Still Alive

After dinner tonight, we listened to the soundtrack from The Power of One - and I remembered how difficult it is to listen to such music while stuck in one place. It is such powerful and moving music, and it makes me feel so alive that I can hardly bear to just stand and do dishes but instead I feel inspired to crank the music, dance around the kitchen and sing (well, mumble) along to words I can't really understand. At this point, I ask that you stop laughing and please stop picturing me!! Pick up the soundtrack yourself and see what crazy things it makes you want to do.
I apologize to all my faithful blog-readers (all two or three of you that is) for not updating in a while. Yes, we're still alive! Alive, and busy, but when isn't life busy, really. We didn't get any of the snow that seems to have bombarded places withing 1/2 hr drive of us, thanks to the sheltering effect of the Niagara escarpment. I did see a few snow flakes, but none that dared to stay on the ground. Our furnace is on, our slippers are on, and it is beginning to feel like electric blanket season.
Work is going well - it was an interesting week, as Staples is celebrating its 15th anniversary in Canada. We got new uniform shirts, buttons, a 6 foot (yes FOOT) sub for lunch on Thursday, gift certificates, and other goodies. It was also announced that I was the Superperson of the month for September (yay!), and a friend from Staples in Ancaster is training in St Catharines for five weeks (yay!).
Mike's teaching is going really good, too. He had his first round of parent-teacher interviews, which were interesting and informative. The kids seem to really like him and he is enjoying them right back, and having a lot of fun. It's very busy, with a lot of planning and marking, but that all comes with the territory of being a rookie.
A special congratulations goes out to my Dad, who had his last official day of work at Stelco today. He'll be keeping himself quite busy working in the car rental business for the next few weeks, and he'll still be working at Stelco on a part-time contract basis, but the 8-4 days as Engineer Mussche in the steel mills are over now (I had to laugh, Dad, when you answered the phone as "Engineer Mussche" - I'd never heard you call yourself that before!!). Strange feeling, I'm sure, to walk out of your office for the last time, to drive out of the parking lot no longer an employee but a retiree. Congratulations on reaching this new stage in your life, and I hope and pray that you will enjoy the change and new pace of life!
Since I'm not feeling particularly inspired, I guess that's it for now. I know that about a week ago, something happened that I said to Mike "well, that's blogworthy for sure!!". Unfortunately I didn't get around to it, and now whatever happened that was outrageously funny at the time is lost in history unless I have a memory attack. Sorry!

This Weekend

Wow! Yesterday was an exciting day, and we got a whole lot of work done around the house. A HUGE thanks goes out to both our Moms and Dads, Karen and Uncle Gord, Danielle, Lauren and Amanda - without your amazing help yesterday there's no way our house and property would look as nice as it does right now!! We started preparing for yesterday last Saturday, when my parents came down along with Grandma Mussche, and we got the framing done for the deck and the walls in the kitchen prepped for painting. We even put Grandma to work pulling off wallpaper!! Thanks Grandma!!
And this Saturday, the whole crew came down and we were busy all afternoon: Mike, Dad and Dad building the deck, Uncle Gord, Danielle, Lauren and Amanda cutting down branches and cleaning up the yard, and Mom, Mom, Karen and I painting and wallpapering in the kitchen. All end results look fantastic and we are so happy with the new look! Our yard looks great, the deck is wonderful and the kitchen looks so cozy and clean!! We feel so blessed to have the help of so many people!! It certainly was a very encouraging day.
We also learned a new reason to keep our doors locked at night. St Catharines is celebrating the Grape and Wine Festival all this week, meaning much festivities and of course much drinking downtown. Generally we feel fairly distanced from downtown but last night at midnight downtown came to our doorstep. We were almost asleep when we heard some very, very drunken man wandering down the sidewalk mumbling to himself about random things. He then came down our front path, wondering out loud, "Is this my house? Do I live here?" [insert swear words wherever]. Apparently the latched door confused him and he decided that he did not, indeed, live in our house, and so he went on his wobbly way down the road. We were quite relieved he decided to leave, and also quite relieved the door was latched!!

Grandma hard at work

Mom M and her wonderful edging

Mom VD and her wonderful rolling

The men working on the deck

The yardwork ladies - on second thought maybe they shouldn't

have been allowed to have any sharp objects . . .

Finished kitchen #1

Finished kitchen #2 - isn't it cozy?

I can't post a finished deck picture because I don't have one, and since we don't have a privacy fence up yet and the neighbour has a bunch of people over in the backyard, I don't feel going out there for a picture right now!! Maybe later. It looks great though, believe me!

Red or White?

Since it is always best to be prepared, the other day Mike and I headed out to Canadian Tire to purchase a household fire extinguisher for the kitchen. Of course, this has no meaning or implication as to my skills as a cook; you just never know when something in the kitchen or in the house is going to spontaneously combust.
However, when we arrived in the fire extinguisher aisle, we were faced with a choice - red or white. For me, the choice was obvious. For Mike, the choice was obvious as well. However, when we reached the cashier, we had to make a decision, and one of us had to return our fire extinguisher of choice back to the shelf. Actually, we didn't really make a decision - my fire extinguisher was taken from me forcibly, and now we have purchased a fire extinguisher which is the wrong color.
I will learn to love this new little appliance, but I will always wonder if I was right in my color preference or if I was just out to lunch. If you could take the time to do my little poll along the right side of this page (it's near the bottom), I would certainly appreciate knowing your opinion!

Mr Vander Deen - Teacher

Congratulations to my wonderful husband for a great start on his new career as a teacher! Mike taught his very own class for the first time on Tuesday, welcoming 26 grade 6 students into his well-decorated classroom. Things are going very well, and both teacher and class are enjoying themselves. All the hard work and preparation over the last month and, really, for the last few years, are paying off now as the rubber hits the road. May the Lord continue to bless your hard work as you prepare these young minds for service in His kingdom!

