Just off to pick up Jessica from school and thought that I should update this blog.
Can”t upload any photos, so as soon as I ask Peter for help I will put up some new pictures.

Summer passed too fast… We had more visitors this summer. Nao and Noriko, and Kengo and Reiko..I hope to put up some photos and write more about their visits later.

We stayed in Canada this summer. visiting lakes, a farm, and water-slide parks.
Jessica really likes thrilling rides. Her mom, NOT so much.

In October we went to England and Ireland. Again,,, more photos later.
Sadly, Peter’s mother died while we were visiting her. But, we were very glad we were able to see her and be with her this last time.

Peter was in San Diego for a computer meeting in November and now we are all back to normal and back to work.
I continue to work for Global Tesol College and Jessica continues to be an active Grade One kid.
She is happy that this Friday is pajama day and all kids and teachers wear pajamas to school!

We had snow a few weeks ago and it has become suddenly cold here. The kids like to play outside, the adults like to stay in and keep warm.

Christmas approaches quickly. We wish everyone a very happy holiday season and look forward to exchanging season greetings cards with many of our friends in Japan and around the world.

So, we have been in Canada a bit over a year now. Jessica had her 6th brithday on March the 28th… she got a lot of great presents and we received a lot of birthday cards from Japan.. thank-you everyone. It seems like home here now..

Jessica is still busy with ballet classes, swimming, and Girl Guides, and will start soccer in May. She finishea kindergarten the end of June and then will have a long summer vacation… then, grade one in September.. WOW!!

We are off to Disneyworld Florida with my family in May and we can all hardly wait!!
Peace!
Shannon

You can try it yourself at www.elfyourself.com

Here is another one of Peter http://www.scroogeyourself.com/?id=1209523727

You can try this at scroogeyourself.com

These are fun and easy to do…. I know… too much free time Shannon!
We think we have sent everyone that was on our list a Christmas card. We sent out over 200. We hope everybody gets them. Christmas is coming fast, and I have not even started Christmas shopping! It was too cold to go and chop down a tree (-27C) so we just bought one at a Christmas tree place in a shopping center parking lot. The pine tree is from Quebec and it was 60 dollars. It smells so nice in our house, but the pine needles are already falling down. We have to give it sugar and water to keep it from drying out. I hope it lasts until Christmas!

We also started using our fireplace, so our living room seems nice and cosy. The temperatures have been much colder than normal. It is like February weather in December. It is supposed to warm up to -8 later this week, so we are looking forward to warmer weather. Outside playtime has been cancelled at Jessica’s school because it has been so cold.
Now Jessica wants to be a kindergarten teacher when she grows up. Before she wanted to be a cake shop girl.
I guess she must like her school now. She can count to 20 in French already so that is great!

There are lots of Christmas events on here now. We will try to go to the ballet and see the Nutcracker. I wanted to go and see Bon Jovi (i know, NOT a Christmas event!)last night… but the tickets sold out in 5 minutes!

My sister and family will go to Punta Kunta (I think that is spelled wrong!) for a vacation at Christmas. This is a big holiday spot for Canadians. Mexico and Belize are also popular for all-inclusive holidays. Punta Kunta is in the Dominican Republic, we are very jealous. But, if we have any free money… or free time we will try for a little vacation in February.

We want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008! We are happy to be in Canada, but we often think about our life in Japan. Someday we will go back for a visit!! Happy Holidays everyone!
Shannon,Peter and Jessica

I am hoping to get a photo with Santa soon. We went to the Santa Parade here last week… it was cold.
A lot of houses have decorated for Christmas… Jessica says some of the lights are so bright they hurt her eyes!

It snows here and then melts.. but by December I think the snow will stay on the ground until the end of March.
I think we will have to go on a little vacation to Mexico to warm up in February!!
Enjoy the rest of November everyone.. Winnipeg”s football team (American football style) is in the GreyCup next week.
This is a BIG DEAL… if they win they are the Canadian football champions…. go Winnipeg go!!

We went to see Peter’s mom in England, and attended Peter”s friend John”s wedding in Spain on the same trip. It was SO nice to have a break. The wedding was great. We have some other photos up at http://pogma.com/gallery/v/spain. There are some photos there of England too I think..

The morning we left for England my 95 year old grandmother was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. Everybody thought she would die.. but she is a strong person.. She is slowly getting better.. but she has been in the hospital for 6 weeks. She will have to move out of her condominium where she lives alone, but she can move to a Care Home where she can have more help from professional care workers… Go grandma go..

That is it for the news.. time to get Jessica from the bus. She started morning daycare this week , so now attends school form 9am to 330 since I have to go to work. She also goes to karate class, ballet class, swimming lessons and junior girl guides… she loves to be busy!!

Still no snow,, today was 14C…a wonderful day for Winnipeg. November 17th is the Santa Claus parade downtown.. we will have to wear our warm clothes though..it will snow anytime now…

Today I bought some Christmas cards… so everyone that gave us their address can expect a card in December.
If you would like to get a card, but did not give us your addresss.. just e-mail your address to me

Bye for now
Shannon

At the end of Ocotber, Mr. and Mrs. Tamada, Noriko Fukumizu, and Fumiko Egi came to visit. They had first visited Vancouver where I was relieved to hear they had seen the autumn leaves. There are no more leaves on the trees the end of October. We visited Fort Whyte center and exerienced a little of the Canadian prairies. There are a few buffalo grazing there… as well as some frisky prairie dogs. Mr. Tamada found a bone in the long grass and took it home as a souvenir. I told him it must be human… but nobody believed me!!

