O Canada

Kate requested that we celebrate with a white Christmas this year, so we packed up our parkas and headed to Banff, Canada where it was certainly white and even more certainly cold.  Christmas morning we awoke to temperatures of -30 degrees C, which translates to -20 degrees F.  Both numbers are cold.... real cold.

Like all good winter resorts, Banff had a number of sporting goods stores, so we supported the Canadian economy and stocked up on additional cold weather gear to reinforce ourselves.  Plus Kate brought along an economy pack of hand and foot warmers, so we were able to survive and enjoy all the winter activities.  The condo where we stayed had a heated outdoor swimming pool.  A number of people went swimming (probably Canadians) but we weren't up for the frigid dash between the pool and the changing room.  

Dog sledding was probably the highlight of the trip.  Everyone got a turn at "driving" the team, which sounds fun until they tell you that you have to run and push when the sled goes uphill.  In fact, the guide's quote was "the dogs will look back to make sure you're pushing too.  They really appreciate the help".  Running through the snow in full gear pushing a sled uphill is pretty taxing, but who wants to disappoint a dog.  The other downside of driving was that you're fully exposed to the elements, while the other two people are toasty warm, wrapped in blankets in the sled.

Luckily the dog sled place rented snow boots because Kate's were in her missing suitcase.  

You know it's cold when even the sled dogs where coats. 

Lori getting ready to drive the kids, who are well protected.  

The view from the dog sled trail

Now it's Lori's turn to bundle up

Thanking our dogs for a great time.  

One day we drove over to Lake Louise for high tea at the Fairmont Lodge, followed by ice skating on the lake.  Everyone did well, no serious spills or thrills.  An hour of ice skating was enough though.

The view from the dining room at high tea.  

Although it is hard to tell, this is Grant laying on top of the lake with snow piled on top of him.  

It was a similar story when we went skiing.  No injuries, but one day satisfied our skiing appetite.  The ski resort also had a tubing hill, with a lift to take you back up the hill.  Unfortunately, the lift was broken so what had originally sounded like a fun idea didn't sound so fun anymore.

They look kind of like Star Wars characters, don't they? 

Most of our thrills were limited to traveling.  Lori, Grant & I flew from Amsterdam to Chicago where we planned to meet Kate and all fly to Calgary together.  Unfortunately, Kate's flight to Chicago was cancelled.  The next flight arrived too late, she missed the connection and spent the night in United Airlines Service Center lines and an airport hotel.  Between the cancelled flight and overnight stay, she got $40 in food coupons from United so she spent the next day sampling all the O'Hare Airport food offerings.  Even at airport prices, $40 is a lot of food.

So Kate arrived in Canada one day late.  As did one of her suitcases.  Her other suitcase -- which contained her winter coat and the winter coat that we'd ordered for Grant -- didn't arrive until two days later.  So we made a few more trips to the sporting goods store.

The travel woes didn't stop there.  The 1.5 hour drive from Banff to the Calgary airport ended up taking us three hours due to an accident (not us).  We missed our flight from Calgary to Houston and spent the night, 4 to a room, at the Calgary Airport hotel.

Christmas Dinner at the Post Hotel, Lake Louise

Kate and Lori with a friend

On this trip, we retired our playing cards.  We bought them for our trip to Southern Africa in 2007 and have taken them on every family vacation since then.  As you can see, they are a little worse for wear.  And what you can't see is that Graber recently ate two of them.  

Happy Birthday Lori

Lori had a milestone birthday this year so we opted for something a little more special than the typical store-bought cake and a card that says "Fijne Verjaardag".   As part of our Christmas holiday trip, we swung by Houston and hosted a party at one of our favorite restaurants.  The cake was still purchased, but at least it came from a professional bakery.  It was great to see family and friends again.

Now there's one lucky fellow

Lori and her parents, Don & Joan

Two sisters

Kate & Doug

Birthday girl with her loot

Happy Birthday Graber

Graber celebrated his third birthday in October.  He continues to be a great dog who is always happy to be with us or any other person who happens to be around.  He loves people.  Grant worked with him this summer so that he is pretty good at catching a frisbee.  Unfortunately, his physical development continues to far exceed his mental maturity.   Our little seven pound cats who don't even have claws  can chase him down the hall and stairs when he invades their room.  Then he goes right back upstairs to do it again because it's so fun.

Since he always destroys any soft or squeaky toys in about 5 minutes, the list of potential presents was quite limited.  Lori brought him some dog treats, including a bone shaped cookie that said happy birthday.  My gift was a spa treatment.  He thought that sounded great until he realized it was just a fancy name for taking a bath.  Then he put on his normal response of refusing to go upstairs.  Lori and Grant had to fireman carry him up and put him in the tub.

Happy Birthday Graber!

Waiting patiently for his birthday bone cookie.....

....Which he immediately takes to the foyer rug -- the standard spot to eat all treats.  

Lori and Grant carrying a reluctant Graber to his spa treatment.  

Haarlem 10k Run

My office has a running club that gets together every Thursday night for training.  I think it's a good idea, but I never attend.  They also participate in some of the local running events, so when one of those events was a 10k (6 mile) run in Haarlem, Lori and I decided to go.

Haarlem is a historic city that I've always wanted to visit but just haven't found the right time.  The city has been around for 900 years; it's church was built in the 1400's.  The church houses the Muller organ, one of Europe's most famous with three keyboards, 68 registers and 5000 pipes.  It is about 100 feet high.  I learned all this from a book; we didn't have time to go inside the church.  The book also states that the organ was played by Handel and a ten year old Mozart.

