Category Archives: Family

April 4, 2010 · 7:42 pm

A Happy Easter to all

Christ has risen. We spent the day celebrating from the sunrise service to church to home and a big family gathering.

Now I am sitting here listening to the kids banter about the Amazing Race in the living room while outside the grandboys and grandtomboy are playing in the yard. The baby is babbling away in her mom’s arms. The contented aftermath of a good Easter spent together, too much good food and good family times.

We had another guy join our table today too, Miquel from Columbia. He was invited to join us at church this morning by Yaounde and when he was about to protest that he couldn’t come and interrupt our family dinner, Massa told him that they wanted him to come, that we were his family and he wanted him to feel welcome. And we found that Miquel doesn’t have a lot of friends that he hangs out with. I’m glad he joined us. I do love having a full table.

And Christian made it home in time to eat leftovers. He spent the last day in Provost. If you look up the history of that place you may discover why it was less than a good time. I guess they had guys in white sheets not so far in the past in that town and he ran across some interesting comments that mostly made him confine his time to his room. They probably won’t play that town again.

But now I am rather tired. I’ve eaten enough that I should go for about a four hour walk but have no energy left.

Tomorrow.

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Filed under Easter, Family

April 3, 2010 · 5:33 pm

Holy Saturday

Today has been a busy day, full of good things and sad things and not much studying.

Since the midterm is done and I have almost caught up on my reading for the Old Testament class it feels as if I have gotten some of my life back this weekend. So today was filled instead with grandkids, some yard work, a memorial service, the never ending grocery shopping and a visit to my Aunt up at Mt. St. Joes.

Sara is home for the weekend too and I hear her down in the kitchen mixing up some carrot cake cupcakes. I will need to get the house organized for tomorrow’s Sunrise service on the river bank tonight too. The sun is up early – 6:30 am. I will get out of bed and make coffee and then the service will begin.

So, I suppose I should get a move on. Watched Julie and Julia last night. Better not let blogging take over although there is not much risk of this becoming a book.

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Filed under Day to Day, Easter, Family

March 13, 2010 · 8:51 pm

Big Day Tomorrow

Today was the day in between.  Yesterday was the second birthday of a Lanoie princess. 

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Tomorrow – well I’m not sure what that makes me but for sure I’m no longer a princess.  But the princess’ grandmother turns a year older too.

So we are having a little party.  It should be nice enough to have do some burgers on the barbeque.  Burgers and junk food.  Cake and such. 

It will be a good day to celebrate our lives and family.

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January 9, 2010 · 8:04 am

So here I am

Made it to Toronto last night about midnight their time. The flight was good – not full, so I shared a seat with myself.  Every introverts dream seating.

I watched a good Canadian made movie about a single mom from Palestine moving to the US – the challenges of moving to a new place with racial and religious prejudice.  That helped the 3 hours pass faster.  I also read one of the books I need to be up on for my course.

And my book promised for delivery by Jan 8 did not arrive by Jan 8, so I am short on the required reading.  The joys of living in the boonies. 

But anyway, I am sitting here in Rachelle and Asen’s living room while Ronin watches his new DVD and plays with his cars.  He’s a good kid – let me sleep in his room last night on his comfy bed.  It is fun to see him and his mom and dad too.  This afternoon I will let Rachelle do a pedicure and manicure and all sorts of esthetic wonders on me as I visit her at work.

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Filed under Family, grandchildren, Travels

January 2, 2010 · 7:58 am

Pushed to efficiency – but no rest in sight

It seems as if a strange phenomenon happens to me – when I get busier, I become more efficient.  Therefore, I suppose I should look on the unexpected events of this week so much as an inconvenient imposition on my time maybe but more as a helpful impetus to efficiency.

One week from today I should be on my way to Chicago to take a J-Term intensive class at my denominations seminary.  The class material looks good and the professor is an old colleague from the Congo. Well, actually, he is probably not “old” at least not exactly older than me but we have known each other for a considerable time.  The class is entitled Pastoring the Missional Church.  Even though I’m not likely to ever pastor a church in an institutional setting the material speaks of a subject that I feel a connection to – how to interact with the culture in which I find myself in ways that are consistent with the teachings of Christ; how to live out my faith in ways that demonstrate God’s love and care for the people I interact with.  This I know is something I am called to even if the setting for me is uncertain now.

So, anyway, I have a lot of reading to do to get ready for the class and a couple of short papers to write reviewing the books. 

On top of this, I have a Greek quiz to get done this weekend.  So, this evening or tomorrow afternoon that is one thing I will be doing.

And then circumstances threw another big change into my schedule. Got a call on Tuesday that a space had opened up in a very nice home for my aunt but that we should either move her there on Thursday (New Years Eve) or next week.  Since next week I have a full slate of patients and since this kind of a move involves a huge amount of time for paperwork and packing not available when I am working, I chose to get the move done this week.  So far, the past three afternoons have been entirely taken up with this move and I expect today will be no different.  But today should finish the move.  I hope.

I have found that in spite of the full schedule things are getting accomplished.  I don’t have a lot of time to just relax though and very little time to enjoy the outdoors like I was anticipating.  But –37 C is a little cold for outdoor activities anyway, eh?

