Amsterdam

We arrived! New Years Eve. Interesting people watching!

Zeghers Christmas

Another turkey was sacrificed in honour of the season.  Some of the Zeghers clan gathered at Joann's house.  Leah says it isn't a Christmas gathering unless there are kids.  Here she is holding Sofia, who is wearing her new Jack Frost hat.

Everyone loves a baby!!

Sofia is wondering who snuck in behind her.  Who is this guy??

Joann and her baby, Molly.

Today we head off on our long trip.  We catch our flight to Chicago this afternoon, and then to Amsterdam through the night. 

Cheers everyone.  Keep in touch with us on this blog, email or Facebook.  Gotta love technology!!

Hellos and good-byes

Last night Leah had her school friends over for a visit.  It was great to catch up with all the kids and what they are doing now.

Leah's high school friends.

The boys remembered this jar from old school days when I taught them.  

Can you read what the jar says?

Today I got together with the "girls" for lunch at Dayner's Den.  Excellent hamburger soup!!  We all exchanged our various schedules of holidays.  We will all be together again in late February.

Left to right:  Me, Joan, Shirley, and Beth

I was able to get away without cooking any meals today, tonight we were invited to the Rex's for supper.  Amazingly delicious, green curry soup.  Wow!!

Left to right:  Leah, Don, Sandra and Wil.

Christmas Events

Christmas Eve:
During the day we had a get together with Crealock-Leslies and Drummonds.  The guys were all high school friends and we try to have a get together each Christmas.  Tradition is to have a photo of all the kids on the staircase.  Here they are all grown up.

From oldest to youngest:

Aaron, Leah, Alex, Lonna, Brenwyn, Brooke and Rhiannon

Camera wars.  Parents taking photos of kids on stairs:

Erin, Janice and me.

The adults (not necessarily oldest to youngest!):

Mike and Erin, Krista and Don, Janice and Dave

That evening we went to the Holland United Church Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.  Dave and Janice organize the choir, and a group of us sing.  It is always a beautiful way to get into the Christmas spirit.  Beautiful Christmas carols in a candlelight setting.  

After the Candlelight service it is tradition for the Rexs to stop here for appetizers and our gift exchange. Sandra, Wil and Catheryn stopped by.  Aaron went to Wrays later to visit Tim.  We all miss Katlyn at times like these.


Christmas Day:
Opened gifts once the kids finally got up.  Strange how we have to wake them up rather than the other way around!!  When they were little I always told them that it wasn't really Christmas Day until the sun was up. Luckily, they fell for it!

Christmas morning.

Notice the Yule fireplace on the TV and my gift, the Tassimo by Aaron.

Stopped by the Treherne Care Home to visit Alma and wish her a Merry Christmas.  She was very talkative, and enjoyed one of the dainties we brought.

Drove to Portage la Prairie for Christmas Supper at the Krawec's with the MacDonald side of the family.  We always have a family jam session when we get together.

Aaron and Marvin

Wanda, Vyra and Connie

Lunch with Alma

Don and I helped Alma decorate her door. Then we had a wonderful turkey dinner.

Bali review and update

Today I spent a lot of time updating my Bali blog with pictures.  During the second week of my trip while in Bali the blog site wouldn't let me upload photos.  This blog site now seems to be working fine, so I added the photos today.  Anyone wanting to reread the blog, just go to the side bar and click on the October date to see the past Bali blogs.

Remembering Bali and our wonderful tour leader Barb.

Barb will be offering tours next summer and fall.  Check out her site.  It is a wonderful tour, well worth going on!!

www.balifibertours.com

Christmas Tree Topped

Hey, can you top this Christmas tree?  This tree is the top of one of the trees in our shelter belt that are close to the electrical wires and Hydro will top them soon.  We thought we would use one for our Christmas tree this year.

Christmas is less than a week away!!

Cycle of Giving

This is the weekend that Patrick Krawec (my cousin) and the board of volunteers at The Wrench is having the 24 hour bike making marathon to build 150 bikes for kids.  They will be working at the Atomic Centre on 167 Logan from 6pm tonight until 6pm tomorrow (Dec 17-18)  If you can go over to help out or drop off any parts or bikes that would be great.  I donated online at The Wrench, see below.

thewrench.ca

Way to go Patrick!  What a great Bike Santa you are!!

