ladyblog

You just never know what you’ll get in an email . . . this is what we got today!

Congratulations Irene and Gordon - We love you!

Last Tuesday we had a mini reunion with friends from Toronto. Marge, Malcolm, Trevor, Julie, Taylor-Ann, Mackenzie, Jory, Kyle, Kim, Steve, Sarah, Alex, Timothy and Staci all came for dinner! These dear friends were a huge part of our world when we lived in TO and it was just like old times. Well, except for the fact that the children have all grown so much. We had a quick dinner of chili and subs and then Eddie, Malcolm,Trevor and Steve went to the hockey game - Ottawa Senators vs Toronto Maple Leafs . . . the Leafs won 4-1. Meanwhile, Marge, Julie, Kim and I went to Salem Storehouse (where I work part-time) and then had a nice visit. Julie left early and took her family back to the Minto Suites where they were staying to enjoy the pool.

The next day it was just Marge and Malcolm with me and Eddie. We made another trip to Salem then enjoyed some Pho at our favorite restaurant, Saigon Boy. Eddie had some work to do in the afternoon so the rest of us had a double feature downstairs and drank tea and ate cookies all afternoon. It was another one of those special times with dear friends. Here are some of our memories.

Gene (my nephew), Tracey, Sophie and Niko came to visit us all the way from New Hampshire. They had high hopes of skating the Rideau Canal - but once again it didn’t happen. Jason and Irene arrived later in the week and just like last year the temps rose and the canal started to melt. This year was much worse than last year. In fact, Thursday (Feb. 25) was probably the worst day I’ve experienced in Ottawa. It was raining heavy wet snow and the roads were icy and slushy. But, we didn’t let that stop us from having fun. Gene and Tracey took the kids to the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau where they enjoyed the Children’s Museum. Thursday night Jason arrived and we all over-ate pizza and wings. The next day Irene arrived. Irene, Tracey, Sophie and I had a “bonding” time working on our knitting projects. We even visited a LYS (local yarn store) together. Sophie was very excited and when she walked in the store she exclaimed, “This is a dream!” as she looked up and down the bins of yarn. Yes, she went home with a great start for her stash - not bad for a seven year old.

Because of the bad weather most of our activities were indoors. Eddie, Gene, Tracey and I went to our new T & T Asian grocery store. You can see from our photos that there are aisles and aisles of soy sauces, lots of live seafood and Chinese decorations. Of course, we also had a Vietnamese PHO dinner one night and dim sum the next day. The obligatory trip to the ByWard Market was fun too. We had a quick stop at a tea shop and went to the Rideau Center looking for some Olympic clothes.

I’d say that we made some pretty special memories. The kids were adventurous, fun and full of energy. I’m happy that Jason and Irene were able to be with us too and I look forward to them coming to Ottawa one day and actually getting to skate or walk that canal.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of our time together - there is nothing better than being with family! My next blog will be about our visit with some friends from Toronto. We’re looking forward to it!

(BTW, in the YouTube show below, for you knitters out there the Olympic toques were lovingly made by Thea Kathy and that awesome lavender hat Sophie’s wearing was a great find from the Market.)

Happy Chinese New Year! Early Saturday morning, Feb. 13, Eddie and I drove to Toronto to celebrate Chinese New Year Eve with the family. As usual it was a feast lovingly prepared by my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law, Irene. We all over ate and enjoyed this festive tradition together. Then we either exchanged or received our little red packets and went home with turnip cakes from Alice (lobako - mmmmm). After our meal Eddie, Mom and I did some browsing at Pacific Mall - probably the worst day of the year to do this! After dropping Mom back home, we said our good byes and started our long four-hour drive back to Ottawa. Here are the pictures from our gathering. Peter, once again thank you for sending me that beautiful music that is the background for the pictures. Irene, thank you for having us all over to celebrate as a family. Kung Hei Fat Choy everybody ! !

The Waddell’s planned to visit us for the weekend starting Friday, Feb. 5. Around dinner time on Thursday Scott phoned to see if they could come that night so they’d have a full day here Friday. Eddie and I went to bed at our usual time and and they arrived around 12:15, let themselves in and got settled without us hearing a sound. This was a great idea because it gave them extra time to go to Gatineau for snow boarding and skiing. Then on Saturday, after dim sum, we all went to Confederation Park to see the ice sculptures. Eddie and I came home after that (it was REALLY COLD) and the Waddell’s skated the canal. They started downtown and went all the way to the end - about 7 km.

We had such a fun time together. Thank you to the Beatles Rock Band once again for providing entertainment with yet another generation learning their songs. Graham says they play Beatles songs at his school in the mornings through the PA! I wish our schools had done that for us. Little Ethan has grown since the last time we saw him. He brought along five hockey sticks and continued to chant ” GO LEAFS GO” during the weekend. Here is a video of our fun time together. Note that Graham and Eddie singing in the background.

