In Canada this long weekend is known as Thanksgiving. Like most other students away from home, Stephen and Judith have come home for the long weekend. Today Ingrid made us an amazing turkey dinner with pumpkin pie and home-made cranberry sauce. During the meal we each had a turn to tell the rest of the family something that we were especially thankful for that has happened in the last 12 months. We all agreed that Judith's response to her chemo was the real biggy. Other things to be thankful for included admission to Queen's University (both Judith and her boyfriend,) assurance of a job for Stephen when he finishes university next year, and Sean's job progression over the last year. I nearly included the Springboks' Rugby World Cup quarter final win over Fiji today after giving us all a huge fright by allowing Fiji to score two quick tries with only 14 men, but decided that wasn't quite in the same league of personal thanksgiving.
So what has happened in the six weeks since my last post?
In a nutshell:
Judith has moved into res. at Queen's University in Kingston,
Stephen has gone back to Queen's for his final year,
Sean has cracked a bone in his foot,
Luisa (Mark's girlfriend) has come back from Holland to Toronto and started her Master's,
Mark came back with Luisa, just for a week,
Heather (Stephen's girlfriend) has left to go to India for two months,
Miriam is working full-time on finishing her Master's,
Terry and Ingrid are now taking care of Judith's guinea pigs,
and, of course, Opa came to visit for 12 days at the beginning of September.
Calabogie
Ingrid and I had booked to go back to Calabogie Lodge for a week at the beginning of September and we invited my father in law in Holland (everybody calls him Opa - Dutch for Grampa - his name is Joop) to come out and join us. You can link to the photo album I put together from the links panel on the left. While there we did a one day outing to Ottawa, going to the Museum of Civilization in Hull. The highlight there was probably the IMAX movie on dinosaurs.
On another day we drove to Algonquin Park, one of Canada's most famed national parks - some would say the most famed. At 7725 sq km it is roughly 20% of the size of Holland (41 526 sq km). Seeing as Joop needs a walker to get around we chose to do the Spruce Bog Boardwalk as the most accessible of the trails. See the photos in the album.
The other big thing we did that week was eat. Every evening Joop hosted us to dine at one or another restaurant in the area. It was great. The closest we came to a fast food chain was buying the odd cup of coffee from a Tim Horton's outlet while we were driving.
On our drive back to Toronto we went via Kingston so that Opa could visit Stephen and Judith at their university town. While there, surprise, surprise, he treated us all to lunch which the "poor" students took full advantage of.Autumn colours
Last weekend Ingrid and I took another drive up to Algonquin Park to view the fall colours - not only at the park itself but also along the beautiful drive there.
Not far from the park we stopped at a place called Henrietta's Pine Bakery to buy sandwiches for lunch in the park later. Now Henrietta is a very South African name and one of about five flags flying outside the store was South African so we could not resist asking some nosey questions. Sure enough, the store is run by a South African couple from Nelspruit and Pretoria who came to Canada two years before we did. Henrietta was the aunt who started the store many years before. Their wares did not disappoint. The carrot cake was the best we have had since coming to Canada - in no small part because they make the icing with cream cheese like you are supposed to. Here is a link to a review of the bakery..
