Christmas Blog 2016

Greetings, friends and family. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

from the Schwartz family.

Our year was defined by three major events: the passing of Celeste’s Mom, our downsizing from our home of 33 years to a bungalow, and the arrival of a new grandchild.

Mom Kuntz passed away on February 17, less than two weeks short of her 88^th birthday. She had been doing pretty well since recovering from her 2011 health scare. She had been feeling poorly for a few days with cold/flu-like symptoms. The kids had been taking turns staying with her to help out and keep her company. Celeste was with her the morning that she passed. She did not seem to be in any particular distress when her eyes suddenly rolled back and she was gone. Here she is with Celeste and Charlotte in December 2015 at Adam Schwartz's birthday.

The rest of our year was much more positive. We visited Vancouver a couple of weeks before Christmas 2015 since, unfortunately, Darren’s crew could not come here.

Having two-year-old toddlers around added special fun to last Christmas in Regina.

The winter was fairly mild, giving us quite a few opportunities for tobogganing.

In early February we visited Vancouver again, taking in Justin’s birthday party, Cameron’s soccer, and Justin’s Tae Kwan Do. (And cursing the emerging crocuses and daffodils!)

At the end of March they were able to join us for Easter. We took in the Science Centre and Museum, had a waterslide party, and visited with extended family.

I celebrated my 65^th birthday on the 31^st. The pain was eased somewhat with the arrival of my first OAS direct deposit soon after. In May, we went to Quebec City for our 40^th anniversary. It had been on my bucket list for a long time, we had the Air Miles, we had an occasion to celebrate, and Laura’s family was going to Vancouver, relieving us of babysitting duty.

No big events in June and July - just enjoying the summer.

In August, we visited Vancouver again, taking in a block party, Science World, swimming lessons, etc.

Back home again, more summer chillin' in August and September.

Another August highlight was a cousin party at Lorne’s with many of the Kuntzes, Brauns, Holashes, and Bultitudes in attendance.

We would normally have gone to Vancouver again in October or November, but with our move, Laura’s impending delivery date (more on both below), and conflicting calendars, we were not able to find a time that worked. On October 1, a beautiful warm and sunny day, we took in the first event at new Mosaic Stadium, in which the U of R Rams defeated the arch rival U of S Huskies.

Three weeks later, on a cold, rainy, and windy day, we watched the last ‘Rider game in old Mosaic Stadium. It was a sad affair – not because it was the last game, but because the ‘Riders stunk horribly!

October means falling leaves and Hallowe'en.

Laura presented us with a new granddaughter in November (more below). Now we excitedly look forward to Christmas with Darren’s family in attendance!

About that move… A few years ago, Laura and Brett said that they were hoping for three or four kids and would eventually need a larger house. We said that we had many empty rooms and would have to think about downsizing one of these days. Maybe we could consider a swap. They were not interested at the time, but after casually looking at houses for a few years, they could not find a house they liked at a price they were willing to pay. When Laura became pregnant with #3, they decided to revisit the issue. They concluded that, with a few renovations to update and make it their own, our old house would work for them. We knew that, as painful as downsizing would be, we had to go down that path one of these days. Thus was born the camping summer of 2016. Over several weeks, we gradually moved our entire main floor into our garage and their basement while the contractors renovated. They took out a wall between our kitchen and dining room, completely redid the kitchen, installed pot lights throughout the main floor, covered our scarred ceramic tile floor with some new super-duper vinyl tiles, and put in new toilets throughout. As moving day approached, we also repainted three of the four upstairs bedrooms. Meanwhile, we camped out in the basement while culling and packing our accumulated clutter.

Early days, wall demolished.

Half of our kitchen for a couple of weeks in August.
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The other half of the kitchen.

Getting there.

Nearing completion.

Our temorary bedroom for the last couple of weeks.

My office has been hijacked by munchkins!

Finally, after a few false starts we were ready to move on October 9. That day, with the help of friends and family, we moved beds, large furniture, major appliances, and people. Numerous other items were moved in the days and weeks before and after. The unpacking, more culling, building of shelves, and figuring out where everything goes took several more weeks. I finally painted my new office and installed cupboards for my genealogy papers in the week before Grey Cup. We are pretty settled now, but there are still many small loose ends to tie up.