Quilts this week

I quilted 5 quilts this week. Tonight I go to the chiropractor, tomorrow to the massage therapist! Yikes!

Crafting while Don is in Houston

Seems like the week has flown by!!  Don is having fun golfing in Houston although it has been cool and wet.  While he is away I have been doing a lot of crafting; from knitting and card making to quilting.

Thanks to Arlene the 'crafty girls' enjoyed a day of card making.  Last minuted Christmas cards were on the priority list.  Arlene laid out examples, supplies and tools for us at her house.  She even provided delicious treats!  A great afternoon!

Jack Frost Hat

Spring Flowers Hat

In some of my spare moments and quieter times I did some knitting.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed knitting, I hadn't done it in so long.  One evening I sat in front of the fireplace station on TV and listened to Christmas carols and knit two more interesting baby hats.

Madeline's Lone Star Quilt

Details of quilting

Yesterday, Madeline came over with a quilt that she wanted to quilt for her son for Christmas.  We loaded it on the long arm machine.  I quilted and she watched.  Madeline even tried some stitching.  I finished the quilt this morning.  Now Madeline will have to bind it in time for Christmas giving.  Don't you think her son will love it??

Book Club - Cutting for Stone

2,000 Splendid Books Club met at my house last night.  We have been meeting about once every 6 weeks since 2000!  We plan on reading 2,000 books together.  (No we really haven't figured out how many years that will take!!  But we do read at least a dozen books a year.  You do the math!)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese was this month's read.  Six of us got together to discuss the book.  We all agreed it was very well written and reminded us of a John Irving book in that the characters are all very well developed.  It also reminded me of The Kite Runner in that it spanned a large period of time for two boys and is set in a country very different from Canada.  Many of the traditions and life styles that Canadians are familiar with just do not exist in this book's setting - Ethiopia during the 1950s to 2000.

This month's read is a book of poetry Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver.  That will be very interesting.  We have never read and discussed a book of poetry before.  I suspect there could be lots of discussion, as each poem could be a whole evening's discussion.  The book after that will be Jann Arden's new book called Falling Backwards  Some of us will be attending her concert at Pantages in Winnipeg before we meet to discuss that book so I suspect the discussion will be very animated!!

2,000 Splendid Books is a great group of people.  I am blessed to belong to this group of wonderful women who all have so much in common and are comfortable in sharing opinions, thoughts and beliefs. A wonderful support group!!

Funky Newborn Hats

Hey, check out my knitted/crocheted baby hats.  What do you think?  Would anyone want one?

Whoville Santa Hat

Tasseled Tam

Spicy Toque

Leaf Top Hat

Burgundy Bubble Hat

Friendship Quilt

This weekend a bunch of us got together to put together a friendship quilt.  Yvonne was the 'instigator' of this project.  She gave many of her sewing addicted friends a template for the half-square triangle exchange.  Each of us was to choose one dark and one light fabric to make into the 2" squares.  Each template produced 28 squares.  Then each of the unique batches of squares were brought together to sew into a friendship quilt.  We ended up with thirteen batch of friendship squares.  Here is a sample of the squares that were donated to the project.

Then we had to begin the design process with these varied fabric squares.  The picture below shows the beginning of the design we finally choose to make for the quilt.  We added some dark brown squares to bring the entire design together.

Once the pattern was created, the bindings were attached.  Here is a picture of the final quilt top.  What do you think?  Isn't amazing how all the random fabrics that were used by all the friends come together to make one unique Friendship Quilt.

Thanks Yvonne for getting us together!  Lots of fun and laughter was shared throughout the weekend.  And now we have this wonderful quilt to donate to a good cause!!

Vaccinations complete

Don received his final vaccinations for our African adventure.  We are both inoculated for:
Hepatitis A & B, polio, tetanus, Yellow Fever, seasonal flu, and typhoid.  We also got a prescription for anti-malarial drugs, and bought lotion and spray-on deet, as well as a mosquito net.

Then we traveled to CAA and got international drivers' licenses, one exceptionally light suitcase, and a variety of travel items.  Whew!  Getting ready to travel is a lot of work (and money)!