The run turned out to be quite fun.  The city of Haarlem really turned out to support it; there were lots of people lining the streets to cheer us on.  We headed out of town, ran through a large park and retuned to finish by the church.  The weather was cool and cloudy (it was Holland after all) so it was a pleasant run.  And we got medals just for participating.

This gives you some view of the church

Note the official Jacobs jackets.  You just borrow them for the race.   Afterwards, we had to wash them and bring them back.   You can also see Lori's medals.  

Photo of our team before the run when we still had lots of energy.  

Construction Project

The coots at their new home

After living in the canal in our backyard for two years the family of coots decided that they needed an island.  I don't know what drove this decision --perhaps it was like Noah building the Ark.  Once decided, the entire family dedicated themselves for a week to the task.  They grabbed any stick, piece of grass or leaf and began to pile them at a shallow point in the water.  It truly was non-stop.  Within a day they had broken the surface.  By the end of the week they had their island.  
  

In the beginning.....

Bringing leaves back to the spot. 

Success!  A new home in less than a week.  

Per Wikipedia, a coot is a noisy bird with a wide repertoire of crackling, explosive, or trumpeting calls often given at night.  David Attenborough of Princeton University adds that "Coots can be very brutal to their own young under pressure such as the lack of food. They will bite young that are begging for food and repeatedly do this until it stops begging and starves to death. If the begging continues, they may bite so hard that the chick is killed."  Let that be a lesson to our younger readers who pester their parents for snacks.  

Once it was built the other birds, ducks in this case, used the island as well .

The heron liked it too.  

This picture doesn't have anything to do with the coots.  I just like the reflection in the water. 

More reflection

The construction supervisor at work.  

Happy Birthday Mark...and more

When you log into Google's blogspot to create a new post, it tells you when you posted your last entry. Aug 19!  Reading that is kind of like stepping on the scale every morning.  You already know you won't like the answer but you do it anyway.  Sorry about the extended silence.  Here are a few pieces of news.

Obviously not enough candles.  Note the dog strategically positioned between me and the cake.  

First of all, Mark celebrated his 52nd birthday last month.  No real milestone at 52, but since I had already mentioned my weight and lack of postings I thought I would continue with the hard truths.  Actually, I spent my birthday in Manchester, UK on a business trip.  So we celebrated that weekend by having some friends over for dinner and, of course, one of Lori's delicious cakes.  I chose the Tuxedo Cake from Rebecca Rather's Pastry Queen cookbook.  It probably gets selected for over 50% of our birthday celebrations and for good reason.  It's great.  The only problem is that it's one of Grant's favorites so he and I battle it out for leftovers.

Now on to other news.  In addition to celebrating my birthday, The Netherlands held elections last month.  As you may have heard earlier this year their government collapsed.  Living in America I always wondered what that term meant.  It sounded so harsh, like the country had fallen into some horrible turmoil.

Not to fear, it wasn't anything like that.  The Netherlands has about 10 or 15 political parties including a religious party, an against-everything party, a green party and an animal rights party.  To form a government some combination of parties must get together, agree on a common platform and form a majority in the legislature to select a prime minister and form a government.  It used to only take two political parties to reach a majority but lately it has required three.  So last spring the three parties that had agreed to agree with each other decided that they couldn't agree on the Euro-crisis strategy and so the government collapsed.

So for four months we had no government.  Actually, everyone was still in office, including the Prime Minister, but they didn't really do anything because there was no majority.  This dysfunctional state is not all that different than the US if you think about it, the Dutch simply admit it publicly.  Belgium had not government for 18 months and no one there seemed bothered at all by that fact.

It doesn't look like the Animal Rights Party does much advertising.  Seems like a picture of a puppy or kitten could really help their cause.  

That was a rather long introduction into how their national elections provide another example of Dutch practicality.  About three weeks before the election, temporary signboards begin appearing around the town.  Not a lot, maybe 5 or 6 in our village.  The candidates use the boards to post their advertisements.   No ugly signs in people's yards.  No continuous trail of signs along business fronts.  No flyers posted on telephone poles.  It's all very tidy.  And everyone seems quite civil when they post their sign on the board...they don't cover up the picture of an opponent and no one seems to draw mustaches on anyone else.  Two days after the election all the boards are gone and the town is beautiful again.  What a great idea.  

Last weekend Grant and I travelled to Belgium for my company's family day celebration at an amusement park, Bobbejaanland.   His normal roller coaster companion (Lori) was conveniently on a business trip to the US so I was his partner on the rides.  We warmed up on some kiddie coasters and log flume rides (it was raining so we were already wet).  Then we got to the park's two signature coasters, Dizzy and Typhoon.

Dizzy was a fairly tame track except that in addition to traveling around the track your car would also spin.  Not a lot of spinning but enough to make some of the curves very interesting.  It actually turned out much better than I expected -- I even went on it twice.

Grant in front of the Typhoon

Typhoon had a little higher thrill factor to it.  You begin by going straight up (as in 90 degrees, vertical, rain hitting you in the face) at a very slow speed.  Then you come over the top and go straight down at a very high rate of speed.  In fact you go more than vertical; it's similar to coming over the top of a capital "R".  Of course after that you go through loop the loops, cinnamon twists and all kinds of gut wrenching turns.  I also went on this ride twice, but the second time might have been a mistake.