We were babysitting the twins two or three days a week again until summer when Brett was off from teaching school and again in the fall until November when Laura went on maternity leave. We sure enjoy our time with the girls. They are so clever and so funny and so full of personality. They sure keep us on our toes. They are normally in very good spirits, but they are growing out of afternoon naps, so they can get a little cranky late in the day.

Carla and Tyler continue on much the same as usual. Carla is still a network analyst for CGI Group in downtown Regina a few blocks from their townhouse. Tyler still works part time, mostly weekends, on the TSN crew for ‘Rider games and producing content for SaskTel’s community channel. He does a lot of hockey plus other sporting and community events in places like Yorkton, Weyburn, Moose Jaw, and Swift Current. They love their downtown lifestyle within walking distance of restaurants and bars, Victoria Park, the Farmers’ Market, and other downtown events. The highlight of their year was a five week trip to Japan in October and November to help celebrate their friend’s 40^th birthday. Their friend is an Australian married to a Japanese girl. Several of their other friends from their time living there were also in attendance. Just as at home, they spent most of their time checking out the food and drink. They are a little camera shy and not as photogenic as the grandkids, so these are the best pictures I could find.

Darren and Sue are still in the same jobs. He works for Teck Resources in the R & D area concerning recovering metal from ore. They also do consulting for other mining companies on the same subject. Recently, he has also become involved with Teck’s investment in the Alberta oilsands, which resulted in trips to Calgary, Fort McMurray, and Saskatoon. Sue works for AECOM, a global engineering firm, in the area of water and sewage. She does some travelling, mostly in BC. She is working almost full time again, often from home, now that the boys are both in school full days. Justin is in grade 2 and Cameron in grade 1. They visited us at Easter, spent three weeks in July in Ontario at the family cottage again this year, and spent two weeks in Europe, mostly Spain, in November with Sue’s family. The day after he got off the airplane from Spain, Darren hopped on another one to Regina. He joined us here for Grey Cup weekend on the way to a Monday meeting in Saskatoon. He was on hand to “uncle” Laura’s new arrival.

Their renovations are substantially complete, so the pace is more leisurely these days. The main project this year was taking down the chimney, since they installed a new furnace a couple of years ago that vents out the side wall. They sprayed insulation in the attic a couple of years ago and have installed a skylight in the chimney hole. They are now using the attic as an office/study.

Of course, Laura and Brett’s biggest news was the arrival of Louisa Rosalind Matlock on November 26.

Moving to a new home was a huge, but distant, second. They were planning on a home birth with midwife, birthing tub, mattress, etc., but things happened so fast that Brett caught the baby before the midwife arrived. All ended well. Mom and baby are doing fine. Dad has recovered too. As noted earlier, Darren was in town for the weekend and we were at the Matlocks’ until about 9:30 PM showing him the renovations. Laura was starting to have contractions, but we didn’t expect anything until the next day. Louisa was born shortly after 11 PM! The twins were pretty tickled with the new arrival on day one, but soon moved on to their normal routine and now hardly take notice of her.

Laura was still part time at the same pharmacy until her maternity leave and Brett is still teaching grades 7 and 8 at the same school. The girls had quite enjoyed watching Ukrainian dancing, so they enrolled them in lessons. Annabelle is quite enthused, but Charlotte was being shy until recently bribed with a sucker. She is now fully on board. They love their trips to story time at the library, reading books, visiting the museum and science centre, and playing with the “character” toys that they know from books and TV. They all travelled to Phoenix with Brett’s family in February and to Vancouver for a visit in May. The girls were quite enamoured with the Phoenix Zoo and it kept coming up in their play for several weeks.

Glenn’s Mom and Dad are doing pretty well, all things considered. Mom still drives, but she doesn’t like to go very far, or downtown, or on the ring road, or at night. Mom is 90 and Dad is turning 91 as I write this on December 15. Here are pictures of them on their 2016 birthdays.

That pretty much covers 2016. Best wishes to all for Christmas and the New Year!

Glenn, Celeste, and family.

P.S. Our new address is 2114 E. Laurier Cres., Regina, SK,   S4V 0P6