Always ready to serve Daddy chaperoned Laura on a field trip to 15 Wing Moose Jaw to visit the home of the Canadian Snowbirds. Here's a few snapshots of our day! As the weather wasn't all that great, we had the fortune to meet the grounded pilots, in a couple of the pictures.

Our old bed, on a (still) nice Ikea bed Frame. the mattress though, is about 10 years old and was very cheap. I was happy to push it out the door!

Our new mattress, on the new bed frame, with the new furniture. I asked the delivery guy if it comes with a pole vault to get into it!

Laura gets to have her bed back, actually it's her new bed, as we're putting our nice Ikea bed frame down there for her. she's not happy about this as she was enjoying sleeping on a piece of foam on hard futon slats. Ahhhh, to be young and have a good back!

The worst 8 nights of my life!!!

Hope that title grabbed your attention. We finally bought a new mattress today, our last one was rather cheap and has been giving us back aches for several months now. So now we have 8 more nights to sleep on it before the new one gets delivered next Friday.

The funny thing about the whole process was that I didn't mind paying the $$$ for the mattress, but my eyes shot out for the far less amount we paid for the sheets we got for the bed. But, boy, those sheets we got were the softest thing I may have felt in my entire life.

So here's the mattress below, because I know how much people want to see it! The lady doesn't come with it though!

Wow, she's incredible!

Lisa's an absolute gem of a wife, mother, and household cleaner. She taught me how to clean the bathroom tonight. I always wondered why it took so much time but now I know. There were several things she did that I had no idea she did on a weekly basis.

So here's to the best wife a guy could have...

Lisa Taylor

Thanx Lisa, I'll never doubt you again! (Do you believe me?)

We never saw this in Ontario

Apparently this is called "Ice Frost". It happens when there's so much fog and there's so much moisture in it that it comes out as ice crystals. This is on our fence at around noon, and it was gone at 4:30 p.m. I think it was so cool!

Not exactly the NBA

Here's a video of Laura playing in her first ever basketball game for the Cornerstone Christian School Falcons "B" Girls Team. It's mostly Grade 5 and 6's, although we've now played 2 games against teams with grade 7's and 8's. So it's sometimes hard playing seeing our girls play against teams that are literally a foot taller than them. But we know this is a fun league for the kids to learn how to play B'ball. Enjoy the video!

Wow! She did it!

The seconds were ticking away, the first half of the basketball game was almost over. Cornerstone "B" was playing the "A" Empire Tigers and the game was close. Suddenly, with the game on the line, a Cornerstone player steals the ball and runs straight to the basket for a free shot at 2 points. An Empire girl chased after her and there was our Laura following behind. As I sat there enthralled I realized Laura could be in a good position for a rebound. The shot was taken and it missed. Then there was a ball coming down. Laura grabs it! Does she have a chance for a shot??? YES!!! She takes it, but will it go in? It bounces on the rim and for that split second you think it may come out... but it doesn't, it goes in and the crowd goes absolutely crazy, cheering, yelling, whooping it up. We look at the scoreboard, realizing with pride that our daughter has just scored her first basket ever in a game. Lisa and I get teary eyed. The score... it's close but Cornerstone is back in the game.


Empire 20
Cornerstone 2


(But the final score is a little better, Empire 28 Cornerstone 12)

We had a Super Bowl party tonight with about 15 folk here. Our friend Curtis here was sitting beside the picture of Lisa's brother-in-law in California and we decided to take a snap of them side by side. See a resemblance?

Female Grooming

We had a girl's makeover day today. Kathy, who is Aysia & Rayna's mom, is very talented and was the one responsible for making us all feel glamourous & beautiful. This is Kathy working on Courtney's hair while Laura, Aysia & Rayna work on their nails.

Kathy starting Laura's transformation.

The new Laura!

Laura & Aysia with their new dos!

Laura, Aysia & Rayna looking beautiful.

Courtney & her sister Morgan with their beautiful new locks! (don't you just love Morgan's red hair - it's gorgeous!)

Male Grooming

Not quite as complicated & involved as the grooming we females did today!

Cousins

Goofy Cousins!

I can't do this anymore!

Got some great shots of Andrew flying off the swing, this is one of the better ones!

Lisa's side of the family

Auntie Diane trying to get out of the picture, she succeeded. She just loves the camera!

Uncle Paul doing his thing.

The birthday boys (Donnie's in the picture) and girls.

The whole gang - what a goofy group!

