Christmas Blog 2008

Greetings to all for Christmas and best wishes for the New Year.

Our 2008 newsletter actually begins on November 30, 2007. We were curling at the Accutrak company Christmas party when Glenn took a tumble, breaking his collar bone and cracking his wrist. The orthopaedic surgeon who looked at the collar bone recommended surgery to tie the pieces of the broken bone together because he thought they were too separated to heal properly otherwise. Six weeks in a cast and sling was followed by several more weeks of regaining the strength and range of motion. They were not close to normal until spring and there are still occasions when it is apparent that they are not quite 100%. Glenn is done with Accutrak now. The big equipment dealers shut us out of their dealerships and we had no way to distribute any more.

The highlight of our year was our July houseboating trip on Shuswap Lake in B.C. The whole gang was able to make it for a week of reconnecting and relaxing. Darren has been away from home for ten years now. (Can it really be that long?) Over the last six years, Carla and Tyler spent a year in Australia and New Zealand and almost four years in Japan. Although we have all been together on various occasions, such as holidays and weddings, the occasion itself dominated our time together. On this occasion, the focus was just hanging out together, and we had a blast. We usually began the day with a refreshing dip in the lake. Reading seemed to be the favourite morning activity. We spent the afternoons in the water. In the evenings we usually played cards or board games. You could find us in the hot tub at any given time on any given day. Despite occasional motion sickness for Laura and Carla and a broken finger for Tyler (Don’t ask!), we all had a great time.

We had not planned to do a winter holiday this year, partly because of Glenn’s injury, and partly because Glenn was arranging another group tour to Serbia and Romania in May and June. But Glenn’s sister Gail and her husband Dale invited us along on a trip to Montego Bay, Jamaica at Easter. We enjoyed a very pleasant and relaxing week in the sun. Soon after returning, we visited Darren and Sue in Vancouver for a few days.

At the end of May, we were off on the group tour. Celeste came along on this trip, bringing the total participants to thirteen. We had great weather and a lot of fun getting to know the rest of the group on the three week bus tour. The highlight was attending Mass in the church of our forefathers. They could never have imagined that their descendants would gather there 100 years after they had left forever. In September, Glenn reported on the trip at a genealogy conference in Oregon.

Celeste flew to Ottawa for the last week of November to visit her sister, Angie, and family. Then Angie and the kids flew back with her for an early Kuntz Christmas celebration and a week of visiting. Angie now has two kids under two, so she needs some help to travel. Nephew Daniel Hebert will fly back to Ottawa with them. Frank stayed home to finish up a bunch of renovation projects. Our last event of the year will be a short trip to Vancouver in early December to visit Darren and Sue.

Laura had plenty to report in 2008! In January, she and Brett took a holiday in Orlando. In May she adopted a puppy (Charlie) from a farm near Lemberg. We all spent the summer enjoying its antics and coping with its learning curve. In September, Laura and Brett went to New York and came back engaged. They have planned the wedding for October 10, 2009. And, finally, on October 25 they moved into the house that Laura put a down payment on in March, 2007. We have spent a fair bit of time in the last few weeks helping them to get settled. We will sure miss Charlie…, and Laura and Brett too. They are only a few blocks away, so I am sure we will see a lot of them.

Darren and Sue had big news this year – they are going to make us grandparents in early February, 2009!! We may be more excited than they are! They remodelled their condo during the spring and summer, moving the kitchen, among other things. We are looking forward to seeing the results in person.

Darren was away in Brazil for much of the year helping to oversee implementation of Cominco’s refining process in a new plant in the middle of the jungle. He was there for six weeks before our Shuswap trip and returned immediately after for another six week tour. During his next break, Sue joined him and they travelled around Brazil for three or four weeks. Then Darren did another six week tour, returning on Remembrance Day. He returned to an empty home, however, as Sue earned an assignment in New Zealand, leaving almost immediately upon returning from Brazil. She will be back in early December. That is one busy couple!

Tyler finished his teaching contract in Japan in March and Carla left her job in April. They then toured around Japan for several weeks, arriving home on June 19. They took the summer off to acclimatize. Carla is still acclimatizing, although she has been accepted into a SIAST program about managing computer networks that starts next fall. Tyler started working at Global TV in September on the production side of the local news, but his job will be transferred to Calgary in March. He is planning to attend SIAST in Moose Jaw to become an electrician. We have very much enjoyed having them around the last few months after they had been away so long. With Laura now gone, it would be pretty lonely here without them. We hope we can help them get back on their feet back here in Canada.

Glenn’s Mom and Dad bought a condo under construction. It will probably be ready in January. We have been helping to clean out fifty years of accumulated stuff from the house and garage. I am a bit surprised that they bought into the idea, but they are excited about it now.

That about does it for our year. Once again, best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year.

Glenn, Celeste, and family

Christmas Blog 2007

Hello again everyone. We hope that this finds you all in good health and good cheer. We have had another great year and we hope that you have too.

The first major event in our year was a ten day trip to Hawaii in February and March. As a bonus, we stopped in Vancouver overnight and had a nice visit with Darren and Sue. We had never been to Hawaii before, so we elected to take a package tour that covered three islands. We flew to Honolulu and stayed on Waikiki Beach for four nights. We visited Pearl Harbour, took an island tour, and rode in a submarine to a reef off the coast. We then flew to the big island of Hawaii, toured around the volcanoes and spent two nights in the town of Kona. Then we flew to Maui for three nights. We took in a luau and a whale watching tour there. We saw lots and there was plenty of relaxing down time built in too. We liked Maui best and would probably go back there again.