Touring the Town

Seeing as how we have started our initiation to the city of St. Catharines by getting into the local newspapers, I thought I would continue to familiarize myself with the various parts and services now available to us. Today I decided to visit one of the local hospitals with one of my managers from work. He played Solitaire on his palm pilot in the waiting room while I got the grand tour of the Prompt Care department. They gave me a really cool bracelet with my name on it and everything, and before I left Dr. Nour even gave me six stitches and a few bandages. Now I am at home trying to do laundry with one hand and feeling a bit bad that my hospital tour has made me unable to work till 6:30 like I was supposed to.
Maybe tomorrow I'll check out the police department.

This is my new bracelet

Five Seconds of Fame

Having lived in the city of St. Catharines for all of three weeks now, we decided it was about time to get officially introduced into our new community, and we thought the best way to do that was to get ourselves into the local paper. So, this week, Mike was interviewed by Niagara this Week, and I had my photo published in the Standard, St. Catharine's daily newspaper.

<-------- Rachel's article----------- Mike's article --------->

I'm underneath the "A" in "STAPLES"

In other news, the other day I came home from work, did some grocery shopping, and then left to pick Mike up at the school. Apparently the kitten (yes, still nameless, but responding well to "Kitty") had quite the time when we were out, discovering the joys of grocery bags.

What? I had nothing to do with this mess!

And now, for a word from the cat: Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyhhhhhhhxz.tl;XZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzlkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Not so interested in posing for the camera

New Addition!

Just to go along with having everything in our lives suddenly new and different, we took a trip to Fonthill last night to pick up a new member for our family. He is extremely amusing to play with, and just as amusing to watch as he amuses himself with random things around the house. We don't have a name picked out for him yet, but we're working on a list - it'll take a few days to see what kind of name will suit him. He's seven weeks old, and very very cute as you can tell! Perhaps if we aren't cute enough for people to want to come and visit us, our new kitten will lure friends and family to drop in :)

Aww! Yes, he got on the kitchen table by himself. We quickly realized tablecloth + kitty = potential mess

Endless fun

Well, maybe not so endless

Three Weeks Later Report #3

Feeling the need to get away after the busy-ness of the wedding and moving, Mike and I decided to take off to upstate New York to camp in the Adirondacks last week. Leaving Wednesday morning, we drove for many an hour down the I90 until we reached our campsite on Eighth Lake, The next morning we packed up again and headed northeast to see what we could see. Running into some rain, we headed for Lake Placid, where we discovered the COOLEST bookstore, which specialized in old books and tobacco. We spent quite some time there, musing through their collection and enjoying the atmosphere. When the rain stopped, we headed off for Buck Pond, where we set up tent for the next two nights. On Friday, we went to see Whiteface Mountain, where we drove up nearly to the top, and hiked the rest of the way to the peak. What a view! It is the fifth highest peak in NY state, and on a clear day you can see Quebec. It was definitely the highlight of our trip! Suffering from a severe case of bad-map-itis, we drove just shy of 200 kilometers that day. With about 10 miles to go on our way back to the site, Mike saw a sign reading "Whiteface Mountain - 14 miles" A word of warning to anyone out there who plans to camp in the Adirondacks: buy a GOOD map!! Saturday morning we hit the road again for home. We drove and drove and drove, and finally we got home. Back to work! Mike has been at Heritage for a few days already, going through materials and getting his curriculum in order. I started work this morning, learning lots of new things and meeting lots of new people. And so life keeps moving on!

Expert firewood-chopper hard at work

Our new favorite bookstore - too bad it's so far away!

Here we are at the peak of Whiteface Mountain- pretty high up!

A view from the top - if you look REALLY hard, you can see me! (top right corner)

Michael enjoying the view with Lake Placid in the background

It got very cold at night, into the mid 30's F, so bundling up was necessary. Unfortunately, we only brought one coat between the two of us, and that one was even by accident.

Three Weeks Later Report #2

The second big thing to report is that we have moved into our new house! With much appreciated help from our family and a few friends, all our belongings and furniture were carefully loaded onto a big greenhouse truck on one of the hottest, stickiest days of the summer. We caravan-ed it down to St Catharines with the heater stuck on full blast, unloaded everything into the house, and started organizing and settling in. Now, two weeks later, there are still a few boxes scattered here and there that haven't been unpacked, but on the whole this little house has been transformed into our first real home, and quite a cozy little one at that. We are learning new things everyday about our new surroundings: the random one-way streets, the convenience of close-by shopping centres, the cozy feeling of clock bells every hour, the sirens and trains of the city. We have yet to capitalize on the convenience of weekly garbage pickups, receive our first bills, or discover how the local library works, but we look forward to the many new discoveries which await us.

Yay! Our new keys!

Crossing the threshhold!!

Danielle and Mike building our new BBQ

All our earthly possessions are in that truck!

Eating our first BBQ with family

Three Weeks Later Report #1

Whew! The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, throwing us into joyous celebrations, a new home, a new city, and new jobs for both of us. Excitement, anxiety, stress, fun, and happiness all thrown into a big pot and mixed around.
The first big thing to report is CONGRATULATIONS to Jeremy and Sarah on your wedding! We hope and pray that you will continue to grow closer together as you go down life's path hand in hand. The wedding was beautiful, and the whole day went so well. The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, and the bridal party looked wonderful. And, I must say, was that hall ever decorated well :)

Mr and Mrs Jeremy and Sarah Mulder

Bridal Party, pictured in Park Vander Deen

Mr. and Mrs. John Deere