COBOL

hey everyone, I'm in my night class right now at Algonquin college. So, it's sort of boring because it's really basic right now. I don't know if that's because it's a college course or just because it's the beginning of the course and I've done programming before. You do need 2 prerequisites to take this course but I'm not sure what everyone else's background is.

The stereotype is that College is easier than University. Is that the case? Or is it just more practical than theoretical. Well, I'm just glad that my course is easy right now, I don't know if I can handle a full day's work and homework and school. I guess I'm not the first one to attempt it so I should be able to do it.

If this doesn't make sense it's because I'm half listening and half typing this blog. It's very distracting having the Internet right in front of me. I end up starting to look something up and totally block out the teacher and then realize I've missed something that could be important.

haha ... life of a student. This includes leaving your homework to the last minute!

Happy studying all of my fellow students!!

The Morning Routine

Mornings ... I've always hated mornings. The alarm clock sounds and you emerge drowsily from sleep to a new day. There is that moment when you just want to turn off the alarm and roll over and go peacefully back to sleep but then you realize that you must arise and face the day with all it's joy and trouble. I've never been one to ignore my alarm and oversleep. There is some sense of duty and of not wanting to disappoint that makes me rise and shine. Before marriage I was always a total groucho in the mornings not wanting to communicate with anyone. Living on my own seemed to encourage this mood. Now that I am married, sometimes I wake up grumpy and Reuben is happy sometimes Reuben is happy and I am grumpy. Oh wait ... I'm still the grump. Ok, so most days Reuben has to really encourage me to cheer up and be happy, get out of bed and face the day. He always thanks God for a good night's sleep and good jobs to go to. How come I find it hard to pray this in the morning. Having just woken up, it's hard to believe that I have had a good sleep. Especially, last night when I tossed and turned with a severe headache until 2 in the morning, when I forced myself to take advil and then tossed and turned the rest of the night but at least without a headache. But this morning Reuben woke up more grumpy then I've ever seen him in the morning. He's sick. He has a sore throat and we hardly spoke one word to each other.
I'm not sure what my point is. I guess I was just pondering the difference now that I am married and have to communicate with someone in the morning. About the fact that I love waking up with someone rather than alone. And that inevitably my day is better because of this.

Reuben's Birthday Weekend

It's time for another long and boring post. Work is very slow so I am going to write as much as possible because I have nothing to do here and I'm trying to make the day go by just a little bit faster. Anyway, it's almost lunchtime so that's a good thing.

This past weekend it was Reuben's birthday. We knew we wanted to do something special and since travelling is our specialty we spent some time working on where to go. Eventually, we decided on Brockville and Merrickville, both within an hour's drive of home. We had thought Calgary at first, to take advantage of my working at WestJet but then it was so far away and we didn't want to spend them money to go to the mountains so we opted for something closer to home. Plus we hadn't been to our own church for 4 weeks so it was good to be home for that.

On Friday after work, we headed out with our suitcase to Brockville. We took the 416 up to the 401 and got off the 401 at Prescott and then drove down Hwy 2 to Brockville. This was a little more exciting than the 401 as it follows the St. Lawrence river. There were some great views and great countryside homes to see! In Brockville we drove around to find a restaurant and ended up at the Brockberry Cafe. It is a small, family run business but the choice, wine and food were all excellent. We loved the wine we had, not sure what it was, something Italian! Reuben had his famous Philly Cheese Steak sandwich that he always gets and I had a great salad with Thai chicken and mandarin oranges. We had bruschetta to start so we were too full for dessert.

Then we checked into our hotel. It was a really nice room! I couldn't wait to give Reuben his birthday present (his actual birthday was on Sunday) so he opened it then. He was very surprised! It is a GPS locator. We've been having lots of fun with it!

In the morning, we checked out the complimentary continental breakfast and were dismally disappointed. There were some dry croissant bagels with jam. Some bread, muffins (not fresh). And coffee and orange juice. oh well, we filled up anyway. On the road we decided to skip the Brockville Farmer's Market and used our GPS to get to Merrickville. We had to pass through Smith Falls' and since Reuben had never been to the Hershey factory we stopped by and purchased some much needed chocolate. Then it was on to Merrickville. It was sort of a cool and windy day but at least the rain held off until we left. We toured around the cute shops, saw the locks and had some lunch at the Yellow Canoe cafe. It was a nice time, I'm glad we went.