The biggest event of our year was Darren’s and Sue’s wedding in April. As it was held in Vancouver, our crowd was a little smaller than at Carla’s and Tyler’s Regina wedding, but we had great representation from immediate family in Regina. We all stayed in the same hotel and we rented a penthouse where we could all hang out. We all had a lot of fun. The wedding ceremony was outdoors on the shore of English Bay with water, ships, and mountains in the background. It was a beautiful setting, although rain threatened until almost the last minute.

The next big event was Celeste’s retirement! Ever since Glenn’s retirement, we have discussed when Celeste’s time would come. This spring seemed like the right time so she gave her notice and, as of June 18th, she officially retired. She is enjoying herself and has adjusted to the extra time off by becoming a Wikipedia junkie on the computer. Having her home has allowed Glenn to make some progress on his family history and on projects for his genealogy association.

We also made an overnight trip to Saskatoon for Laura’s graduation from Pharmacy in early June. That was followed by a two week visit from Carla and Tyler. It was great to have them back home again, but the time passed too quickly. We also made a short camping trip to Eastend, Saskatchewan and area. We had always been curious about the dinosaur skeletons discovered down there, so we took in the T. Rex Discovery Centre and some of the other attractions in the area.

The first week in August we went camping at Waskesiu. Celeste’s sister Angie and her family came out from Ottawa by motorhome and most of the Kuntz family made it up there for at least a couple of days. We went biking and swimming and did lots of visiting. Once again, a good time was had by all.

In early September, we left on a three week trip to the west coast. The objective was to attend a genealogical conference in Mt. Angel, near Portland, Oregon. But a secondary objective was to do some visiting on the way there and back. We had a great visit with the Wades in Calgary on the way there and back and another with Celeste’s aunt Elaine in Kelowna. Of course, we also spent a few days with Darren and Sue in Vancouver.

One other minor event that we took in was the Laughing Gas Comedy Festival in Regina in October. This entailed six comedy shows over three nights. It was great fun and we will likely do it again next year.

To close out the year, our Saskatchewan Roughriders won the Grey Cup (with sympathy to our Manitoba friends). It was pretty exciting around town and throughout the province. We stalled around for a while after the game before finally going downtown at 11 pm to take in the festivities. Although it was two hours after the end of the game, there was still a huge crowd partying in the street at the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue, despite the frigid temperature. The next day we took in the victory celebration at “Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field.” That is a mouthful! Despite a -36 degree wind chill, about 8,000 people attended. We skipped the parade the next day though.

Meanwhile, our kids have been busy too. Carla and Tyler are still in Japan teaching English. As mentioned above, they were home in June. Tyler’s brother and one of his cousins got married on consecutive weekends. They had so much fun that, for the first time, they were sad to go back. They have decided that the end is near. Tyler’s contract is up in March, after which they will do some touring, and then come home via London, where Tyler’s brother and his new wife are attending school. They intend to be home by June for the wedding of Tyler’s cousin and the July 12 wedding of their best man.

As mentioned above, Darren and Sue got married in April. They also bought a townhouse early in the year. It is a two bedroom, two storey south of False Creek with a view of the downtown and north shore. They got a pretty good deal on it because it needed a little updating. They are in the process of renovating now. Sue still works on water projects for Earth Tech and does some traveling around BC for work. Darren has been doing some traveling too. Early in the year he went to Columbia for a week of anti-kidnapping and survival training in preparation for future trips to Brazil. He didn’t think to mention that to us until he got back. In October, he spent two weeks at the remote site in Brazil where his company is supervising the construction of a processing plant. He will be going back in the New Year for about six weeks and will have to make other trips throughout the year.

Laura finished her Pharmacy classes last December and spent the first part of this year interning at the General Hospital and two pharmacies. She then wrote her finals and licensing exams and started work at Superstore in June. Although she had no plans beyond living at home after graduation, the hot housing market caused her to make a deposit on a new home a few blocks east of us. She was able to lock in the price on a home that won’t be built until late next summer, allowing her to save for her down payment and furnishings while she lives at home. She has already gained substantially as the market has continued much higher since her purchase. Her boyfriend, Brett, is pursuing his Masters degree while working as a Teaching Assistant at the U of R and an Editorial Assistant at the Canadian Plains Research Centre at the U of R. Baseball, hockey, and other sports fill his spare time.

That pretty much covers our year. And here is our wish to you for a joyful Christmas season and a happy and prosperous year ahead.

Glenn, Celeste, and Kids

Christmas Blog 2006

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Schwartz family.

Most years, when I sit down to write our Christmas letter, I have to dig deep to think of something interesting enough to write about. (We live such exciting lives, you know.) But not this year!

We got off to a quick start as we departed on our three month trip to the other side of the world in the first few days of January. I have wanted to visit Barb and Tony Jones in Australia for a long time, but, if you are going to travel to the other side of the world, you might as well spend some time when you get there, and that is hard to do when you are both working. So with me retired, and Celeste on a three month leave of absence, we set off into the sunset.

We stopped in Fiji for a couple of days to soak up some sun, and then went on to New Zealand for 18 days. (Soon after leaving Fiji, there was a military coup. Too bad we missed it!) In New Zealand, we toured both islands by car. I have heard New Zealand compared to a mini-Canada and now I know why. It offers all of Canada’s landscapes, from glaciers to arid plains to seashores to rain forests, but in a much smaller package.

Next stop, Australia! We landed in Sydney and traveled by car through Canberra to Melbourne where we spent a busy and entertaining week with the Jones clan. They were fabulous hosts, chauffeuring us around the area and feeding us like royalty. We can hardly wait to go back! We finished our visit with them by driving to their summer home in the Snowy Mountains for a day and night. Beautiful place! From there we headed back east to Sydney, then north along the coast to Cairns. A couple of the highlights were a visit to Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo and a day cruise to an island on the Great Barrier Reef.

