Happy Holidays

(Click to enlarge) Photos top to bottom: Canadian girls on the beach in Santa Barbara, Reuben lounging on Butterfly Beach, Thanksgiving dinner with the Roaches, sky and rice fields near Davis, run Reuben run, Gabbi and Charlotte (friend) enjoying the leaf pile, Halloween, Mike and Wendy, Reuben soccer

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Ontario to celebrate the holidays with our families and our colleagues. It was cold and snowy and felt a bit like Christmas. As we're approaching our second Christmas away from home, we are happy to have been able to be at home a couple weeks early and now look forward to a quiet break here. Here's what our busy fall looked like.

• Reuben enjoyed playing fall soccer. He made some new friends on his team and as a result we made some new friends with some of the parents


• Gabbi has joined Girl Scouts and is finding it to be a fun way to get involved in activities with girls her age


• The early fall was mostly about the San Francisco Giants. Cam became a big fan early on and then a die hard fan as the season progressed. Cam took Reuben out of school one day to go to a game. There was much celebrating in our house when they won the World Series. Go Giants!


• Reuben got into the Giants so much that his Halloween costume was the SF Giants' closer - Brian Wilson. People weren't disappointed to be pulled away from the game once they saw Brian Wilson aka 'Fear da Beard' at their door. Gabbi made an awesome vampire


• Mike Thiessen and Wendy Adema visited us over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. We had so much fun checking out Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog in San Francisco that we all bought a pair - unique soles for unique souls. http://www.fluevog.com/


• Blue North (South) hosted the Do More Good Summit in Sacramento with our non-profit clients. For two days we learned about trends in marketing and shared best practices. It was a great success for Blue North. There were six Blue North employees from Ontario that attended and three of them stayed with us
• We haven't heard a single rat this fall. Thank you Rusty-the-rat-tracker


• Our family competed in the annual Davis Turkey Trot. We all ran races ranging from one mile to 10k. It was a cool rainy day but we all felt like winners


• We spent American Thanksgiving weekend in Santa Barbara, one of our favourite places on the planet, with Jeff and Priscilla Roach and their three girls. The Roaches live the school year in Laguna Beach and the summer at their cottage in the Muskokas. We had a great time hanging out with people who say "eh?" and kids of very similar ages. Jeff is a cool guy who is all about cool and hip marketing. You can follow him here: http://twitter.com/glitteration. Priscilla and I were pleased to discover our common interest: grammar


• Our friend and neighbour, pianist Lara Downes, put out a new CD. Check out this interview with Lara and learn about her latest CD at the Canadian Yummy Mummy Club. A great CD for young kids http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/lara_downes_nocturnes_for_night_owls


• Speaking of celebs, Cam and I saw Leonard Cohen in Oakland the night before we came home to Ontario. We both commented that it was probably the best concert we've seen. Cohen is 76 years old and still has the gift of a golden voice. In Cam's words, "he drips cool"


• As we approach Christmas, the leaves are almost off the trees, the rain has settled in and it's gotten quite cool. We plan to spend the Christmas break in Davis. We've made a list of things to do including a day in our pjs, watching movies, playing games, going to San Francisco and just hanging out together


• We wish you all the best of the holidays and a happy new year

One year later

Pictures: The Swedes and Canadians in So Cal; Reuben's new chin; Yosemite; Yosemite; Yosemite; backyard family; Don and Kristen Penner; LA girl.


Doesn't a year go fast? It has for us and it appears we'll be here a while longer unless anyone wants a family of four to move in with them for a few months in 2011. We've rented our house for another year and plan to be in Davis until some time next summer. We've been making progress on the workfront but have also experienced some discouraging setbacks.

Here's a look at what we've been up to.

• The summer has been wonderful. According to all Californians it was a very strange one weatherwise. I was dreading the heat in the beginning but it ended up being a moderate summer with only a few days in the 100s. Every single day was, and still is, a beautiful sunny day. We have about 2 more months before that changes



• We spent 2 weeks' vacation in So Cal with some friends from Sweden. We checked out Legoland and Seaworld, ate lots of sushi, started (and have just about finished) the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series and bumped into the Vice President of the US, at least 24's version of him



• Gabbi and Reuben enjoyed several weeks of swimming lessons and a week of camp



• We enjoyed a 3-day visit from Don and Kristen Penner. While they were here we had dinner with Angie and Joe Mercier in San Francisco



• Before school started we went to Yosemite National Park for a long weekend. This was the closest our family gets to camping (we stayed at a nice lodge in the mountainous wilderness). We enjoyed hiking and mountain biking, stripping down and swimming across an icy cold pool of water above a waterfall. Reuben made a new best friend - a former SF Giants pitcher



• Gabbi and Reuben started back to school on August 25 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa



• Reuben started playing AYSO soccer and Gabbi continues with piano (Reuben is having 'a break' from piano)



• Two days after school started, Reuben split his chin open while attempting a fast downhill entry onto a ramp at the local bmx park. He got 5 stitches and lots of attention



• We spent a night at our Canadian neighbour's Tahoe area cottage

Here's what we still enjoy very much about living here:

• Biking everywhere



• Being no more than two hours away from 100s of amazing places



• Davis Farmers Market



• Hot days and cool nights



• Californians' intolerance of bad food



• Great produce

This is the Life

Pictures: Gabbi and Reuben with Disney Channel star Bradley Perry; Angela, Kim, Gabbi and Reuben; Mandy, Kerry, Cam and I having fun in Mexico; Lyle and Reuben splashing around; the Golden Gate on a foggy day; chillin' with the in-laws; three Shapansky boys.