Our Friends, Scott and April and their boys are with us this weekend. We showed them some videos of the HTC show at Zaphod’s and decided that the videos were so good we wanted to share them with the world. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Tuesday afternoon Irene and eleven other members of the HTC arrived in Ottawa. This was their next to last stop of a mini-tour that took them to Saint John and Fredericton, NB, Halifax, NS and back to Ontario. They will be playing Hamilton, Toronto & Montreal over the next week. While in Ottawa they performed at Zaphod beeblebrox in the Market. Naturally Eddie and I went to hear them along with our friend Mark. The concert was amazing with great singing, stomping and clapping.The group stayed the night with us and left for their show in Kingston around 4.30 pm the next day. Here are a few pics from yesterday.

It was great having all of y’all here with us and we look forward to another concert - maybe when the weather gets warmer  . . .

Christmas was different this year. It was Irene and Gordon’s turn to go to Sarnia for Christmas and spend it with the McReady’s so Eddie and I found ourselves alone on Christmas day. We decided to take in a movie and saw “Avatar”. It was a 2pm showing and we arrived at the theater at 1:50 with time to spare. Our review of the movie probably doesn’t match the world’s - it was like watching a combo of “The Matrix” and “Dances with Wolves” on an alien planet! Later that evening we had a nice visit with our across-the-street neighbors. The next day we packed the car and headed for TO. We stayed at the Minto Suites downtown and were very comfortable. We left Ottawa during an ice storm and by the time we hit the 401 the roads were clear. We drove straight to the Mandarin were we had a delightful dinner with our friends Jim and Elisabeth. It was wonderful to see them.

The next day we went to our beloved BPC and saw many of our friends. Later we went to my sister-in-law’s for our Christmas family gathering. Alice and Bob - thank you for such a great dinner and fun party. Finally, on the 28th, we had our little family Christmas complete with a 7″ Christmas tree that I brought with me. Then we were off to dim sum with Steve and Adrianne and their growing family.

Then it was back downtown again where Irene and I strolled went to Romni Wool and bought some yarn. This was a real experience for me! We also spent a few hours going through Ravelry together. After a Vietnamese dinner we called it a night. Before heading back to Ottawa the next day we had dim sum with the family. It was a busy trip full of family and friends - just the way we wanted it.

I’m happy to say that I am caught up with my 2009 blogging and look forward to starting 2010. As I write this we have our dear friends, Ginny and Terry, visiting with us from Ajax. They arrived on Friday. Yesterday, Alice, Bob and Ronnie arrived. Today will be a full day. Meanwhile, here are some photos from our Christmas.

December 12, 2009 was the date we celebrated my mother-in-law’s 85th birthday. As you can see from this short clip the Chu clan can be most entertaining! Eddie and I drove to TO on Saturday, partied Saturday night, then drove back to Ottawa on Sunday. It’s always nutso when we get together for these events. My mother-in-law may not be from Pasadena but she does drive a bright red Jetta. When asked about her driving the standard answer is that it’s “all right” (gotta love those right turns). That smile on her face is a permanent fixture and one that I have grown to love so much. Happy 85 years, Mahmah!

Happy New Year! Here we are in 2010 - can you believe it? It’s time to set some goals. Here are some of mine: using up as much as my yarn stash as I can (it will take me years to knit it all), reading at least 20 books, exercising more, and of course, keeping my blog up-to-date. I think that last point is the hardest to maintain.

And so I guess I should start 2010 by finishing up my 2009 posts. I last wrote about our Canadian Thanksgiving and would now like to blog about our trip to Massachusetts in November. We celebrated American Thanksgiving with Nancy, George and the family. We had a BLAST. We over ate, played with the kids and saw “New Moon”. Eddie and George got up pretty early and did some “Black Friday” shopping. They went in different directions but both shopped for techy “guy” things while Nance and I slept in - ha ha ha. Our drive there and back was uneventful (which is a good thing) and so much nicer now that we are 2 hours closer.

Here are some pics of our visit. You’ll notice how much the kidos have grown and how much fun they are. It was such a delight teaching my niece, Sophie (7), to knit. I’m happy to say that both Sophie and her mom Tracey will be taking knitting lessons together! You can also see that I had fun playing with them and let them dress me in their dress-up clothes. Thanks to George for fixing two turkeys and to Nance for the amazing desserts and to everyone who contributed to the wonderful meal we had. I love these holidays of fun, food and especially family. Hope you enjoy the video. I have two December events to blog next and then I will be ready for 2010 ! !