From Cairns we flew to Ayers Rock where we joined a bus tour through the “Red Centre” of Australia for a few days, ending in Alice Springs. From there we flew to Darwin, where we joined another bus tour through Kakadu National Park. This tour was with a small group on a small bus with our nights spent in permanent tents in bush camps. It was great fun exploring this very interesting area of Australia and getting to know our fellow campers, one of whom was a retired gentleman from Calgary who had worked with my cousin, Neil Schiissler.

From Darwin we flew to Bali for a couple of days and then to Phuket Island in Thailand for a couple of more days. We greatly enjoyed both places and would consider going back again.

Next stop was Japan, where we visited with Carla and Tyler for several days. (While there, we learned of the typhoon that had struck Cairns and the flooding in the Kakadu area east of Darwin. We were continuing to stay one step ahead of any bad luck.) We had a great visit and great fun. We visited Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, and Himeji and toured around Osaka. Finally, we spent a day in Tokyo before returning home at the end of March. If anyone would like to follow all the little details of our trip, you are welcome to check our blog at http://celesteglenn.blogspot.com/.

Before our trip, I had contacted a tour operator in Germany to arrange a group tour for some of our Zichydorf family history group, but he cancelled out on me while we were away. As soon as we arrived home from Japan, I hit the Internet to see if I could salvage this trip. At the last possible moment, I found a bus tour operator that could handle us. From there it was a simple matter to arrange hotels, flights, and tours online. Six of us, (not including Celeste who had to stay home and work) left Regina at the end of May for a three week tour. In Frankfurt we met seven more tour members from other places and toured through Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. We toured several villages and cemeteries in the latter three countries where our ancestors had left their footprints. We had a wonderful time getting to know each other and exploring the homelands of our forefathers. You can follow this trip at http://zichydorf06.blogspot.com/.

The next big event on our calendar was Carla and Tyler’s wedding on August 18. They arrived in town about ten days in advance and we all scurried around, frantically pulling together the last minute details. We got everything done, but the time passed way too quickly and, before you knew it, they were married and on their way back to Japan.

We thought that was the end of this year’s excitement, but then Darren and Sue were engaged on the Labour Day weekend with the wedding planned for April, 2007. We went to Vancouver in October for a weekend visit and to personally congratulate them. On the same day we flew home, Sue also flew to Regina on business, so we had another visit in Regina.

That about covers Glenn and Celeste’s year.

Carla and Tyler continue teaching English in Japan and hope to return to Canada next year. They still seem to find the customs of Japan fascinating and fortunately, manage to take in some touring and sight-seeing while there.

Darren changed jobs in June. Someone he used to work with at Cominco gave his name to a recruiter who offered him a raise that he could not pass up and that West Coast Engineering could not match. He is now working on the details for a processing plant in Brazil that will use the processes developed while he worked at Cominco as a student. Sue continues to work in water treatment and distribution at EarthTech. She does quite a few one, two, or three day trips around BC, sometimes to Alberta, and, once in a while, to Regina.

Laura didn’t make it into the exciting news column this year, but she continues to do well taking pharmacy in Saskatoon. She spent a month of the summer working in Regina’s two hospitals on a practicum. One of her projects was to prepare a lecture on the use of methadone for the medical staff at Regina jail. She said that that was an interesting experience! She worked in the Superstore Pharmacy again for the rest of the summer. She was a little lonely, as her boyfriend, Brett, spent six weeks in Samoa on an archeological dig. She finishes her classes at Christmas and then interns through the spring. She won’t know where for sure until January. She is hoping for Regina or at least somewhere close. Her big event will be graduation next May!

That pretty much covers our exciting, enjoyable, and eventful year. We hope yours was as good as ours and that the year ahead will be even better. Best wishes for the Christmas season and the New Year from all of us.

Glenn & Celeste Schwartz and family

Christmas Blog 2005

Schwartz 2005 Christmas Newsletter

Well, here we are again, finally getting down to writing our Christmas letter and looking forward to receiving all of yours. We hope this message finds you well and that the past year has been good to you.

Glenn and Celeste began 2005 with a week in Veradero, Cuba. The weather was great and the food plentiful. What more can we say?

From there it was all coasting downhill to Glenn’s last day of work on March 30. It is very interesting how something that seems so far away comes more and more into focus as the time approaches. Glenn’s co-workers put on a great retirement party for Glenn and one other retiree. It was heartwarming to see all the family members and friends who attended. Celeste elected to continue working. She doesn’t see much point in retiring if Glenn is busy all day and she ends up sitting at home, watching TV.

As Glenn has said to whoever would listen, he liked his job, he just didn’t have time for it. Now that this time is freed up, he has been able to make progress on some of the projects on his plate. He is working 15-20 hours a week at Accutrak and continues to run the Zichydorf Village Association. In the latter capacity, he managed the acquisition and distribution to members of the church records for Zichydorf and another town, manages the member list for more than 100 members, replies to individual inquiries, produces the newsletter, and is coordinating a trip to the homeland and the production of a history book. The book was supposed to be for the 2005 Saskatchewan Centennial, but it had to be postponed due to other commitments.

At the end of May we traveled to Vancouver for Darren’s graduation. At the end of July we had another brief stop in Vancouver when we were invited to crew on a forty-foot sailboat around the Gulf Islands of BC. We had a very enjoyable few days with captain and first mate Doug and Karen Haughey and fellow crew Kevin and Linda Kuntz. In mid-September, we visited Vancouver again on the way to and from Mt. Angel, Oregon. Members of a genealogy email list that Glenn belongs to have been getting together there during Oktoberfest for the last few years. There is a meet and greet dinner on Friday and a few educational sessions on Saturday before adjourning to the Weingarten. It was a lot of fun and quite interesting to meet all the email friends face-to-face.