It's been a while since I've blogged but here's what we've been up to since I last wrote:

• Cam and I enjoyed 5 days in Mexico with Kerry and Mandy at their new condo while our kids enjoyed staying here with Kim and Angela Penner



• We also got to spend several days with Kim and Angela when we got back



• Gabbi and Reuben finished school on June 10. They both passed!



• We loved having Lyle and Wenda (Papa and Nana) with us for 10 days. It was nice to relax around the pool and enjoy good family time



• We went home to Ontario for 9 days. It was a busy time of work, seeing as many people as we could, getting our visas renewed (sorry, yes, they renewed them), and returning in time for the 4th of July



• The kids spotted 'Gabe' from Good Luck Charlie (http://tv.disney.go.com/disneychannel/goodluckcharlie/) at the Toronto airport (see photo above)
  


• Davis pulled off a very impressive 4th of July fireworks show



• We leave for 2 weeks' holidays to So Cal with some friends from Sweden

Here's a list of the top 10 things we enjoy doing in and around Davis (not in any particular order)

1. Going to market on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings (http://www.davisfarmersmarket.org/)


2. Biking everywhere: school, doctor, grocery store, church, soccer games, swimming lessons, piano lessons (http://californiabicyclemuseum.org/)


3. Wine tours to Napa Valley (http://napavalley.com/wineries/)


4. Wine tours to Amador County (http://www.amadorwine.com/new/pages/home.cgi)


5. Swimming in our backyard pool


6. Shopping at Target (my fellow Target lovers get it and support me on this one)


7. Visiting San Francisco. We've been there over a dozen times now and it's always something different. There's still lots more to explore (http://www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/)


8. Hiking at the Headlands in Marin County, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge(http://www.inetours.com/Bay_Area/Marin/Marin_Headlands.html)


9. Enjoying a good burger at In 'n Out Burger (http://www.in-n-out.com/menu.asp) and eating frozen yogurt at Cultive (http://daviswiki.org/Cultivé_Frozen_Yogurt)


10. Dining out at some of Sacramento's coolest restaurants

It's not that bad. We're handling it. It could be worse.

Too busy to blog

Life's been busy of late.

We had a great visit with the Dale Cressman, Brenda Martin, and Hannah family and a little after that another great visit with the Dennis Flaming, Jana Papke and Devan family. In both cases we took one day off during the week and spent evenings and weekends with them, leaving them to do day trips and exploring the area on their own the other days.

This weekend, well let me tell you, it's a litle crazy. Friday night, after soccer, Gabbi and Reuben prepared us a great dinner and Cam and I exchanged birthday gifts. Saturdy we went to the Bay area to have lunch at the home of fellow Blue Norther Mat Thomas and his wife Jayana and their kids Asher and Julia. After lunch we explored the Berkeley Hills with them seeing great views of San Francisco across the Bay. Saturday evening we were supposed to go to other friends for dinner but it fell through. Sunday Reuben is off to a UC Davis baseball game with his best friend in the neighbourhood along with Cam and Rick, their adult chaperones. Later in the afternoon we're having another family over for dinner. Man, it's a busy weekend but strangely it's starting to feel more normal.

Lacking the time to do a full-fledged blog I'll throw out a few other events and details:

• I ran the American River Half Marathon last weekend, suffered through a leg injury and dehydration in unexpected heat but still beat my personal best time by over 2 minutes and finished in the top 10 percent of runners in my category - go me!!


• We know we're settling in to Davis when going somewhere rather than saying 'let's take our bikes it'll be fun' we say 'why would we take our car?' The car tends to sit in the driveway almost all week.


• We are looking forward to 4 days in Mexico with Kerry and Mandy next week. The kids are looking forward to Kim and Angela Penner coming from Ontario to look after them while we're away.


• The Amgen Tour of California rolls through Davis while we are away next week. Lance Armstrong, team Radio Shack and all the other big boys will whiz by about 750 meters from our house - very exciting.


• Gabbi is singing a duet at the Spring concert at school on Monday night, we're looking forward to that performance.


• All of our visitors are causing us to discover great new day trips. Before we leave we'll write a book 101 great day trips from Davis CA.


• Thanks to some new solar heating panels, our pool is warming up nicely and the kids have already been swimming a lot.

Gotta go, got too many friends around here to be spending any more time at this. We just got invited to a neighbour's for dinner on Tuesday night too. I gotta get someone to help us manage our social calendar. :)

It's a cool, rainy spring in Nor Cal

Unlike the balmy weather we would be experiencing in Ontario, we're getting our fill of rain, wind and cooler temperatures. With each session of rainy days, people say, oh this is likely the last rain we'll get. Then it rains again. However, we know that it will soon warm up and before long we'll be so stinkin' hot we'll be reminiscing fondly of the cool, rainy days.

