A Very Good Week for Me

It started on Sunday, Kirsten invited me over for 3rd Advent, there was singing, snacks and Gluhwein. The group this year were very much into singing, so we went through quite a bit of the Wurman family songbook. I borrowed Grace's car to drive to Kirsten's, picked up Allison and Todd. After 3rd advent, I picked up Grace and we drove over to my house and decorated my tree, ate pizza and watched the last Amazing Race of the year.

Monday night Grace and I drove out to Namao and picked up Henry for supper. Luckily we were early because we got an unintentional tour of the base. Took a wrong turn, and had a little trouble finding the Shack where Henry lives. After we picked up Henry back to town, and picked up Sam and went out for supper. It was really nice to see the three cousins together again, but hard to believe that they are all grown up. We had a good visit, and then drove Henry back, this time had an intentional tour of the base. Henry showed us where he works, and point out all the highlights of the base.

Tuesday another dinner out, with a bunch of people from work, and some people that I used to work with. great to catch up. Wednesday night I stayed home and enjoyed some quiet. Thursday night Geoff came into town to stay over, and pick up Will from the airport this morning. We went out to Rigolettos for supper and I had my favourite baked Rigatoni, yummmm. Thursday at noon we had our Christmas lunch at work. It was a potluck and our group was on the main course and we decided to pool our money and got it catered, with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy. Lots of other good food was there it was lots of fun.

Today Anne, Grace and I had breakfast at Zuppa's, then off to Whyte Avenue for shopping. It was not so cold today and the stores were not too busy. Only another week until Christmas, I cannot wait.

The Polish are coming!

There was some kind of big Polish sports event yesterday. There were yobs (or Polish version of yobs) on the El, hollering "POLSKA! POLSKA!"

We spent an enjoyable afternoon puttering around Ukrainian Village / Wicker Park. We each bought some footwear. I went to Quimby's Comics (a store I have long wanted to go to), and we drank $4 mojitos. Judith went back to hotel for a nap, and then I walked around more, window shopped, drank some microbrew, read comics. And then we went out to Morton's to eat steak. That felt very stereotypically Chicago. We people-watched to see how many "middle Americans" we could see there. Answer: many.

The end of another weekend

and what a good weekend it was. Laura got here on Friday, we went downtown and ate and did a little shopping, I bought a new coat and Laura a new top, and both of us a some Christmas Gifts. I had a call from Geoff, to let us know that they were not coming until Saturday morning, because of the weather and roads. Which relieved my mind, I was worrying a bit about the roads, and driving in the dark from Rocky. Saturday moring we got up and trekked over to the store to pick up stuff for supper and centres, came home, made the centres. Theresa and Geoff got here and we had some lunch, Geoff left to shop and Allison came over and we dipped for about 3 hours. It was really great to have more than just Theresa and I doing the dipping. Theresa and I went over to Southgate Mall, I ad to pick up some pictures and she just came along for the trip. We took the train and bus, and got there quite quickly, but coming home was not so quick. We waited 45 minutes for the but to the South Campus, and nothing appeared, finally we took the number 9 downtown, and transferred to the train there. After supper, we all boarded the train again to get to Schmoozy. That was fun too, we supported the arts, increased the bids on some of the items, and watched the master schmoozer (Allison) in action.

Today we had a bit of a late start, and after brunch, T&G left to shopping, and I stayed home until it was time to go to the Jube and see Stuart Mclean. What a great show, I am so happy I went. The last Amazing Race for the season was tonight, and Grace and Sam were both here for supper. they did dishes, we visited and they both just left to "study".

Looking for McQuarrie's

Today we spent a little time doing genealogical research. Grandma Robins side of the family is from these parts, and we thought we might be able to find out who they were. I think Richard got us access to the library at the Mull Museum, where they had a book on McQuarries, as well as some databases (aka card catalogs), and Allison's librarian skills came in very handy as she was able to find some likely candidates. After that we also went to visit a woman, who does some genealogical research of people form Mull, and found some more information there. It looks like we need to do some more research in Canada, looking at birth, death and marriage records, to really nail it down.
Our hotel is very cool, it started out as fishermans cottages and is being/has been (work looks like it is still in progress) transformed into a hotel. For breakfast we had a full scottsh, which included haggis and blood pudding, with eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoe and of course beans. The buildings along the high street are very colourful, and there are some great stores. One is a liquor/hardware store, Geoff thinks that is the perfect combination. Just a couple of doors down from the hotel in one direction there is a chocolat shop and in the other direction a pub, so the location is perfect.
It rained today, but it felt soft, and I have not found it cold. My room looks right onto the harbour, a really lovely view.