Carla and Tyler have finally set their wedding date for August 18, 2006. Carla will be home for the first two weeks of December during which we will engage in a whirlwind of planning and decision making. Tyler will be home for two weeks starting December 24th. They will both come home for the wedding, then return to Japan for another year or more. They have been enjoying their time there very much, as you will know if you have been following their blog at ctjapan.blogspot.com/. They are both working, at different places and different times, often in the evening. Although working cramps their style, they are still managing to soak up the Japanese culture of festivals, eating, drinking, and karaoke.

Darren finished school at the end of April, took a month off to catch his breath, and started work in June. During his break, he and Sue were able to visit Regina and attend Glenn’s retirement party. The next weekend, Celeste and Glenn attended his graduation (Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Commerce) in Vancouver. As we have explained over the years, he took a long and circuitous route with a few detours, but it was a proud moment to see him achieve success at the end of the road. He is working for West Coast Engineering, designing steel structures for street lights, highway signs, electrical transmission lines, etc. It’s more interesting and complicated than it sounds. See www.wceng.com/ He was recently appointed quality control officer and has been taking classes in quality control procedures. Sue is still working on water quality issues, traveling a fair bit, mostly in BC. They keep busy with beach volleyball, ultimate frisbee, skiing, curling, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Sue competed in a Triathlon in Penticton in August. They will be spending Christmas in Germany. Sue’s sister and husband live there, working for Microsoft. Sue’s parents are temporarily living in Paris, so they will join the party too.

Between school most of the year and work in the summer, Laura hasn’t had much time for adventure. She and Brett did get away with a group for a rock concert in Calgary in July, then went on to Tofino, BC for sightseeing, hiking, and whale watching. Between the two of them, they are wearing ruts in the highway as one visits the other pretty well every weekend. School is still going well. She agreed to a contract with Superstore in which they will help with school expenses and she commits to work for them for two years.

We are anticipating an exciting pre-Christmas, Christmas celebration. When Carla was able to confirm her trip home, everybody else was able to plan around her for the Dec. 3-4 weekend. Laura will be home for the weekend; Darren and Sue are flying in; and Celeste’s sister, Angie, and her family will be here. Everybody else still lives here. We are having a Schwartz party on Saturday and the Kuntz family Christmas on Sunday. Should be a great, although brief and busy, reunion.

Early in the New Year, Glenn and Celeste depart on a long-anticipated adventure to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and a few minor stops along the way. We will be gone most of January, February, and March. Celeste’s brother, Tom, will hold down the fort in our absence. We eagerly anticipate seeing a new part of the world and visiting the Jones family in Australia and Carla and Tyler in Japan.

That about sums up our year and our plans for early 2006. We hope that your year has been as good as ours, and we wish you and yours best wishes for the Christmas season and happiness and prosperity in the New Year.

Glenn, Celeste, and family

Christmas Blog 2004

Season’s Greetings to Friends and Family for 2004!!

As we enter the holiday season, we once again take stock of the year just past while we look forward to more good fortune in the year ahead. We eagerly anticipate hearing from those of you that also take this opportunity to update us on developments in your families. Now, settle into a comfortable chair and grab a stiff drink so you can handle the excitement of the past year in the Schwartz family.

Glenn and Celeste began the year with a very pleasant week in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic in February. It was so enjoyable that we are going south again this January, this time to Varadero, Cuba. This could become a habit!

In June, Glenn took a familiarization flight through work to visit the Air Traffic Control Tower in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Celeste came along, as planned, but somehow Carla and Laura wormed their way onto the trip. We were there for about four days and toured many of the sites. It is an interesting place to visit and a great time was had by all!

We also traveled to Vancouver in July to visit Darren and Sue for a few days. The weather was very hot while we were there. Just what you want for holidays. We went on an excellent hike through Lynn Canyon and along the Seymour River. On the way to and from Vancouver we squeezed in two very pleasant stops in Kelowna: one with Glenn’s Uncle Adam and Aunt Carol, and the other with Celeste’s Aunt Elaine and Uncle Al.

We still take our almost daily half-hour morning walk, depending on the weather and Glenn’s shifts. On days that we are both off, we stretch it to an hour or more and sometimes go elsewhere in the city to explore new territory. It is the best part of our day. If the stores are open, we sometimes stop in at the new Petland store to look at puppies. It has been five years since our Lucky passed away and it is sure tempting to have a dog in our home again, but we keep coming back to the reality that it just wouldn’t work for us in the near future, much to Laura’s disappointment.

From an occasional topic of conversation twenty months ago, retirement has become a constant subject of discussion. The closer it gets, the more real it becomes. For Glenn, there is a reminder almost every day that, "Next year at this time, I won’t need to worry about that." Whether it is a football game or social event conflicting with a working shift, or a seasonal event or activity at work, there are constant reminders that the time is approaching. When the guys are talking about taking summer holidays or events coming up in the new year, I just sit back and say, "I don’t care." It’s great! I have taken to counting down the months. It is surprising how quickly those numbers get smaller! Celeste is still undecided about her timing. She may go with Glenn. She may work until later in 2005 when she will have additional options in her pension plan. Or she may continue for some time. As Glenn gets more excited about being done, so does she. So I don’t think there will be too much separation.

