Great White North to DC

2010-02-10T13:09:00.002-05:00

Just what we needed... more snow. Justin and I are starting to feel a bit caged in. Neither of our offices have been open yet this week, and it's blizzard conditions today, with another 5-10 inches accumulation expected.

On the plus side, I have been rather productive at home. We made chicken stock and turkey stock yesterday, buns, and an apple tart.

I have started watching a show on A&E called Hoarders, which is about people who are compulsive hoarders. It is very interesting, and it makes me want to compulsively clean my house and give away anything I have that I don't use... Is that a normal reaction to seeing a house so full of stuff that there is no where to sit down?

Back to trying to work from home. Wish us luck re-digging out our car tomorrow.

2010-02-07T13:13:00.003-05:00

The digging out begins.

Before: (technically not our car, but you get the idea)

After (a good 3 hours work. The snow here is HEAVY (plus we got ploughed in).

2010-02-06T13:04:00.006-05:00

Here are a few more pictures of the snow this morning.

We've had about 20-24" of snow since noon yesterday. The back door is basically snowed in.

Everything is closed (stores, schools, metro, everything). Good thing it's Saturday and there's nowhere to go.

2010-02-06T08:11:00.000-05:00

Still snowing. 13" and counting. Ellis did not enjoy his morning walk...

2010-02-05T17:12:00.003-05:00

Yes, we are still alive, but I guess you wouldn't know it by reading our blog. Today the University of Maryland was closed due to a prediction of snow, and the NIH was open with a 4 hour early dismissal, so I stayed home instead of working for 4 hours and then fighting my way home with crazy drivers who don't know how to handle the weather. The snow really started coming down just before noon. It's now falling at a rate of about 1-2" per hour. We are expecting 20-30 inches by the end of the night on Saturday. Here are a couple of pictures taken around 4pm Friday. How many of you have seen a mangrove covered in snow? For that matter, how many of you have ever seen a mangrove at all?

2009-12-19T10:09:00.002-05:00

So, it looks like it's going to be a White Christmas in the DC area.

We've had about 4 inches or so overnight, with upwards of 2 feet forecast in the next 24 hours.

Could be fun!

2009-07-23T13:06:00.002-04:00

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!

OK, most of you probably won't get that, but some of you will and find it hilarious.

In any case, we're going to be visiting Regina from August 29-Sept 6, so if you're going to be in town then, please give us a shout and we'll arrange something.

Addendum from Lindsay: For those of you who knew about it, my contract issues with the NIH have been resolved. Yay!! As far as they are concerned, everything is a go, I just need to get a new TN visa, as per usual.

2009-07-06T22:02:00.002-04:00

We had a lovely visit with Justin's parents this past week and a bit. It started out with a trip to Virginia Beach, Ellis included. One of the highlights of the week, though, was Canada Day. We have thrown a Canada Day BBQ every summer that we have been here, usually the weekend before Canada Day. This year, with Canada Day on a Wednesday, and us in Virginia Beach the weekend before, and the weekend after being the 4th of July, we decided to not bother with a big BBQ this year. We would just try to BBQ with Don and Shirley on Canada Day itself, and not make a big deal about it.

This year, like every other year, Justin posted a little thing about our BBQ on the Connect2Canada (http://www.connect2canada.com/) website. We get a little gift bag from them with Canada goodies for the party. We have also always listed that this is an open BBQ, so people are welcome to come join us. No one ever did... until this year!

First, a man and his daughter arrived. He is from the Guelph area, and has lived in Baltimore for about 7 years. His daughter is a dual citizen. And they just wanted to come out and celebrate Canada Day! Well, we thought this was really neat. Then, a few minutes later, a gentleman from New Jersey arrived. His mother is Canadian and he just wanted to celebrate, also! In fact, this was his third Canada Day party of the day!

After a quick scramble for more food, we had a very lovely time. The young girl kept Ellis very busy eating carrots and chasing his ball. Then, the skies opened up and we all fled from the rain, and that was the end of Canada Day 2009 in Greenbelt, MD. All in all a very enjoyable day.

That's all for now. I have other things to post, but all in good time.

Happy Belated Canada Day, and Happy Belated 4th everyone.

2009-06-27T09:26:00.002-04:00

Friends and Family,

I apologize for the lack of updates recently. Lets just say that life is a little on the crazy side! But, summer is here, and I'm hoping to have more time to update the blog more often. Justin and I had an amazing trip to Honolulu, and I wanted to tell you all a bit about it.

Justin's parents are visiting us this week. We have lots of things planned. So, if I have time, I'll post some pics and some stories later this week.

Right now, I'd like to take a minute to stop and think about the people that passed away this week. Earlier this week, the wife of one of our core band members, and a former member of the band herself, passed away. In addition to that, the world lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. What a sad week it was.

2009-06-23T14:38:00.003-04:00

As many of you may have heard, there was a pretty serious crash on the Washington Metro yesterday (the subway system here).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062300653.html?hpid=topnews

Neither Lindsay or I ride that part of the metro, but in case you were curious, we're both fine.

2009-05-31T00:48:00.003-04:00

After much delay, we have finally managed to get our Hawaii photos sorted and online.