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Filed under Day to Day, Dealing with stuff, Family, Studying

December 29, 2009 · 4:31 pm

A Christmas Review

In past years I was on here posting stuff almost daily.  Not sure what has happened.  Maybe it is a sense of disconnect from you real people out there and less of a need to write stuff out to myself.  I’m not sure.

Christmas has come and gone and we had a good time here in our home.  All the kids and grandkids were home, all but Rachelle, Ronin and Asen from Toronto.  The house was full and noisy and the kids had fun.  It was fun to watch them interact with Ronin on Skype.  Seeing Rachelle and family helped ease the pain of separation – more than just a phone call.  Seeing has great value in communication I guess.

Dave, Annette and kids stayed for most of the week.  I love having them around even if the house gets to be a mess. They are just easy to be with and sit around and watch TV and play games with. 

Today Leo was back at work and I joined him, Eric and Michelle and Kimia for lunch at Shenanigans.  Leo got me a new phone image

that was Bluetooth compatible so that I could set up a hands free connection for the car.  We stopped and got one problem with it sorted out on the way to lunch.  Now I have to learn to use this new phone.  I don’t know if I really like it.  It does too much and although it will be nice to download ringtones and maybe take a picture or two, it does more than I really need or want.  The keyboard is nice for texting – which I do occasionally – so that feature is nice.  But I spent hours trying to figure out stuff and if the learning curve is too steep for my purposes, I wonder if I will just hate the thing and hardly use it.  It also is very square and does not feel nice in my hand – kind of clunky – so I don’t know.  Functional things should have some aesthetic value besides functioning.  Shouldn’t it feel like it fits my hand?  Maybe I ask too much.

The rest from work should allow my thumb to heal up. It is still very sore when I do certain things.  Holding a pen is still quite painful.  and holding a pen is very similar to how I hold a handpiece unfortunately.  I guess I must have torn the ligaments around the Metacarpophalangeal joint.  It will have a few more days to heal before I have to get back to work and I suspect I won’t let it slow me down too much. 

Other than eating too much and being generally quite lazy, a lot of my free time has been spent studying.  In two weeks I travel down to Chicago for an intensive seminary class on the missional church.  I will enjoy the class but there is quite a lot of reading and a few book reviews that I must get ready.  I plan a stopover in Toronto to visit Rachelle.  I sure hope the extra security becomes more efficient so that I can take a carry on and not have to spend 6 hours in line.  Maybe it would be faster to rent a car and drive from Toronto.  I guess I will just need an extra measure of patience. 

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Filed under Christmas, Family, grandchildren, Studying

December 14, 2009 · 6:56 am

This waiting time

Waiting for an exam at Christmas time is not a good way to prepare for the coming of Christmas.

Or is it?

It means that every moment of my day has to be thought out. Can I get some good studying done? Should I take a break now and put up some decorations? How much of my time should I give to my kids who need babysitting so they can get some important things done?

What are my priorities when it really comes down to how I use my time? I guess this has been the question foremost in my mind these days. What are the most important priorities when I am living out my life stressed by too many demands on my time and at the same time trying to walk through life as a follower of Jesus?

Just trying to live out my relationship with God as I take care of my family, myself and my work. Trying to maintain some sort of balance and sanity. Besides studying and passing a midterm. Thus not much blogging or deep thoughts.

I will be so glad when I have a short break from work between Christmas and New Years.

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Filed under Day to Day, Family, grandchildren, Studying

December 9, 2009 · 12:37 pm

Things a Grandmother should not have to do

Among other things – sedate and do dental work on a grandchild.  He  did not like it at all.  He drank the juice fine but from the time we got him to the dental chair and started the work it was downhill.  We had to hold him down and then the cavity was deep enough to need a nerve treatment.  So much for a small and easy job.

One more of those sessions to go.

When he came to the office this morning he asked his mom why he couldn’t visit Grandma at her house rather than her office.

I guess I will survive.  As long as he forgets the fight to get the work done and as long as he still likes coming to my house.

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Filed under Dental, Family, grandchildren

December 6, 2009 · 2:56 pm

Zaka’s Party

This Friday I got a call at noon just as I was sitting down to dinner out with the School Dental Program staff, I got a call to tell me that Zaka was having a daycare Christmas programme at 3.  Luckily for me, we had finished up at both schools early and I was free for the afternoon. 

So, I got to attend my first school programme for one of my grandchildren.  The kids were ready when I got there and they had to wait for the parents to arrive to sing their songs.  They were getting restless and Zaka ended up having to sit off to the side away from the friend he was pushing off the chair.  And then he kept peeking in through the door of the room behind him where I suspect a bag of toys was being assembled. 

There were a few tears – par for the course at a preschool programme and then some very enthusiastic singing as they got into things.

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And the highlight was a visit from Santa of course.

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Filed under Christmas, Family, grandchildren

November 29, 2009 · 7:59 am

Caging the Beasts Otherwise known as Babysitting

Last night we were babysitting for Kimia so her parents could go to the law society’s Christmas event.  We enjoy this and thought we’d share some babysitting wisdom with you.

How to keep the kids out of trouble –

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keep them in the pet kennel.  And send in a friend to play with.

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(actually, keeping them out once they discovered it was impossible.)

And then you wear them out so they insist on getting their coat and shoes on and stand by the door until they are too tired to stand and just pass out on the rug.

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What a girl Kimia is.  She is going to give her parents a few challenges I think.

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