Wow...long time without writing....

It has been far too long since my last post. So much to get you all caught up on. So, here goes.

September.... for the first time I entered the Three Day Novel Writing Contest. And yes, I wrote a novel in three days. Hard to believe but it is true. They say that it is the world's most notorious literary marathon and I believe it. It is exhausting and exhilarating and a roller coaster of emotions as you go through it. The title I sent the novel in with is The List but I think I would like to change it to The Greenwich List. If you ever get to read the damn thing, you will see why.

School started for all of us right after the novel contest ended. I am, of course, still at Stelly's in the library. Miyuki started grade 11 at Stelly's and Nick is at Alexander working with a terrific young kid named Adam. I personally have a fondness for Adam since he told Nick that he should 1. Make dinner for me, and 2. Bring me flowers. Nick did both and Adam gave him a high five! LOL. Thank you Adam!

At the end of September I had the amazing opportunity to take a group of students to We Day in Vancouver where we heard an amazing group of speakers including Craig Keilburger, Mia Farrow, Jane Goodall and the Dalai Lama.

To see the video I made of our experience, click on the little arrow at the bottom of this picture to make it play.

It has lead this terrific bunch of kids to start fundraising for Project Hope, specifically to support an orphanage in Jo Slovo, a township just outside Cape Town, South Africa.

We have had a couple more couchsurfers stay with us. There was Meaghan who is cycling from Terrace to Mexico with her sister

and then we also had Paciano and his daughter Maria, originally from Mexico but now living in Montreal.

We are still in touch with Klaus from Wolfenbuttel. He has had good news from his doctors and is hoping to be back this way soon. Woohoo! Klaus, you are always welcome at our house.

Speaking of couchsurfing, we took the plunge and bought our tickets to Europe. We are flying to Paris and then to Trapani. We are spending two weeks in Sicily and then will take the train up through Calabria, Abruzzo, Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan, Monaco, and back to Paris. We are all sooooo excited.

October was fun and uplifting. On Thanksgiving Day, Nick drove me down to Victoria at a ridiculously early time because I was going to walk the 8k in the Royal Victoria Marathon. I didn't think that I would be able to finish it, but amazingly I did!!! The weather was wonderful, and the walk was actually really pleasant. As I started out, because I was walking, all the runners streamed past me. Then the walkers started to pass me. I thought to myself, 'This isn't so bad - I bet none of them have had knee replacements.' Then I was passed by an old man with a neck brace, support hose, and a walker. Hmmmm. That was a little humiliating, lol. His name was Wally and he actually finished the race about 20 minutes behind me, but I was astounded that he finished! The trick, for both of us I suspect, was to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. It was a good walk...I was, however, ready for it to be over by the time it was done. Nick and I drove home after and we threw the turkey into the oven. The three of us had a nice quiet Thanksgiving dinner and we all agreed that it was nice to have a relatively quiet long weekend.

The following weekend I had a conference to go to in Vancouver so I went over on the Thursday night and stayed with Leslie. It was good to see her since we don't get to see each other all that often. On Friday, Nick and Miyuki came over and we spent a nice couple of days visiting in Vancouver. We made a trip to Daiso in the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond and spent far too much money on Japanese kitsch. Miyuki and Leslie went off to do some errands and Nick and I went to visit his friend Rick from back in Ottawa. Rick and his family are living in North Vancouver and he is finishing off his doctoral thesis on developing business plans with Aboriginal bands. He is doing it through Cambridge University. Nick and Rick had not seen each other in years so it was a nice visit. That evening, Miyuki, Leslie, Nick and I strolled down Davie Street and ended up by English Bay. We had dinner at Milestones and watched the sun go down. It was a lovely way to end the day.

Halloween was terrific. We decorated the yard with pumpkins, a giant blow-up zombie graveyard and body parts hanging out of the back of the Volvo. Miyuki went trick or treating with her friends in Victoria as well as attending the Comicon downtown. It was a great weekend.

Sadly, November started with some truly terrible news. Miyuki's very beloved voice teacher, Bev Medford, passed away peacefully of cancer on November 2nd. Bev was one of those people who was a true gift to this world. She gave love and energy and music to all around her. She changed people's lives and she changed Miyuki's life. Miyuki, of course, was distraught, as were all the other music students whose lives had been touched by Bev. These are the words she left for her students.

Forwarded from Ashley Foot:

Sing a song for Bev today.

A Message from Bev

Dictated to me on my second to last visit with her on October 16, 2009

To all my students over the years,

All the pleasures, love, and learning experiences that I have had over the years with you have taught me many things. However, one thing stands out above all: life needs music.

The greatest music in the world is still out there for everyone to hear.

I have always tried to make music fun for my students. If they continue to work hard at their studies, it is something they can keep for their whole lives.

Music will always be a part of your life, whatever paths you choose to take.

Always do your utmost. Never give up. Always strive for a goal.

Then you can appreciate all your life, the love that is music.

"You may not play football when you are 92, but I bet you can play the piano!"

Beverley Medford (passed away Nov 2, 2009 at 10pm)

R.I.P.

Bev's youth choir, Flying Free, sang Seasons of Love at the celebration of Bev's life. It was moving and wonderful and brought many tears to everyone's eyes. For me, the saddest thing, as I watched these wonderful young people (including Miyuki) was that they would never sing again as part of Flying Free. Bev gave them so much, and they gave back to her as much as they got. Nothing will ever replace that.

There is nothing more that I can say about that.

The day after the celebration of Bev's life we got word that Miyuki was selected for a three month exchange to Japan. Both Miyuki and I believe that there was no coincidence about the timing of that. Bev's message to all of us was to grab life with both hands - take full advantage of every opportunity. This is Miyuki's chance to do just that. Thank you Bev. So Miyuki will be leaving the beginning of February and coming back the end of April. She will be staying with the Tsuda family, and their daughter, Ikumi will be staying with us.