Fortunately when my brother Bruce, his wife Diane and their boys Craig and Evan visited during March break, we had a week of perfect weather. Maybe they brought it with them. Diane and Evan enjoyed some golf, we did a wine tour to Amador county, played lots of cards and we all participated in a family recital which included 6 piano solos and an air guitar solo by Cam.

I do have to say though that Spring around here is beautiful. The nut trees, fruit trees and other flowering trees and bushes have really brightened up the scenery. Spring flowers have been blooming since February.

We have just come through Spring Break. It wasn't a huge party like the images that get conjured up in my Canadian mind whenever I hear 'spring break' (too many bad movies, I guess) but instead a chance to do some exploring of things we hadn't yet done in 7 months. We went to the Sacramento Zoo - a small and quaint zoo, Explorit - a hands-on science discovery facility for kids here in Davis, and the Davis library of which Gabbi and Reuben are now official card holders. Cam got regular updates as he wasn't able to join us on any outings. He was in Ontario in the rain and returned in time for the next rainfall here.

We continue to enjoy the fresh produce here and just discovered white beets the other day. They're just as sweet and delicious as the red, pink and yellow ones. The sad news is the oranges are almost finished. That was a great winter treat. But, we're already into strawberries. Never a dull moment on the eating front.

We have some friends and family arriving in May, a short getaway to Mexico for Cam and me, some summer vacation in So Cal in July and swimming as the pool hopefully starts to heat up, pending that warmer weather.

Oh, and on the friend front, we do have a new spider that's living on our dining room and kitchen ceiling. The other day when the kids asked why we don't kill it, I said it's like a new friend. But unlike friends, if it gets too close I may have to smack it.

Pictures: Our hotel room Christmas tree, San Diego Zoo, Monster Jam, Go Canada!

Go Canada

Watching the Winter Olympics in California is a completely different experience from watching them in Canada.

• First, I'm sure many people are curious as to why we have a big Canadian flag hanging from our orange tree. There are a lot of Americans who don't watch the Olympics at all. That's hard to believe especially for those of us whose lives stop when the Olympics are on. (Kidding Brent, we're still working.)
• Second, Canadian coverage is blocked in the US and NBC coverage has been disappointing. Vancouver is in the same time zone as California yet for some reason they delay the coverage by three hours. That makes for very late nights if we want to actually see who won the medals.
• Third, American media broadly announced how Canada was confident they would 'own the podium' and even used this to motivate their own athletes. And now our Canadian Olympians aren't doing as well as they cockily said they would and we feel like the few Americans who are watching the Olympics are looking at us and snickering behind our backs.

Even though the Canadians aren't doing well, we remain proud of our athletes and the Vancouver games. We loved the opening ceremonies. I love how Cam summed up the Canadian vs American athlete so well: "When an American underdog is in a race you know they'll find a way to win. When a Canadian favourite is in a race you know they'll find a way to lose." Keep going Canada, we're behind you all the way. At least we're better at laughing at our shortcomings than boasting about our victories.

So, friends... we just told someone recently that we don't have a social life but we do have TV and on that TV is HBO. Thank goodness for that. But seriously, we have had two families over for dinner (that's right, 2 in 5 months) and yes, I'd call them our friends. One family might be more "our neighbours" and the other family might be more "our French tutor" but we're going to call them our friends.

I have made one truly close friend. In fact she's become an extension of my body. Yes in fact Sally is nearly the most important thing in my life right now. Sally is my blackberry. It's amazing how Cam and I used to put our blackberries away in the evening and enjoy family time. Now in our world without a lot of social interaction we both set our 'friends' beside us in the evening and watch for the green light to turn red, telling us we have a message from a real live person. They no longer feel like an intrusion, they feel more like a lifeline or connection to a variety of friends back home. All that is to say - keep sending messages.

Aside from the Olympics, here's a quick list of what's been going on:

• When we drove to LA and San Diego over the Christmas holidays, our original plan was to go to Disney on Christmas Day. Cam said there would be no one there. We checked online only to find it's the busiest day of the year. So instead we went Christmas Eve Day and there were no crowds. The weather was perfect. It was great.
• I enjoyed a get away to San Antonio, Texas with my friend Marianne Hiff.
• Gabbi and Reuben are progressing nicely with French and piano.
• Reuben still loves biking, doing jumps on the driveway, tearing around the BMX track and accompanying Cam on long runs.
• Really, the short winter here has been a little unpleasant. We went six weeks in January and February without seeing the sun, no day above 55 degrees and got 13 inches of rain. Last week felt like a glimpse of spring with 70 degree weather and sunshine. Now we're back to rain and cooler weather for a couple more weeks.
• We became rednecks for a day as we attended a Monster Jam truck show in Sacramento.
• All is quiet on the rat front! (Gnaw on wood.)
• It's been a quiet three months on our own and we're looking forward to visitors coming in March and April.