Accutrak has morphed into a real business with real sales. We hired an experienced businessman to build the business and oversee the day-to-day operations. He has done a great job. Even though Glenn now has fewer duties, the volume of work within those duties has increased, so the overall work load is still high when combined with a full time job and the duties with the family history group. It is a lot of fun though, and we are even starting to get some of our investment back.

Carla and Tyler didn’t make it to the altar this year. With the planned trip to Japan imminent, they felt that they would not have time to plan and execute a wedding before they left. As time went by and nothing happened on the Japan front, it became apparent that they could have pulled it off if they had gone for it at the outset, but that now it was getting too late. In the end, they left for Japan September 28, still unmarried. They arrived in Japan in time to experience a few typhoons and an earthquake, but no harm done. In fact, they didn’t even notice the earthquake while they were in the karaoke club. I’m not sure if the floor shakes in there all the time or if they were so unsteady on their feet that they couldn’t tell. Tyler just landed a one year teaching job from March/05 to March/06. Carla is still part time, but is hopeful that opportunities will open up in the New Year as others finish their commitments and return home. You can follow their escapades at ctjapan.blogspot.com/.

Darren moved out of his bachelor pad and into an apartment with Sue when she returned from Africa. They have the top floor suite in an older three-storey house in the Kitsilano area with a park in the back yard and the beach just a stone’s throw away. It is not cheap, but it is very nice. They are an easy walk from grocery and produce stores and many restaurants. Darren is looking forward to finally graduating and has started his job search. It has been a long haul, but his detours have given him a lot of valuable experience, a solid resumé, and added academic credentials in his Commerce minor. We think he will do well. Sue returned to her previous job in Vancouver. She keeps busy hiking, biking, swimming, and training for a triathlon.

Laura has been doing very well in pharmacy. She has numerous complaints about the instruction of some of the professors and teaching assistants, but, I guess that is what you expect in university for your hard-earned money. She was home for the summer working at the Superstore pharmacy. At the end of the summer, she and Devin ended their relationship. She landed on her feet and now has another boyfriend, Brett, from Lumsden. Seems like a nice young man. She has suddenly become a hockey fan. Could be because Brett plays on the Lumsden team.

Pretty exciting, eh? But who needs excitement? We have been blessed with good fortune and no major bumps in the road. Who could ask for anything more? Here’s hoping that your year has been equally as good and that next year is even better.

Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, & Laura

Christmas Blog 2003

Season’s Greetings for 2003!

We hope that the last year has been good to you and we wish you well at this joyous season and in the year ahead.

Our year was pretty standard and without major trauma. We were a little shocked when Glenn’s Dad required sextuple bypass surgery in February, but he has recovered well and had another busy season of golfing.

Glenn is still working in the Control Tower at Regina Airport. His diabetes is under control and, other than restricting his consumption of chocolate and ice cream, has not been much of an obstacle. He has pretty much settled on a retirement date in April, 2005, giving him just over 35 years of service. Retirement can't come too soon, as work gets in the way of his many other interests. He is still active as president of the Zichydorf Village Association and is spearheading a drive to produce a history book for Saskatchewan's 2005 centennial in addition to his other duties. A ghost from the past has risen from the almost dead. Accutrak Systems Ltd. has converted its ground-based positioning technology and now uses GPS satellite signals to control the hydraulic steering of farm vehicles. Interest is high and sales are gaining momentum. Cash flow has permitted the hiring of staff for most of the day to day operations, but Glenn still supervises the office portion of the business and is involved in frequent strategy, tactics, and policy discussions.

Celeste is still working for Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, Food Safety Branch. Since her branch was downsized more than a year ago, she has become accustomed to the less harried pace. She actually has free time occasionally! She still walks daily, weather permitting, usually twice or more. Ever since retirement became a topic of discussion, she has maintained that she couldn’t possibly retire as early as Glenn. But, now that the time is getting closer and the plans are firming up, the idea is becoming more appealing. We’ll see.

Carla has been working at Accutrak, mostly on writing and maintaining operator manuals and the web page along with some bookkeeping. She and Tyler are planning on traveling to Japan and teaching English. Their preferred company interviews in February for departures in July. If they are not successful in getting on with this company, they will pursue other options. At long last, after nine years of being a couple, they have decided to get married! Because of the uncertainty of the timing of their departure for Japan, they have decided to wait until they return to tie the knot. They have also taken up the sport of Kendo, Japanese sword fighting, for fun and fitness.

Darren completed his year of working for Cominco and returned to school in September, hopefully with enough money to complete his degree. He enjoyed the change, but not the increase in workload. They are keeping him pretty busy. His girlfriend, Sue, was hired on a contract to build a water distribution system in rural Uganda. She left late in October and will be gone until late in the spring. While he misses her company, it is easier to stay focused on schoolwork. He continues to greatly enjoy the snow boarding, hiking, and camping on the West Coast. During the summer, Glenn and Celeste visited with the request to show them some of the places he likes to go. One of the places was the Stawamus Chief, a mountain at Squamish, B.C. Sue had warned him that this might be too taxing for a couple of old folks like us, but he assured her that we walk daily and were in pretty good shape. It turned out, though, that walking half an hour every day on Regina streets is a little different from climbing a long, steep mountain trail. It was a good workout, but we made it to the top and the view was well worth the effort. We took a lot of pictures so that we could enjoy the view in the comfort of our living room in future, but they don’t really do it justice, so maybe we will have to do it again some time.