Please check out the photo gallery at http://www.chejrw.com/Hawaii

The movies still don't seem to be working right. I'm working on it.

2009-04-23T15:55:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update from Hawaii. Here's the view from our Balcony - Diamond Head off to the left, the ocean all in front. Very nice.

2009-04-07T23:37:00.001-04:00

So, evidently after 3 years, there is still confusion about this.

Just so everyone is clear: WE DO NOT LIVE IN BALTIMORE.

That is all.

2009-03-24T23:35:00.002-04:00

We've had Ellis for a whole year now. He still makes us laugh.

2009-03-21T14:37:00.002-04:00

The first day of spring. All of the daffodils are in bloom and the tulips are starting to poke through. What a great time of year!

What am I doing on such a beautiful Saturday? This morning Ellis and I went for a walk at Greenbelt Lake. The vet told us he is starting to get too fat, so we have to give him more exercise! So we did 2 laps around the lake (that's about 2.5 miles) this morning.

Now, I'm doing laundry and I just baked 5 dozen oatmeal raisin cookies for the Cherry Blossom Bonspiel happening at our curling club next weekend. Never did I think I would be so thankful for my electric mixer! 5 dozen cookies is a lot of mixing.

2009-02-19T22:11:00.002-05:00

My latest cross stitch creation.

2009-02-14T09:48:00.001-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIS!!

Today is Ellis's 9th birthday. He got a new ball this morning that is about the same size as the ball House plays with on TV. He can just pick it up by the skin of his teeth and then he prances around. It's rather cute.

This afternoon we're going for a walk around the lake, and for supper he's going to get a whole stalk of brocolli! What a lucky dog.

2009-02-07T10:57:00.002-05:00

I think that Ellis is feeling pretty secure with us, now that it's been almost a year since we adopted him. At first he was pretty hesitant to even jump up when invited. Now, a few nights ago, I went to get into bed, and this is what I found.

He had a lot to say when I shoved him out of the way, I can tell you. He's a very verbal dog!

On a different note, the snow of a couple of weeks ago did not turn into anything interesting, other than a 1/2 inch layer of ice covering everything. Walking Ellis in that was a lot of fun for me, but not so much for him. I could break through the ice to the snow below on grass. He just skated on top. It was definitely a sight to see. Then, the ice melted, and it's back to looking kinda brown and bare out there. I miss real winter, some days.

2009-01-28T15:04:00.002-05:00

Two words for you. Cello Scrotum.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7853564.stm

And the original letter: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1610985

2009-01-27T09:01:00.002-05:00

Out for our walk this morning. For those of you keeping track, in Ellis' mind: Rain = BAD, Snow = FUN!

Still not enough snow for it to collect on the major road ways. But we have 2 full days of snow predicted at this point. If it starts to look interesting, I'll post some more pics.

2009-01-10T18:45:00.003-05:00

We have been rather busy lately, doing all sorts of things.

Last week we decided it was time to paint our bathroom. It was renovated last Christmas by our landlords, but they just left it painted the same old off-white; the same as the rest of our apartment. Here are some photos of what it looks like now. Tell me what you think!

Today, we went to an open house at a local Curling Club. We're not 100% sure about joining yet, but we're thinking about it. We need to do something to make us feel like we're still Canadians.

Oh, and I re-joined the band last week. We're playing some very interesting music, including a Filmore piece. The trombones will get no rest this season - and that's how I like it.

2009-01-02T15:08:00.002-05:00

We have been negligent bloggers, haven't we? Sorry about that, folks.

We are doing well, although I am a little bit under the weather. We had a nice quiet Christmas at home with Ellis. Santa was very good to us, including a 13-game pack of Oriole's baseball tickets! Thanks Don and Shirley!

Other than presents, Christmas day was mostly about relaxing and cooking. We made crepes with home made black cherry coulis and whipped, sweetened light cream cheese. Yum. Than for supper, instead of the traditional turkey (since we still had left over turkey in the freezer from Thanksgiving in October) we decided to make a ham. And, due to a mutual loathing of scalloped potatoes, we made a nice vegetarian wild mushroom risotto with sliced black truffles on top. Mmmmm...

Who decided that one must eat scalloped potatoes with ham?

We hope everyone is well, and had a very Merry Christmas, or a Happy Holiday, or whatever you care to call it this year, and a Happy New Years! I'll try to be a better blogger, but no New Year's resolutions for me.

By the way, does anyone know who "Blixi" is? This individual wrote some very odd comments on the blog, which we have removed. Something to do with stroking facial hair...

2008-11-15T12:37:00.002-05:00

Today we paid $1.89/gallon of gas. For those of you not able to do the gallon -> Liter conversion, it cost only $21.50 to fill my gas tank. Yay!!!!

2008-11-10T23:21:00.002-05:00

I just watched a fox trot along the edge of the little wooded area behind my condo. I have never seen a fox that close up before.

I heard something rustling around in there the other night when I had Ellis out for a late night pee.

I wish I had been faster at getting my camera out, but he was pretty quick to run away. If I manage to get a picture, I'll be sure to put it up here.

2008-10-21T19:25:00.000-04:00

Woo Hoo!! Last car payment!!!!!!!