
MOVE WS-PRINTLINE TO PRINT-LINE.
WRITE PRINT-LINE AFTER ADVANCING 1 LINE.