Laura is now well established in Pharmacy at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. She shares the main floor of a nice, older bungalow a fifteen-minute walk from her classes. Having been away from home before, she adjusted well, but still misses home and maybe even Devin a little bit. She comes home an average of about every third weekend and he has visited up there a few times. She has become quite good friends with her cousin Lyndon Schwartz, who also started Pharmacy this year. They helped each other get settled, sometimes travel home to Regina together, and Lyndon usually picks Laura up on the way to school. She found quite a difference from the U of Regina. Instead of the theatre seating for large classes that she was accustomed to, her large class of 85 students is crammed into a level room in which you cannot see the front from the back. Instead of checking her marks, managing her account, and doing other personal business online at her convenience, she must queue up in person or on the telephone for most student services. I am sure U of S will get with the 90’s in the near future. (Couldn’t resist that dig at all of our Saskatoon friends and relatives.)

We are looking forward to seeing a new face at Christmas this year. Ryan Jones, from Australia, will be driving in from Vancouver with Darren with a few stops for skiing or snow boarding on the way. Ryan is the son of Barb and Tony Jones who showed Carla and Tyler such good time in Australia last year. We hope we can reciprocate equally as well. The initial plan is to stay with Glenn’s sister Gail’s family, but we hope he will spend a little time with us also.

From our house to yours, have a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year!

Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, and Laura Schwartz

Christmas Blog 2002

Seasons Greetings...

to all our friends and relatives at this holiday season. We hope that the year has been good to you and that this message finds you happy and well.

For the most part, we had another year of good fortune, but we experienced one large and unexpected loss when Celeste’s father passed away in August. He had been diagnosed with a heart condition in the Spring, but it did not appear too serious and he was still undergoing evaluation when he suffered a heart attack at a Roughriders football game. Thank you to all who expressed their condolences.

Carla and her boyfriend, Tyler, have been in Australia for the last year. They left in early November, 2001. They spent a few months in Sydney, then moved on to Melbourne where they were treated royally by Barb and Tony Jones and family. From there they headed west to Adelaide where they joined a tour going north through the outback to Darwin. There they bought an old station wagon equipped with camping gear that served as their home for the rest of the trip. They drove to the northeast coast along the Great Barrier Reef. Finally, they returned to Sydney where they sold their car and departed for New Zealand in mid-October. They should be back in Vancouver by December 15 to visit Darren and back home for Christmas. Along the way they worked in telephone solicitation and picking squash, probably the most educational part of the trip.

Darren has had another successful year at UBC in Vancouver. Summer jobs were hard to come by through the co-op program though, so he applied at Cominco Engineering Services, where he worked when he first went to the coast. They were happy to have him back and made him Group Leader of mechanical services during the plant refit, supervising a technician and a graduate engineer. At the end of the summer they offered him a one-year contract to stay on as the manager of mechanical systems, responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the production systems. Although this will delay his graduation for a year, it is at least equivalent to a job he might have obtained as a first year graduate anyway, and it will help to finance the last two years of his degree. It should look pretty good on a resumé too. His girlfriend, Sue, completed her degree in the Spring and obtained employment on the Vancouver area.

Laura continues to excel at the University of Regina. Her desire to pursue a career in pharmacy is firming, although other options still remain open. She left her job at the answering service and signed on as an assistant in the Superstore pharmacy. So far she is enjoying the new challenge. She spends most of her time studying, working, and squeezing in a few moments with her boyfriend, Devin.

Celeste’s workplace changed significantly in a provincial government reorganization in the Spring. The busiest and most interesting parts of her work unit were spun off to other departments and some new pieces were added. Overall, the work is less hectic, but also less interesting. She continues to walk several miles every day, with Glenn in the morning, and on her breaks at work.

Glenn had quite a little surprise when he was diagnosed with diabetes in January at his annual medical for work. Because blood sugar can become too low during treatment, causing confusion and fainting, he was not allowed to work until his condition was stabilized in early July. With some medication and some fairly minor diet modifications, everything now seems to be under control.

The upside of the diabetes scare was that Glenn’s refresher course in Vancouver was canceled. Since we had already booked Celeste’s flight and a rental car on Air Miles, we booked another flight for Glenn and spent a pleasant week holidaying in Vancouver in February. We enjoyed our daily walks in the balmy climate and took Darren and Sue out for supper every evening. We also took the opportunity to explore retirement communities in the area. Talk of retirement between Glenn and Celeste is becoming more frequent. We enjoy hanging out together so much that we can hardly wait to do it all the time! Are we deluding ourselves? We hope not! We plan to put it to the test in about two years.

From our family to yours, may you enjoy a festive Christmas season and a happy and prosperous New year.

Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, and Laura

Christmas Blog 2001

Season’s Greetings

Each year seems to go faster than the one before it. It seems like I only finished doing this yesterday! Time for another installment in the exciting adventures of the Schwartz family.

Celeste and Glenn celebrated their 25th anniversary this year by taking a 7-day Carribean cruise in early April. We visited Cozumel, Mexico; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; and Holland-America’s private Island, Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. The weather, food, and entertainment were fantastic. It was a great experience that we would recommend to anyone.

We had planned to drive to Ottawa and to Vancouver during the summer to visit our wayward children, but both trips fell through. More about Ottawa in Carla’s story that follows. The Vancouver trip fell through because Celeste encountered some health problems the day before we were planning to leave. Her hemoglobin level became dangerously low and we made a couple of trips to Emergency before things were stabilized. Things were a little scary for a while, but she is doing fine now.

In October, Celeste accompanied Glenn on a business flight to Ottawa. Glenn had an interesting visit at Ottawa Tower and we enjoyed a visit with Carla and Celeste’s sister, Angie, and family.

