November Was Family Filled

Three Days of Family

This post was supposed to go out after Thanksgiving, but life did get in the way. So here you have my Thanksgiving Recap and Gratitude Journal.

On the First Day of Family...

Dawn organized a dinner party, where we got to speak Dutch (at least part of the time :) and hang out with Ronan, Dawn and some friends. She is working as an RN now in a local hospital and lives together with her boy friend. It always is a treat to go over there and visit them. Thank you, Dawn and Ronan!

On the Second Day of Family...

We had an awesome Thanksgiving, and 75% of the kids showed up and everyone made something good to eat. Jane and Cees both were home from college, and Kate came over with her girl friend. Of course we also had Sylvia, Erik and Tim. Grateful for our large family.

On the Third Day of Family

This was a sad occasion, we had a get together for my sister-in-law who passed away a few months ago. We miss her every day, but we were grateful to celebrate her life with friends and family. 

Recap

Life is short, enjoy every moment! Seize the day, Every Day!

I will end with one of my favorite quotes:

“Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery, 
and today is a gift... 
that's why they call it present” 

I haven't been able to find out who originally said this, but I agree wholeheartedly!

What did you do with your gift of today?

Go With the Flow: Lessons Learned At Yoga

Brain Fog

We went to yoga today and managed to forget my gym bag at home... You know, the one that has everything I NEED, like my yoga pants, conditioner for my hair, hair brush, all the essentials.

I clearly would not be able to do yoga without it, or could I?

Brilliant Solution

Instead of panicking about it, I made do what was available. Tom said I should check the lost and found, and that's what I did. We looked through the big box of clothing, finding shorts that worked just fine. I used the free small fitness towels after my shower. And life was good!

Well, apart from having frizzy hair...

Going With the Flow

I have always refused to stress out about being late at yoga. Now I have another thing not to stress out about. Going with the flow, that's what yoga is all about! Tell me about times that you were able to go with the flow instead of stress.

Sylvia Drama

This weekend, Sylvia is acting in "She Loves Me", with the Wet Paint Players of her high school. Tom and I went with two friends to go watch her. It turns out that with wigs, I am not always able to recognize my own daughter...

Quite amusing and somewhat embarrassing :D

On another note, glad she is following in the foot steps of her older sisters who spent a lot of time in drama performances when they were in high school. Good family tradition! 

Did you ever not recognize your own kid? 

Metamorphosis for Erik!

Erik had been letting his hair grow long, but suddenly was done with it and invited Kate to come over and cut it.

It didn't take long before half of his hair was gone.

Kate had fun giving him a mullet. But in the end, it all worked out fine!

It's nice to see them work together. And I loved the metamorphosis we witnessed!

A funny aside: Sylvia wasn't around when this was going on. The next morning they went to school with different friends, so she never saw him. At school, she was very surprised when someone said "Your brother cut his hair!". She was like "Huh, what?" until she saw him and got it.

It is nice that they have outgrown the "random hair cuttings" of childhood and now actually can do functional ones :D

Yuck Yuck Yuck! Not Ready for Winter!

Today we woke up to our first snow of the season. Yuck yuck yuck.

I am sooooo not ready for winter!
Today I will snuggle in at home, writing my blogs I guess. I did finish my post about the New Hampshire state house in my capitols series.

And I wrote an article on how to get an easy $50 bonus and help with managing your money.

So it's not like I won't have anything to do to amuse myself, but I just do not like snow!
OK, whine done for the day. Back to drinking tea and catching up on travel stories.

How is the weather where you are? I hope it's better than here!

Throw Back Thursday: Votes for Women!

Facebook reminded me of the election two years ago, when Qate wasn't voting age yet, but she did feel strongly about it.

I thought this would be a good one to post for Throwback Thursday, especially since a record women of women got voted in in this last election!

Exploring Victoria!

We are having a great time learning more about Canadian history and the first Nations. Sharing some pictures with you all, more stories to follow once we are home .

We visited the legislature, getting us one step closer to visiting all the Canadian capitals. We even had lunch in the parliamentary restaurant. It was a much fancier lunch than any of the American capitols we have visited so far.

The royal BC museum is extensive and informative. So much so that we weren't able to see all of it in one day. That will be a good excuse to go back there some day. The exhibition about the first Nations was very interesting, as was the one about the founding of British Columbia.

Time and money permitted us to either do a high tea at the Empress, or to watch whales in the Salish sea. Naturally, that was an easy choice, we went whale watching!