On Sunday, we had a very fun dinner party at my parents' place. Ribs, chicken, fettucine, salad and a wonderful chocolate mousse dessert birthday cake.

Then on Monday we were supposed to have a church picnic but the weather was decidedly not picnic-like. So we grabbed all the food we had planned to bring and brought it to Mom & Dad's and had a smorgasborg dinner.

All in all, a wonderful and memorable weekend.

Book Survey

One book that . . .

1) changed your life: A Time to Kill by John Grisham, what horrible things humanity can do

2) read more than once: Lots of books, I don't mind reading books over and over. I've read all of Rosamunde Pilcher's books at least twice

3) want on a desert island: My Hardy Boys collection for sentimental reasons and maybe some survival tips.

4) made me laugh: Any Miss Marple book by Agatha Christie, she's so cute!

5) made me cry: Pretense by Lori Wick

6) wish had been written: i don't know what to answer for this, i'm not very good at coming up with ideas

7) wish had not been written: Anything by Catherine Cookson

8) Currently Reading: No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

9) Meaning to Read: more of the Bible

Pictures from Dina and Josh's Wedding

Melissa Bremer - Bridesmaid

Dina and her Father

Joel Muis - Best Man

Pieter Gelms, Jocelyn Ludwig and Brian Jager - waiting for the reception to start

Devon Hummel

Cutting the cake

Eating the cake

Joel and Jocelyn

Reuben and I


Someone was parachuting outside the reception

Whirlwind Weekend

Last weekend we drove down to southern Ontario for Josh and Dina's wedding. We had a fairly uneventful trip except for the long line-up at Wendy's and the gross public washrooms at the rest stops. But that wasn't unexpected, I suppose. We arrived at 9:15pm and after some snacks and chatting with the fam we headed to bed.

The wedding was at 11am in Brampton so we had a nice breakfast of pancakes and raspberries and got ourselves together. When we were about 5 min away, I realized I had forgotton to put my rings on and I really wanted them for the day so we turned around. We then realized we had forgotton a couple of other important things(I can't remember what they were) so we lost a total of 15 minutes. When you are late, Murphy's Law states that you must hit every traffic light on the way to your destination, which we did. Fortunately, we did not get lost. We arrived at the ceremony, in the nick of time. Stressful!

I don't have pictures uploaded yet but hopefully, I can get them before the end of the week. It was a beautiful wedding, a wonderful sermon, melodious music and tear jerking vows!:) Everything was great! The stand up reception was scrumptious, lots of yummy cakes etc.

We had about 5 hours to kill before the reception so a group of us went to Turtle Jacks, around the corner seeing as Brampton was too far away from our homes to go back in between. Jocelyn, Pete, Tim, Brian, Chris, Reuben and I sat at the pub until 3:30 or so. It was beautiful weather and good company. Then we decided to head towards the reception and maybe we would spot somewhere else to hang out on the way. Brian found The Bramalea City Centre mall on the map so we headed there. We walked around the mall for an hour and a half.

The reception hall was beautifully decorated. We had fun at the reception. The food was great! It was a bit warm at first but it cooled down later on. The entertainment was pretty good and it didn't end too late. All together a very nice day!

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, thankfully we didn't have church till 11am because we weren't asleep until 1am the night before. We left again around 3pm. On the way, we picked up Josh's brother Scott from Brampton. We didn't end up leaving Brampton till 4:30pm because we miscommunicated about where we were meeting, but at least we found eachother.

This weekend we are going to Waterdown again. We have a Helder family picnic on Saturday as well as some birthday celebrations for Reuben, even though his birthday isn't till September 3.

A lonely weekend

I miss my husband! He has been gone for 3 long nights. Every August long weekend, he and his friends go camping. This year was no different. I've heard many stories of these trips which is the reason I don't go. Also, because it's camping. And haven't I done enough camping for one summer?! phew! Anyway, they went to Guelph Lake which is a good 6 hour drive for him, all by himself. He should be on his way home right now and I am anticipating it greatly! The problem is, I don't know when he will be home so it's the great waiting game. As mentioned previously, I am not the most patient person in the world so I am seriously hoping that he is home when I get there.

I've realized over the weekend that while I can manage on my own, as I have before. Life is very boring when you don't have someone to share it with. I miss having someone to talk to, someone to make decisions with, someone to argue with, someone to sit silently eating breakfast with and someone to pray with.