Carla had a very interesting year. The same day in May that Glenn booked non-refundable tickets to visit her in Ottawa in October, she was laid off by Nortel. She wasn’t too heartbroken though. She hadn’t been enjoying her work very much and she received a good severance package. She decided to stay in Ottawa for the summer and enjoy all the taxpayer-funded summer fun and then go to Australia in the Fall. A couple of weeks later there was a fire in the townhouse she was sharing. Although her stuff only suffered smoke damage, she lost a lot of things due to insurance complications. She was forced to bunk in with a friend for the rest of her stay while the residence was repaired. As it turned out, she stayed a little longer than planned and we visited her in October after all. She and Celeste drove home and then she left for Australia with Tyler on November 3. Their visas permit them to stay for up to one year and to work up to three months at a time. You can keep up to date with their exploits at: http://ca.geocities.com/carla_tyler/.

Darren continues to study Mechanical Engineering at UBC. He is doing well in his classes and keeps busy with many outdoor activities in his spare time. He worked at the Vancouver Aquarium again for the summer and moved into a house closer to the university with four other guys. He is close enough that he has parked his car and motorcycle and gets around on his bicycle. He continues to see Sue, his girlfriend of the last two years.

Laura graduated from grade 12, averaging just over 90%. She won a provincial general scholarship presented to the top handful of students in each school, and a four-year scholarship from Nav Canada. She is now studying sciences at the University of Regina and is thinking of focusing on bio-chemistry or pharmacy. She worked for the summer at an answering service and continues there part-time. She has also been seeing a steady beau, Devin.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year!!

Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, and Laura

Christmas Blog 2000

Season’s Greetings to all once again. Time for another exciting annual installment in the saga of the Schwartz family.

Carla flew the coop for good this spring. She completed her degree in April, promptly leased a new Pontiac Sunfire, and left for Ottawa to begin working for Nortel Networks on May 1. She works in verification testing where they design test programs for new products to make sure they do what they are supposed to do. She didn’t care for her first accommodation, so she found a new place over the summer and is now resettled. During the summer she took a bus trip to New York for a long weekend with a number of co-workers. She enjoys Ottawa and has made many new friends.

Darren is still in Vancouver. He traveled to Thailand in April with two friends. They backpacked around the country, then settled on a beach for a week. He had a great time and many interesting experiences. When he returned, his roommates had moved, so he caught up with them and moved in on an interim basis. His official bedroom was the furnace room (we like to tease him about that), but he slept on the couch unless there was company. He worked as an engineer’s assistant at the Vancouver Aquarium for the summer. After his experience with pumps and filters at Cominco, this one was child’s play. In late summer he moved into another new place with two other friends. He started mechanical engineering at UBC in September. He is working hard and doing well, or so he tells us.

Laura enjoyed a being back at school after last year’s correspondence experience. Her grades were excellent. She has worked part-time in a young ladies clothing store since early summer. She enjoys the spending money, responsibility, and achievement, but it sure keeps her busy. She attended a modeling convention in Vancouver in November to gauge the opportunities after graduation. There was some interest in her, but the jury is still out. She is pondering life after high school, assessing where her interests and talents lie, and trying to decide on a career path.

Glenn and Celeste spent the summer visiting their far flung children. They drove to Vancouver in early June to deliver Glenn’s old motorcycle to Darren. It hadn’t been on the road in about 15 years, so it needed some work, but when it was done, it was almost like new. Darren quite enjoys riding it and has had several comments about driving a "classic" bike. About 10 days after returning from Vancouver, they were off again to Ottawa delivering personal possessions that Carla couldn’t squeeze into her car. Laura and their niece, Shauna, went along for the ride. In Ottawa they took in the Canada Day festivities and enjoyed a visit with Celeste’s sister Angie and her family.

In September it was automobile assessment time. Would the 1986 Olds 98 make it through another winter? There were signs that it might need some major work. Was it wiser to sink a bunch of money into an old car that would need replacement soon anyway, or replace it now? We decided to bite the bullet, and we’re glad we did. Celeste is now driving a 2000 Oldsmobile Alero. She likes it very much and we both enjoy the peace of mind of knowing it is not likely to break down in the near future.

The subject of retirement is coming up more and more frequently. Although it is not imminent, it is near enough that we are starting to think about it and consider when our finances will allow us to be free to do what we want every day.

Best wishes to all for Christmas and in the New Year,

Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, and Laura

Christmas Blog 1999

Season’s greetings to all! Hope you have all had a good year and wish you the best in the future!

As usual, our year hasn’t been filled with excitement, but we are finding that, as we "mature", we prefer the slower pace. We are trying to adjust to the fact that our fledglings are beginning to leave the nest. While we miss them when they are gone, it is nice to have some private, quiet time too. We actually had about ten days in August when there were just two of us!!

Our household suffered two losses this past year. Our dog passed away in August. She got into some garbage that had a container of rancid fat. The vet said the large fat meal itself might have shut down her pancreas or toxins in the rancid fat may have been the cause. She had been having occasional epileptic seizures for the past several months and the symptoms were quite similar, so we didn’t take her to the vet until it was too late. She was only 6 years old and we expected her to be with us for a long time yet.

Our second loss was not as dramatic, but it saddens us also. We lost our Darren to the siren song of the west coast. He went to Vancouver on a co-op work term as part of his university engineering course. He was supposed to be there for eight months and return to the University of Regina in September. However, he really liked living away from home with some other guys. And he really liked snowboarding in July. Finally, he decided that he was going to stay out there and go to school at UBC. He was too late to register for this fall, so he plans to enroll next September. In the meantime he is still working for Cominco Engineering Services and having a great time living the single life.

Carla spent the summer in Ottawa working for Nortel Networks. She enjoyed her time there and would willingly return after graduation if that is where her opportunities lie. She has to complete the current fall semester and the succeeding winter semester to graduate in the spring. She has started her job search, with Calgary and Ottawa being the most likely destinations at this time. She also is looking forward to being independent, but we know she will miss our company, our cooking, and especially our humour.