We also toured Assiniboine Park and the Forks market. At the park we were fortunate to see Boo at the Zoo, a display of scary Halloween scenes and actors trying to scare people. It was my first year to see this… so it was fun!!

We went out to Gimli one day… no sailboats but a lot of water. A kind shop clerk took us to the top of a condominium for a panoramic view of the lake. I hear it will freeze over before the end of December and they will make a sinter ice road across for cars to travel on as a short cut.

We played a lot of card games, and the Tamada’s stayed at my parents’ home. As usual, my mother made a fantastic meal and we enjoyed my parents’ hospitality.

It seemed like time was short when our October guests were here… one thing I promised was the recipe for
Chili Con Carne… a popular winter meal in North America. Here is the recipe below… or just look for another on the internet.

Anyhow, another big thanks to our autumn guests… and I guess that is all the guests we have coming until the spring…!

One of the classic comfort foods.

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt and pepper
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 20 ounce can red kidney beans
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (optional but add an extra bit of flavor)
1 tablespoon chili powder

Sauté onions over medium heat in non-stick pan or in a touch of oil. Add ground beef and garlic and brown well. Add salt and pepper while beef is cooking.

Drain off any excess fat after frying meat. Add canned tomatoes, kidney beans and seasonings. Mix well, cover and cook for 1 hour over medium low heat. Adjust seasonings to your taste.

While she was here, Kiyoko also came for a week. Jessica was happy to see her, as Kiyoko is a teacher at Tokueji Hokuen where Jessica used to go. Atsuko and Kiyoko cooked us some takoyaki while they were here. It was very difficult to buy octopus in Winnipeg. There is no fresh octopus, so we finally had to buy frozen. The takoyaki tasted great though..

Both Atsuko and Kiyoko had difficulties are Winnipeg airport. Winnipeg is a small airport, but they like to ask many questions. If anybody visits us, please bring a copy of our brochure to show immigration. It makes things easier.

During their visits we were able to attend Folklorama. This is a 2 week festival in Winnipeg. In the evenings, different ethnic groups dance, prepare food, and entertain. We saw displays of African limbo dancing, Irish dancing, Greek food and Brazilian entertainers. It is held the beginning of August.. a great thing to see.

We also attended the outdoor musical theatre of Rainbow stage. We saw the Sound of Music. We were singing the songs for days afterwards… Do Re Mi Fa So La Te Do!!

Hmmm.. what else, well, visits to Falcon Lake, Kenora and Gimli. These are small resorts which have a lot of summer cottages and activities. In August there is also an Icelandic Festival in Gimli as there are a lot of immigrants from Iceland living there.

We also visited a corn maze and had fun looking for clues in the corn that was taller than Peter. We finished off Kiyoko”s visit with a moonlight horse ride among some sandy hills. It was a little scary at times. But, afterward there was a hotdog and marshmallow roast around a campfire with Bob the singing cowboy. A night to remember for all of us.

Kiyoko went back to work ( and it was very hot in Japan this summer I think) and Kimiyo Ogawa came to visit. She stayed for 10 days, and the weather was already getting cooler. She brought her Billy Bootcamp DVD and amazed us with her energy. We toured the museum, the Legislative Building, Leo Mol garden and had a special visit to the casino with Atsuko. Unluckily, nobody hit the jackpot on the machines!

For all of our guests my mother graciously invited them for a special Canadian dinner. I think this was the highlight of the Canadian homestay for many of our guests.

i am sure that I am forgetting many things.. but I really would like to thank our summer guests for their visits. It was fantastic for us to meet our Japanese friends again, and to hear about life in Japan. In fact, the longer we are in Canada the more we are missing Japan. It is so strange…

Some good memories of this week will be walking around Lower Fort Garry where the first settlers came to Manitoba. Another day at Assiniboine PArk and Leo Mol sculpture garden was so hot.. but we escaped to the Superstore for some cool air-conditioned shopping. Everything is HUGE there.. even the staff.

One of the highlights of this week was driving to Gimli I think. This is where Icelandic settlers first came to Manitoba. The highway split the lovely fields of bright yellow canola, and light blue wavy flax nicely set-off the bright blue sky. What a pretty view. Gimli is a small fishing town and we enjoyed a delicious lunch of fresh fried pickerel, and of course, french fries!!

Another day was spent cruising on the Red River looking at the picturesque old houses on the riverbanks. No crocodiles or hippos were seen!

We capped off the week with a very memorable lunch at The Gates restaurant. A beautiful restaurant in the countryside set on a horse ranch. Jessica was given a carrot to feed to the horse named Popcorn.

Our final day we had a farewell barbeque with my parents and Laura. Laura is visiting from Germany for a few months. She is a distant relative and often visits in the summer time.

Jessica will attend a summer nature camp for one week at the end of July and then more guests will arrive in August. We hope everyone will enjoy their time with us here!!

Have a great summer everyone!!
Shannon, Peter and Jessica