Knit Knackers

Unusual shopping was the order of the day.  Went to Knit Knackers, a fabulous yarn store.  (The store should have been called 'Yarn Yackers', as the sales person was quite a talker!!)  The store is upstairs on Bank Street and houses a huge area of hand dyed specialty yarns (wool, silk, alpaca, etc.), an enormous table for knitters to gather at, a separate business/spa area, and even a bunny cage for an angora rabbit (super soft).  Check it out....
www.knitknackers.com

National Art Gallery

Checked out the Byward Market today.  It is a very unique shopping area much like The Forks in Winnipeg.  Saw some awesome artisan type clothes and jewelry.  As always at this time of year there are still a few outdoor stalls selling sweaters, hats, scarfs, mitts, etc.  Also, some outdoor stalls sell christmas wreaths out of real balsam, pine, evergreen boughs.  They smell fabulous!!  I would love to bring one home, but not sure how to 'pack' it.


www.gallery.ca/en/

After strolling through the ByWard Market area, I went to the National Art Gallery.  As always, I loved the Group of Seven works.  This time I also managed to find some other famous works that I hadn't seen before - vanGogh, Monet, Picasso.  They were wonderful!!  Here is a photo of the vanGogh painting called Iris the NAG has on display.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Went to the TSO concert this afternoon at ScotiaBank Place (formerly known as the Corell Centre where the Ottawa Senators play).  It was fabulous.  Great light show and pyrotechnics!!  I was in row 3 so felt the heat from the flames.  I even caught a pick thrown out to the crowd by the bass guitarist.  Woohoo!  Too bad I wasn't there when the lead guitarist gave his guitar away!!

Check out the link below and you will see what I mean about the TSO.  It was an amazing show!!  At the end of the show all the pyros started the fire alarm and three large fire trucks showed up!

I'm back!!

Traveling again....  now in Ottawa.

Here I am in the capital of Canada.  The government is sitting, so today I went to question period.  I thought I was being smart this year and contacted my MP, Candace Hoeppner, for tickets, rather than wait in line.  Don't think I will bother doing that again.  I waited for over half an hour for someone for her office to show up.  Then, when I did get my seat in the gallery, it was on the side, so all I could see were the members of the Conservative Party.  I leaned over to try to see some opposition members and got reprimanded by the security guard.  Embarrassing!!

Question period was decidedly dull without Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe firing questions at the Conservatives.  Not only that but I couldn't even see Justin Trudeau. According to the MP seating chart he was directly below me.  I did hear Olivia Chow question the government about housing for underprivileged and seniors.  All the government could reply is that the NDP voted against the budget, therefore they voted against housing for these people.  Also, lots of questions from Quebec regarding the Omnibus Bill.  All questions were answered in the same way..... "this motion has already been discussed a length".

Looks like the majority government is going to ignore questions raised by the opposition and ram bills through parliament.  Sigh.....

Friday, October 21 - Home

Flight from Vancouver to Winnipeg was uneventful.  Leah met me at the airport.  It feels cool in Manitoba, as I knew it would.  Gave Leah her leather messenger bag, she likes it.  Stopped to see Yvonne on the way out of the city.  Showed her some of the batik and silk stash.  Then I headed home.

Didn't even spend half an hour at home before Don and I headed to Treherne to the Chili Bake Off, a Cancer Care fundraiser.  Got a chance to say hello to a few people.  Then headed home to unpack and hit the sack.  Boy did my own bed and pillow ever feel great!

Thanks to everyone for reading the Bali blog. I am going to try to move to a different blog site that will be more serviceable for entering pictures and video clips.  I will post my new address on this site once I change over.  (Give me at least a week to make the move.)  Then I can enhance my Bali blog entries with the photos I took.

Also, Don and I plan to use a blog while we are away on further journeys in 2011/12.  So stay tuned!!

Cheers,
Krista

Thursday, October 20, 2011 - Flying home

Renee and Agus met up with me at Ubud Aura today and gave me my silk kimono jacket.  It is amazing to wear, light and flowing.  I love it.  After we said our goodbyes I still had a couple of hours before I had to catch the taxi so I took a last dip in the pool and enjoyed some last few rays.  Taxi ride to airport was crazy with traffic, but I got there in lots of time.

Now I am sitting in the Hong Kong airport waiting for my next flight (to Vancouver).  Free WiFi is sure handy.  I'm checking my emails, reading the news (Gadhafi is dead), and people watching.

Flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver was uneventful.  I was able to sleep off and on.  Arrived in Vancouver a day earlier than when I left?!?