Laura made two trips to Japan on modeling contracts this year. Her first trip in January and February was a good experience. She made a new friend, got some work, and had a good time. The second trip in September and October was less enjoyable. She was in a bigger agency that was less personal, the accommodations were not as good, and she didn't get any work. She has an opportunity to go to Taiwan at a later date, but, after completing two semesters of school by correspondence, she wants to return to school in the new year and consider her options after that.

Celeste continues at the Industry Development branch of Sask Agriculture and Food. She still enjoys her work and it doesn’t appear that there will be any downsizing for now, so she may be there for a while longer.

Glenn remains with Nav Canada, working in the airport control tower. The atmosphere at work continues to deteriorate under Nav Canada. A new labour contract resulted in a nice salary raise at the expense of more days of work, netting a small hourly increase. Shift scheduling was changed substantially for the worse. Before, during, and since negotiations, it seems that top management tries to dream up at least one new irritant every week or so. Early retirement at age 50 is an increasingly attractive option. Fortunately, Regina tower is out of sight, out of mind and has been spared the worst so far. Controllers here are keeping their heads down, trying to stay invisible.

Glenn and Celeste did some traveling this summer, visiting their far-flung young’uns. No, they didn’t go to Japan to visit Laura.

Glenn had to attend a brief course in Ottawa in February, so Celeste tagged along to visit her sister (Angie) and family. We were there during the winter carnival and many of the activities were across the street from our hotel. We had a good visit and an enjoyable time.

In May, Glenn had a familiarization flight to Vancouver through work. This consists of riding on the flight deck to liaise with pilots and visiting another control unit at destination. Glenn visited Vancouver tower. Celeste went along to visit Darren. Although Darren was working most of the days we were there, we all managed to get together in the evenings. We don’t know about Darren, but at least two of us enjoyed the visit.

Glenn, Celeste, and Laura all traveled to Ottawa over the Canada Day period to visit Carla and Celeste’s sister (Angie) and her family. We used Air Miles to fly there and rent a car and we stayed at Angie’s place, so the trip was pretty economical. Celeste’s brother’s (Kevin) family was there at the same time, so we went everywhere in a big crowd. The four of us from our family also took a one day side trip to Montreal and took in some sights.

In early August we visited Vancouver again. We had planned to bring home some of Darren’s things so he had less to bring home in the car. When he decided he was staying, we decided that we would drive out there anyway for a visit. Laura flew out the day we left in the van. She had to apply for her visa to go to Japan and wanted to visit her friend from her first Japanese trip. We only stayed a couple of days and the three of us drove home.

That’s about all the excitement we have had around here. Best wishes to everyone at your house for the holiday season and in the new year.
Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren (in absentia), and Laura.

Christmas Blog 1998

Season's greetings to one and all,

It's hard to believe that another year has passed in what seems like the blink of an eye. Fortunately, we have been blessed with good fortune and good health. We didn't win any lotteries, but we didn't have any major disasters either.

Carla continues in electronic information systems engineering at the U of R. She had a work term at SaskTel in Regina for the first third of the year, took classes through the summer, and finished off with another work term at CDC in Calgary. CDC does military contracting and she had hoped to drive one of the tanks in their parking lot, but it never happened.

Darren also continues in engineering at the U of R, but he has specialized in industrial systems engineering, which is more along the lines of designing and operating large industrial complexes. He begins his first work term at Cominco Engineering Services in Richmond, BC in January. He is pretty excited about it, but we are having trouble accepting that his first work term is twice as far away and twice as long as Carla’s. It will be a big adjustment for all of us. Darren has been keeping pretty busy. He worked full-time hours at Costco for the summer and is now working part-time as a cook in a bar & grill as well as helping out at Grandpa's autobody shop. But his major accomplishment was at home. He completely stripped the paint off the '66 Thunderbird we acquired from Grandpa Schwartz and repainted it a bright, flashy red. It looks great and we hear it could be worth some money, so now we are afraid to drive it in the winter.

Laura won a local modeling contest in November/97 and has since been in a fashion spread in the local newspaper, several fashion shows at malls and a night club, window modeling at a ladies clothing store, and a few miscellaneous events. One of the contest prizes was a trip to Vancouver to be scouted by international agents. It looks like she will be going to Japan for 6-8 weeks around Feb-March/99 and possibly to Italy in the summer. Now THERE are some big adjustments!! We are trying to sort out the logistics of school, chaperoning, safety, etc. We have some concerns, but it is hard to refuse such an opportunity. Laura is doing well in grade 10. She did not return to dancing this fall, but has joined a fitness club where she works out 2-3 times per week. She has just begun the in-car portion of driver training, so we are getting out to practice whenever we can.

Celeste's home life is considerably more relaxing, now that she isn't driving Laura to dancing 4-5 times a week, but her job at Sask Agriculture is pretty hectic with her being the only Admin support person for 15 office staff. Fortunately, they have finally realized how much responsibility and work she does and upgraded her job classification. That doesn't make the work any easier, but it makes it easier to take.

Glenn's main occupation (outside of the one that pays the bills) remains genealogy. Personal family history has taken a back seat to running the Zichydorf Village Association. This entails publishing newsletters, keeping up a large email correspondence, compiling a genealogical database that now exceeds 10,000 names, and trying to link all those people together into families. It may not be as exciting as going to Calgary, Vancouver, or Japan, but, at his age he can't take much excitement anyway. He hopes to make some serious progress on his own family history over the winter.

Best wishes of the season and have a happy and prosperous new year.
Glenn, Celeste, Carla, Darren, and Laura.