Reuben, you are loved and missed, come home!

More Pics

Reuben on Canada Day, Downtown Ottawa


Me on the Ferry to Cumberland

Travel Bug

Why do I have the travel bug? First, let's define this term "travel bug". I've read that it is "a certain restlessness to visit sites that till now exist only in the traveller's imagination". This sounds about right. I think that it is also a restlessness to just get away from it all. For me, it is sort of linked to my laziness, my love of planning and the way I grew up. My parents and I have been travelling our whole family existence.

Soon after I was born, my dad took my mom and I to Switzerland for 2 years. He was doing is post doctorate at the University in Zurich. My mom and I also lived in Holland for about 3 months while Karin entered the world. After we moved to Ottawa, I don't know how many times my father has been to England, France and Germany to colaborate with colleagues, sit in on thesis exams and give lectures at various universities in these countries. My parents have also been to Israel, Hawaii and San Francisco. My father has also travelled to many different cities in the United States and Canada, all in the pursuit or recognition of scientific discoveries. So, as you can see travel was a big part of my growing up.

As a family, we drove to Winnipeg and Taber, Alberta coming back by way of the northern States. We also drove back and forth to Burlington, ON countless times to visit relatives and friends. In highschool, I had the privelage of visiting Quebec City, Toronto and Boston.

When I finished University, I rewarded myself with a month long trip to California. I spent quite a bit of money doing this. I had no job lined up for when I came back. I think this would be the traits of a travel bug or wait am I a travel bug or do I have the travel bug:) Ok, so to rephrase. I think these are the symptoms of the travel bug.

I guess it was inevitable that I began to work for WestJet, an airline, in the business of travel. Since starting here, Reuben and I have gone to Vancouver, Edmonton and Victoria, not to mention the many flights between Toronto and Ottawa. Since dating, we have also gone to Halifax but that was pre-WestJet. This year we are still planning to go to Winnipeg, Halifax(again) and Raleigh. But we are driving to Raleigh, as it's a lot cheaper and less hassle even with a good airline deal.

I love to travel. I hope we can keep travelling. Our big trip for next year is Paris, southern France and Barcelona. We hope to travel with my parents and my Dad's cousin, Ina. We also hope to meet up with friends who are living in Holland but will meet us in Paris.

I could go on and on about travelling, maybe I'll write some more posts at a later date on the joys and also the hassles of travelling.

Camping Pictures

My toes on our early morning canoe and Reuben dismantling our sleeping structure.

Camping Round 2

Bon Echo is a beautiful park. It's about 2.5 hrs from our place. The campsites only take up a third of the actual park and there are 300 of them.

Why is camping considered such a wonderful pastime? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Also, if my husband is so enamored with it does that necessitate that I become enamored as well?

What's the point of bringing modern conveniences to the woods, like trailers, when you are meant to be roughing it?

I find, even in myself, such a contradiction between loving luxury and conveniences and wanting to get away from it all by living in the country and doing things simply.

So, our camping trip. Well, it was fine. Except for having to use the Ladies Room in the middle of the night, 3 times the first night. The weather was beautiful. The scenery was beautiful. Our air mattress didn't deflate, too much. The water was warm. S'mores are yummy but messy. The mosquitos bit and bit and bit forcing us to go just a little bit mad. The food, provided by my mother-in-law was plentiful and good. We had a romantic, early morning canoe on the pristine lake.

I really hate to say this but I am glad I don't have to go again till next year. I just love my creature comforts too much. I love not having to share a bathroom with other people not to mention a gazillion different species of bugs. I love not having to wear bugspray and then hopping in to bed soaked in the stuff. Oh wait ...I promised myself I wouldn't turn this into a rant ...

Sorry, Reuben.

Please save

The problem with the computer being that if you are typing a wonderfully, long and inspiring paragraph about important topics, it will invariably freeze on you and be unable to recover anything.

This just happened to me ... bear with me as I try to recover.

So, I beg and plead with you to please hit save if you are writing for longer than 30 seconds.

A long time

Well, it has been a long time since I've posted. Almost half a month. We've been busy. Work has been slow. There is not much to fill my hours here but I get by and it's better than nothing, I guess.