Our flight got to Vancouver airport early.  Now I have 11 hours to kill instead of 9.  Sigh.  Found myself a little nook with a plug in (charging the laptop) and a bench with no arm rests so that I can lay down later.  Amazing what I look for in an airport now that I have experienced long layovers.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - Monkey Forest

My first stop this morning was at Monkey Forest Sacred Sanctuary.  In this small park of only a few acres there live over 500 Macaque monkeys.  I was warned that people should not wear anything valuable when they go into the sanctuary in case the monkeys are naughty and grab things away from you.  I found that the monkeys were not that bad.  One of the sanctuary workers told me that these monkeys are not as bad as the ones in Lomboc because these ones are fed daily.

These monkeys have lots of natural food - figs, branches, etc. and they are fed sweet potatoes and bananas as well.  I found them really interesting to watch.  The giant old 'grey back' ones put up with no nonsense, teenagers covort around, nursing mothers and babies of various ages.  All amazing to watch.  I took some videos as well.

www.monkeyforestubud.com

It had rained earlier this morning and I mistakenly thought that it might be a cooler day; not the way it works in Bali.  Rain in the morning only means very hot and humid during the day.   My 4 km walk provided me with a lot of sweating!!  Ultimately ended up with a migraine.  Darn.  But a great massage on my shoulders and neck minimized the headache.

Bali really is full of wonderful spas and masseuses  for very reasonable prices.  When I paid I also gave the lady who did my massage a little gift of a makeup bag with lipstick, blush and a Canada pin.  She was so amazed and touched that she hugged me over and over again!!  The Balinese people are so warm and friendly.  I asked a young man one day if he wasn't sick of tourists in his country.  He looked at me as if I was nuts, shook his head and said that he liked tourists; he explained that tourists need to keep coming, it is important to his country's survival.

Bali is only one small island in the large country of Indonesia.  However because Bali is largely Hindu (over 80% of the population), whereas the majority of the rest of Indonesia is Muslim, Bali doesn't get much assistance from the Indonesian government.  The head of the Indonesian government is in Jakarta, Java, which is only one island to the north west of Bali.  The government will pass laws that say that all children will have free education, but in reality that is not the way it is in Bali.  The Balinesians are very discouraged with the federal government and do not trust it as it is very corrupt.  The people of Bali are very community minded and work hard to make sure everyone within their community is taken care of.  This sense of community comes through the Hindu religion.  However, if a person is outcast from this religion, by stepping outside of tradition (lets say to divorce a husband) they will get no assistance.  Thus you do see the occasional beggar.  Invariable a woman with a baby.

I only have one sleep left!  Tomorrow I will meet up with Renee to receive my silk kimono jacket.  Then I will be off to Kuta (probably over an hour ride through traffic even though it is only 18 kms away) to catch my flight home.  Jet lag and cold here I come!!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - Setting silk dyes

This morning I was 'scootered' to Renee's studio, Goddess Silks, to finish my silk painting project.  When I walked into the studio the green silk background shone!  The silk material just seems to glow; it is beautiful.

I started the day by learning how to tjant.  This is how to put the fine lines of wax on the silk.  It is how a silk painting usually starts.  I am doing the process rather backwards.  Trying to do the fine tjanting, made me appreciate the fine work that Agus did on my pieces.  I did manage to get through my little handkerchief with only two poo-poos.

Once I was done the wax work, then I painted the little lotus I had tjanted.  It looks rather beginnerish, but that is what I am, just a beginner.

We spent the later part of the morning fixing the dyes and then boiling off the wax from both the kimono jacket and handkerchief.  To set the dye you immerse the fabric into water glass, some kind of chemical, that is akin to flubber; very gooey.

The goo is rinsed off and the fabric is placed in a hot water bath to get the wax out.  Once the wax is boiled off, the fabric is then cooled and rinsed many times.

Then we hung the pieces in the sun to dry.  It is very humid these days, Bali is nearing the rainy season, which is hotter due to the humidity.  (I can't imagine any warmer than it already is, but they say the rainy season is hotter!!)  So I imagine the fabric will take all day to dry.

Then Agus will drive the material over to the tailor, who will roll the hems by hand.  It will probably take her all day tomorrow!  I hope to have these two silk pieces before I leave on Thursday to fly home.