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