So, for the Canada Day weekend, Reuben and I went downtown Ottawa and stayed overnight on Friday night at the Radisson. WestJet uses this hotel to board it's airline crew when they have to stay overnight, so they give all employees a really good room rate. It was a really nice hotel and we enjoyed our stay there. For dinner, we walked down to the market and ate at an Irish Pub. I had a chicken boxty, which was sort of a chicken stew wrapped in a potato pancake. It was really rich and flavourful! Afterwards, we walked around some more and ended up eating some really horrid dessert at Carmello's on Sparks Street. It was really sweet!!! oh well. On Canada Day, we went to Parliament Hill and sat on the lawn along with thousands of others and watched the end of the Musical Ride on a big screen because we were too far back to see it even though it was right there. And then Stephen Harper and his family came along with the Governor General and her family. We heard a couple of speeches and a couple of musical acts. Then we walked over to Majors Hill park and checked out the scene there. We were really hot and the sun was beating down. I was pretty spent by this time.

We were signed up to help out at the Ottawa Mission for Men at 2 so we had to cut the festivities short and walked over there. We served food and cleaned up in the kitchen till about 5:30. Then we walked back to our car and went home. My parents came over with pizza and we went to Dairy Queen for dessert. It was a nice evening! They were meant to stay and watch the local fireworks from our balcony but when they didn't start at 10 they decided to go home. Just after they left the fireworks started so Reuben and I watched them on our own. There was a really big tree in the way but we could see the really high ones. It was still really nice!!!!

On Sunday, we witnessed little Zachary Hart's baptism. It was a really hot day, again.

Last weekend, we spent Sat morning with some friends from WestJet. They had organized a morning at Thunderbird Miniputt/Driving Range and Go-Kart. So we did that. It was hard getting up early and heading out there. And then it was really hot and sunny!! We had fun. Reuben really enjoyed the go-karting. I got off the track after 3 rounds. It was sort of uncomfortable and I'm just not competitive enough, I guess. Oh well. So then, in the afternoon we went shopping, which was fun! Oh and on Friday we both got off work early and went to see Superman Returns. It was decent! Nice cheesy love story and not too violent or obscene. Yay!

On Sunday, we got up early, again and drove to Montreal with Mom, Oma N, Karin, Josh and Emma. We went to the ERQ church in Laval where my cousin's baby Ezekiel was being baptized. The service was in French but they had a copy of the sermon in English printed out so that was really helpful. It was nice to see our Jager family again! Unfortunately, Corrine had to head back to Raleigh right away after church:( Whereas, we went up to Derek's parents' cottage, just north of the city. We had a nice afternoon. Good food and good fellowship. The weather was hot and sunny, again and so I tried to stay in the shade. I would have gone swimming but apparently, the bottom of the lake wasn't too nice to stand on.

On the drive home, we stopped at the Chateau Montebello for drinks. They made a mighty nice sangria!:) Then we got on the ferry at Masson and crossed over to Cumberland, Ontario. It was only a 5 minute ride but fun nonetheless.

This weekend we are going camping at Bon Echo. It should be another hot weekend so hopefully, it will be a great improvement on last time we went!!! I'll let you know how it goes.

Soccer

This is perfect!

Sweater Sets

Is "sweater set" one word or two? Ok, weird question, I know. I bought this sweater because it's cold at work but not that cold, it's summer. My sweaters are all big, bulky, winter sweaters. So, I found this really nice green one. And I love it. Although, it's sort of the type of sweater you'd have as part of a sweater set, but it only came with the sweater not the matching tank top for underneath. Anyway, I sort of feel old wearing it. I mean isn't it only Grandma's that wear sweater sets? Despite the fact that I feel old, I also feel good about myself. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure whether it looks good or I just feel so comfortable but still dressy. Usually when I dress up I'm not comfortable but today I am.

So, here's to comfortable sweatersets and Grandma's who wear them!!!!

Another baby!!!

Wow, I can't believe I blogged about Alanna and Brian's baby and not about Amanda and Derek's. Amanda is my cousin, one of the family of cousins that we grew up with in Ottawa. She lives with her husband, Derek, in Montreal. They had their baby on Thursday at around noon. Here's a link to Ezekiel's site with lots more cute baby pictures:) Congratulations!!!

New Hart Baby

Just wanted everyone to know that there is a new Hart baby!

Zachary Curtis Eelco Hart was born on Sat. evening. He is the son of Brian and Alanna Hart, there are more details and pictures on their blog.