Here's the kids on an ATV (Quad), I like the slow motion of them but feared they went quicker once they were ito the woods and trails!



We had a 4 hour layover in Minneapolis on Christmas Day, so here's Andrew describing his first flight as we killed time on this fun tram, something we'll likely do again next Monday during our 3 and a half hour layover.

To the Center of the Universe

We spent a day visiting with a friend (Steve) in Toronto whom we've gotten to know since meeting him online while doing research for our Cuba trip in 2004. We didn't realize it until we sat down on the GO Train from Burlington to Toronto that it is the only time in our whole vacation that Lisa and I were alone.




We took Steve to one of our favorite restaurants in Toronto that we hadn't been at in many years. In the lobby of this gargantuan building of many huge buildings in Toronto is a wonderful camera shot. Our friend doubles as a professional photographer so he took 8 picutre of us, finding the right settings for a good shot. this one is on our camera but I think the better ones were on his camera.

The Hockey Hall of Fame was our meeting spot with Steve and there was a nice Maple Leafs sweater there on sale. I didn't want to spend moeny on it but Lisa said she had a Visa card and if I didn't get it she would so that kind of ended the conversation. This is us returning on the GO Train back home that evening.

Steve and I (and a few others we know) have a fun rivalry of our favorite teams and enjoy bashing our hated teams. In a fun bit of reversal, we agreed to wear each others teams jersey for a shot.

My true colours came out though when I found this item I dubbed the "Habs Puke Bucket". Taking this shot in a store full of people was a lot of fun.

Back to Minden

We went back to our previous home and spent some time with our old friends from the past 4 and a half years. We stayed at our good friends Jason and Michelle who are mostly finished building a beautiful log home in the woods. Here's some pics of our visit there.


Michelle was drying her hair so I thought I'd join in the fun, besides my one third inch long hair needs to be protected from the harsh element of living in the woods of Cottage Country Ontario!

I think they won't be coming to Saskatchewan now for a visit now that they have this beautiful new hot tub. We spent a few nights in it relaxing with the bush (forest) in the background and rain and snow falling on us a bit, it was defintiely a great part of our visit.

I had a mixture of exhiliration, anticipation and dread concerning the four wings on my plate here. My good friend Jason makes them with a mixture of regular supermarket hot hot hot sauce as the base, then he puts in a few drops of something called "Mega Death" wing sauce which is 500 times as hot as normal sauce. The pain, sweats, drooling and fire were worth it. I downed one, felt my mouth start to burn, then downed the next three before it became unbearable. I had this huge glass of milk at the ready but it wasn't enough, I filled it up again.

The kids went out with their friends Micheon and Alabama on the ATV's (Quad's in Saskatchewan). I went out with Jason later and saw some of the damage caused by the tornado that went through the area this past August, a few days after our daughter left the area from her visit.

There was a welcome back party for us at Tammy's house, another beautiful new home in the woods, overlooking Minden. We had about 30 or so folks who came to say hello, including a couple of old firefighter friends. We certainly miss the area and the friends we made but are so happy to be where we are now in Moose Jaw in a wonderful church, with great new friends, a great Christian school for the kids, a good job for Lisa, and our first purchased house! Minden will also be special in our memories though!

Dad's side of the family

Dec. 27th we enjoyed time with Ashley's side of the family. Here's some random pictures of us.

Here's my brother Stu's kids modeling their Future Shop gift cards wrapped in my brother Chris's underwear, this made for a great laugh.

2 of my 3 brothers in a cute family shot.

Well, so much for the custard for some desert we were going to have, he spilled it and then told everyone to get their camera's to take a pic. He never loses a chance to give us a good laugh.

Stu and random kids.

Laura, that wasn't very nice to do that to your cousin Kaley.

My sister-in-law Karen with her son Jayden and us.

Our final visit, a lunch at a nice restaurant which shall go nameless as it's play on words of a rude name. (Gotcha thinking now, don't I?)

Wagons East!

Christmas Day we picked up and flew back to Ontario to visit with family and friends. Here's a grainy picture of the airport in Minot, North Dakota just before Andrew's first ever flight and the kids with Snoopy in the airport at Minneapolis St. Paul's.

School Christmas Concert

Both Laura & Andrew were involved in the Christmas concert at school. Grades 1 thru 6 were involved in a play called "The Chronicles of Bethlehem". Laura's class were shepherds & townspeople and Andrew's class were the "kings of swing".

Laura's grade 5 band also played and this picture is when the grade 4, 5 & 6 bands played together as one big group.