Next week, Miyuki's Musical theatre class will be performing a medley of musicals including Sound of Music, Annie Get Your Gun, My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly, and Westside Story. She has parts in Annie Get Your Gun and Hello Dolly. She has been working her butt off for that. On top of the musical, she is madly sewing hats for her first craft fair which is at Discovery School at Shawnigan Lake on the 28th. Pictures of all this when I get them.

So, this brings all of you up-to-date on our lives. I will try to post more often. Ciao for now.

Someone sent me this story about a cool librarian from Akron, Ohio and I just had to share it.

It has been a few weeks since I last updated, but we have been very busy. Miyuki now has a job. She was hired last week by Sterling Shoes - they are opening a Shoe Warehouse in Duncan and she is one of their first hires. She is thrilled. That girl is all about shoes, I must say! She has also started a small business making toques with animal ears. She has her first 4 orders and she is very happy.

We have had more couchsurfers come to stay. The last couchsurfer was an amazing man from Germany - Wolfenbuttel in Lower Saxony to be exact. His name is Klaus and he is 65 years old. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year and in February had surgery. His surgery was successful but his cancer had spread. He decided to postpone radiation and go travelling instead. He stayed with us for 5 days and one of those days he hiked the Cowichan foot path - a 20K, 7 hour hike! He has been travelling pretty consistently for the past couple of years and off and on for most of his adult life.

We also hosted a girl from Germany - Caro. She is 22 and was doing a year of study at UNBC in biology. So, we had to take her to the Pacific Northwest Raptors! She was finished her year at UNBC and wanted to do a little travelling before she went home.

We also continue to be "under construction". The siding has been going up on our house for the past few weeks. Actually, it is pretty much all up now and there is only a few clean up things left to do. Once it is all done, I will put up pictures of the finished product. It has been really stressful for Nick - I know he just wants to have it all done but renos take time.

We have started planning our trip to Italy next summer. We were initially thinking that we would only go to Sicily, but now we are thinking that we will fly from Paris to Trapani, travel through Sicily, take the ferry to Calabria, and take the train up through Italy stopping in Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan before we go back to Paris. We are all pretty excited about this and Nick and I have been working hard on our Italian! His, of course, is MUCH better than mine.

So, all is well - busy but well. When I have more pictures I will do another post.

The big news around our house today is that Miyuki got her L! This means that she and I will be taking the big boat of a Volvo stationwagon down to the old Canadian Tire parking lot and practicing driving up and down every night for at least a couple of weeks before I let her get out on the road, LOL. I think that I should invest in stock in L'Oreal because I am going to be buying LOTS of hair colour to cover up the increased grey I will be acquiring from teaching her how to drive!

On another note, we have had another couple of couch-surfers stay with us. Melissa and Mike are from Wyoming and are a very nice young couple. Melissa is a tea expert and taught us all about different kinds of tea. She even, very kindly, left us some. She sells tea for a company called Let's Do Tea.

So, before I go much farther with this blog, I need to tell you all about something very cool that we have been doing. We have become members of a group call Couchsurfers - www.couchsurfing.org - couchsurfers from all over the world register a profile on the site and then you can either host travellers or stay with people. There is no charge for this but the purpose is not to have free accomodation but to meet people from all over and share experience and culture, etc. So far we have had 3 sets of guests and we have one more coming next week and another in August.

This lovely couple is Denis and Heather from Wellington, Australia. They were our first guests.

This is Vicki from Mount Albert, Ontario. At 54, she packed up her life and is spending the next 3 years travelling across Canada. Her website is www.questacrosscanada.com.

This is Fabio from Ottawa. He and his two kids (both cuties) are travelling across Canada and the States.

So while Miyuki and I were away enjoying the weather and the company at Camp fYrefly, Nick was at home overseeing renovations on our house.  We had the kitchen reno-ed in January and it looks wonderful.  

So now we are having the outside of the house re-sided.  They have pulled off all the vinyl siding and will be replacing it shortly with Hardiplank.  The house will be white with brown and cranberry trim.  It was a good thing that we had all the siding pulled off because we found out that the wood under the sunroom had started to rot so we are having all that wood replaced.  We also found out that there were not enough posts holding up the sunroom so we are having more posts added and more insulation added.  In the middle of all this the hot water tank went.  Fortunately we caught it before we had a flood.  This is definitely our year to focus on the house!

 

Miyuki and I spent our first few days of summer at Camp fYrefly.  Camp fYrefly is a camp that was started at the UofA for queer kids and their allies.  This is the first year UBC has put the camp on and it was a wonderful experience.  I was there as an adult volunteer but it was such a great camp and the kids were so terrific that I got as much out of it as the campers did.  Here are a few pictures:

Makiko has been at our house for one week now.  She is a very sweet girl with a good sense of humour.  She has fit in with us very well and we have been having a good time, if a really busy time.  Here are some pictures of what we (and she) have been doing.

This is the day we picked up Makiko from the bus station.

We stopped at the top of the Malahat on the way home so Makiko could see some of the Island.  It had been snowing off and on all day, even though it was the 15th of March.

Miyuki was teaching Makiko about World of Warcraft on the computer.

Miyuki and Makiko went shopping together in Duncan.

Makiko and Miyuki made a chocolate cake for Nick's birthday.  It was very YUMMY!!!!

This is Nick and Bill (Nick's friend).

Today we went for a picnic at Bright Angel Park.

After Bright Angel Park, we went to Cowichan Bay (Cow Bay) and had ice cream and went to the Pirate Shack.

After Cow Bay, Nick took Miyuki and Makiko to ride on go carts.