Third Anniversary and Father's Day

Yesterday, was Father's Day, our 3 month anniversary and it was also really hot! Our church does not have air conditioning and Reuben doesn't handle heat very well. It's like he sweats but it doesn't cool his body off, he just keeps getting hotter and hotter. It's hard to watch because I don't know what to do for him.

We didn't do anything to celebrate our anniversary, just mentioned it. We're saving it all up for our one year. I'm wondering if anybody celebrates monthly anniversaries in their first year of marriage. I suppose it's sort of silly.

As for Father's Day, we planned a great evening meal including ribs, green beans, baked potatoes, coleslaw and the piece de resistance was my frozen chocolate mousse squares and frozen banana chocolate ribbon cheesecake. MMMMMMM!!!! It was all really good! Anybody want to come over for leftovers, we've got lots of cake left. This is because both my brother and sister, Diana, couldn't come. So it was just the 6 of us.

We got my Dad a personalized license plate for Father's Day. We've been planning to do this for about a year but just haven't got around to it. It says "dlta 4ce". This is what he calls his research group. Delta has something to do with enzyme activity. If you remember the delta symbol from calculas, it signifies change. Anyway, he was really, really surprised!! We can hardly ever surprise him but this time we got him. I think he really likes it too. It will come in 6-8 weeks. We also got him some golf balls for his upcoming trip to the Maritimes with Rich and a cell phone cover, which he desperately needed.

All in all, it was a fun day despite the heat!

Camping - UGH

Ok, so we went camping. My family doesn't camp. I've been camping maybe 3 times in my life and each time it's been so frigidly cold I said I'd never do it again. I guess my parents never camped because they never camped as kids. Well, anyway, they just aren't the type to think that it's an adventure. I guess that's why I have the same mentality.

Well, Karin and Josh have been going camping with their group of friends for the past 3 or 4 summers and this time they invited Reuben and I along. We thought it might be fun to hang out with these people and get some camping in. Reuben grew up camping every summer. He loves it, he's used to it.

The weather didn't promise to be very good and we just about canceled. At the last minute we decided to stick it out and go anyway. Even though as we were packing the car, it was pouring rain and 10 degrees. I was trying to be brave and stick it out for Reuben's sake.

The weather didn't get any better. Our air mattress didn't stay inflated. We couldn't go swimming cause it was too cold. We sort of wished we knew our fellow campers a little bit better as it would have made for better bonding.

The good things about the weekend (because I hate to complain about the whole thing) was that sitting around a fire really is very enjoyable (if you don't get smoked out). And hearing rain on your tent is quite soothing.

We nearly went home Sat night. It started raining again and I had just about enough of being dirty, cold and uncomfortable. I can't imagine camping for a whole week!!! But we toughed it out and stayed overnight.

We're scheduled to go camping with Reuben's family in July. What should I do? Any tips to make it more enjoyable.

Another fun-filled weekend just passed. We had our friends, Josh and Dina, over from Brampton. On Friday night we did some groceries so we'd have enough food to feed them. And then we cleaned up the apt and did some dishes. They arrived around 10:15 and we sat and chatted till about midnight.

On Saturday, we got up around 8 and the guys went to play a round or two of squash while I got breakfast ready. Homemade waffles with whipped cream, bananas and blueberries. Mmmmmm!!! Then we got ready to go downtown and left around 11am. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very nice and it pretty much rained the whole day. But we trudged through and toured around the outside of the parliament buildings until we were allowed to go inside. It was an open door day so we could go wherever we wanted. We went up the Peace Tower, saw the Memorial Chamber, the House of Commons and the Senate. And last but not least we got to see the newly renovated Library of Parliament. It's been under construction for 4 years. But it was worth the wait. It was very beautiful! I will try to get some pictures up soon or get Reuben to put some on his blog. After this we decided to get something to eat as it was pouring rain. Our original plan was to walk around the Market but it wouldn't have been much fun in the rain. So we went to Darcy McGee's pub on Sparks Street. I had an excellent Summer Tomato Soup and some fries along with a warming cup of cocoa. The rest of the day was spent in our apartment warming up, playing games, eating pizza and watching a movie.

On Sunday, we went to church and between services we went for a nice walk by the river. The weather was gorgeous, sunny, warm with a slight breeze! After second service we went to my parents' for dinner with Mike and Diana, who were also down for the weekend. Josh and Dina left around 7pm. We had such a great time with them! We hope to do it again soon.