We saw a bunch of humpback whales, including a baby. It was fun to see them feed, lots of shallow diving. Most exciting was when we saw one lunge feeding, that was a behaviour I hadn't seen before.

The whales were joined by many sea birds, I saw my first rhinoceros auklets and common murres, as well as tons of Brandt cormorants. Such a lovely day on the water, even if it was freezing cold. Since I don't have pictures yet, go check out the awesome pictures of our whale watching in Quebec.

Instead of tea, we had a martini at the Empress hotel, at their bar Q. After studying the menu, we went with spicy nuts which was the most affordable choice. We sipped our drinks very slowly, so we could hang out longer without having to buy another expensive drink :)

Yes, we like Victoria, go visit it!

Have you been to Victoria? What was your favourite thing to do?

Fun Ferry From Seattle to Bremerton

Today we were in our way to Pioneer Square for the Seattle Underground tour when my body decided it was done walking. And my bladder was overactive and Starbucks came to the rescue .This is Seattle after all .

We did some research on the underground tour, and although it sounded interesting, it also sounded too much for a gimpy girl like me. Maybe a harbour cruise would be better. Yeah, sounded good too but more than 80 dollars was a lot of money
What about ferries?

It didn't take long to discover the Bremerton ferry, which gave us a pleasantly misty ride to Bremerton. We had a great lunch overlooking the harbour and then we visited the USS Turner Joy

Looking forward to writing a post about her, so much history, she was active in the Vietnam war in Tonkin.

Took the ferry back to Seattle and saw two seals swim next to us;;;

What an unplanned, totally awesome day and this ferry was only 8 dollars round trip, so very affordable!

Have you taken any fun ferries? From where to where?
Let

Seattle!!!

I had never been here, had no idea what to expect but am totally in love with Seattle now!

We bungee jumped off the Space Needle.

We visited the very first Starbucks!

We bagged another state capitol.

And we discovered another liberty bell on our way back to Seattle, in Tacoma!
Too tired to write more now, but it will happen in good time, I promise.

Life is good!

We Voted!!

Since we are going to be out of town early November, we applied for absentee ballots. We had to wait a bit till they were printed, but we voted last Friday!

After we voted we drove to the New York State Capitol and admired that building. There will be a post about it some day.

The Million Dollar Staircase in the New York Capitol

Everybody, go out and vote!
Vote like your rights depend on it!

New York City!!!

After an patient advisory board meeting in Morristown, we decided to tag on two days in New York City.

Some history here. After I moved to the USA in 1994, I always wanted to visit New York City some day. The excitement, the buildings, everything about it sounded like a great place to visit. But life happened and the thought of going there by myself with seven children was just a bit too much. So once the kids got older I would take them to Montreal or Washington DC, but New York City was too scary.

We had great times, but New York City always was somewhere in the back of my mind. Until I met Tom! He had been to New York City many times and he had Hilton Honors points, so it did not take long before we planned our first visit to New York City and had a fabulous time.

This time was not different! The city still overwhelms me, but I also love to visit and bask in the busy buzz of so many people, such tall buildings. We used this visit to do our research to find out whether the Staten Island ferry has the cheapest beer in New York City.

We checked out two Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurants. We walked and birded in Central Park. We went to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) and saw my favorite van Gogh painting.

We walked and we walked and we walked and there was much whining and gnashing of teeth because my body did not particularly WANT to walk when I wanted it to (the joys of multiple sclerosis :p ) Grateful for a husband who is willing to be my cane when my body is being stupid.

We went to a rooftop bar, not as high as the one in Singapore, but still fun to look down on Times Square. We saw the Columbus Day parade with Italian Americans! We enjoyed every moment and were grateful to be in New York City once again, especially with free hotel stays and and our flight paid for.

Have you ever been to New York City? What is your favourite thing to do there? Share with us in the comments!

Discovering the Rich History of Morristown

We unexpectedly found ourselves in Morristown, NJ. I have to admit that I never had heard the name, but it turns out to have a lot of historically relevant events connected to it .

We "met" Hamilton, Washington, and Lafayette right on the green! They were discussing aid of French tall ships and troops being sent by the king of France for our young nation.

Picturesque churches and more history than we could take in on our short visit.

There even was a statue of "Buddy", the first seeing eye dog. I particularly loved this because we raised a Guiding Eyes for the Blind puppy, Giant .

I am looking forward to writing a more extensive article on Morristown for Our Carpe Diem, but wanted to give y'all a flavour of our unexpected fun history finds!

Have you ever been to Morristown? Do you know other places where you can find a statue of Hamilton? Let me know in the comments!