It's a Goal: England 2010!

In a manner most familiar to the Rene sensibility (especially that of Fr. Richard Rene), the Rene family is resolving to spend their entire vacation in July 2010 in Merry Olde England, visiting Uncle Ric, Aunt Morag and Cousins Isabelle, Matthew and Emma.

A bold move, but the time has come (the Walrus said) for those in the Rene household not familiar with the delights of that beautiful green island to finally get their feet wet. Real fish and chips, castles, the Underground, the cliffs of Dover, Canterbury Cathedral--here we come!

The plan is to start saving now to fly from wherever is cheapest and spend three weeks with Fr. Richard's relatives. That saves us on room and board (pretty much), leaving us with the cost of flights and spending money--a large sum, but anything is possible if you set your mind to it. As one of our fellow priests says, May it be blessed!

John says: "Let's take a break" and then laid down right on top of Gabe.

Playtime

I was listening to Bach's Magnificat via YouTube the other day and John was inspired to get out his priest things. What a cutie.

We had a catastrophe in the house this week and I've been trying to find to words to tell you about it. The short of it is Oreo bit John and she no longer lives with us. We went from feeling totally thrilled with the new addition to our house to abject sadness. John is fine, we did take him to the ER where they patched him up with some tape, prescribed antibiotics and where we got a family doctor (that's a huge blessing!). The hardest part now is trying to understand why this happened. Oreo seemed like the perfect dog - happy, easy, loved the kids, just the day before she was smothering John in kisses. So the house seems empty now without her - her previous owner took her back to try and find another home - one without kids - for her. I miss her and yet have this urge to eradicate all traces of her. Well- here is John...His eye is not as swollen is he's making it look here - that's just a squint for the sake of the camera. The doctor in the ER also assured me that he'll heal up quickly and that it won't look too bad in a few weeks. She even showed me her dog bite scar from September that was hardly visible!


After this his face looked really funny - dough, then chocolate, then cream cheese from lunch!

Wisdom! Let us attend!

School Desk

I just had to take a picture of the table during school hours for posterity. The boys are eating yogurt, I'm drinking coffee (lots of coffee!), Lily's doing Language Lessons with history waiting in the wings. Even Dad joined us at the table this morning with his work!

And then we were SIX....

We adopted a beautiful 2 and a half year old Lab cross. She is delightful, loves the kids and definitely fills up the house!

Christmas goodies

As kids my brother and I received pajamas every year for Christmas. Mom made them and we always opened them on Christmas Eve. I loved that as a kids and this year finally started the tradition with my family:


Today we got a fireplace! We never really know what to ask for from R's family and usually go the Amazon route but inspiration struck and zoila:

It's Winter

I always wanted a "real" winter as a kid. Well, my years in Calgary and now Cranbrook are fulfilling that wish. It didn't start until late (apparently) this year but now it's here with a vengeance. Today has actually warmed up and I might let the kids go play in the snow. It's been -15F (-25C) and today it's above 0 before noon (actually before 9am).

I've been seeing lots of snow pictures from all of you, so it's time to show mine, though I'm never quite happy with how snow pictures turn out.


I love looking out the window at the top of the stairs over to the church. The tree is so pretty covered in snow and the church is my perfect idea of what a winter church should look like.
The town actually looks pretty too.

Cute Singing Boys

Christmas Baking

I started baking today. I've been pondering it for quite some time but things have been busy and I'm just beginning. So here's my plan:

Kringla (that's what I started with today)
Russian tea cakes
Sour cream twists
fudge

Cheese ball
Sausage rolls (if I get to them)

Any requests? This is all traveling with us to Arlington!

John John likes sushi!

Ok, so not really sushi but seaweed and rice! I like to make lazy sushi when we have rice for dinner. I just fold the nori in fourths and pick up a scoop of rice with it and sometimes kimchi -yum! John John agrees.

St. Nicholas Day

We had a fun morning at church celebrating St. Nicholas Day!

From St. Nicholas Day

New glasses::2nd try

Gabe's glasses broke less than 2 days after getting them - so it was back to the store and they exchanged them for a frame that should be much more 4 year old friendly. He was tantilized by those 2 days of seeing and kept asking when he could go get his new glasses. So here we go.

It's that time!

I love pulling out the Christmas decorations and I think the kids love it even more than I do. Our living room is really small and I have absolutely no idea where we'll put a tree so we got a couple small trees for the kid's rooms. They were so excited to have their own little tree to decorate! We'll still put something small in the living room but this way we can still use most of our ornaments.

They keep asking me what we can decorate next!

Matins

We started a daily Matins at St. Aidan's in August and I love it. I'll admit that I had my doubts about the doability of a daily morning service but it's really working. Anyway, I've been wanting and trying to get a picture of the boys serving with Daddy for awhile. Finally managed.

More Photos

Gabriel!

And I thought he was a cutie before.

He is so excited about having glasses. Now he is even more like his big sister. And the resemblance between my dad and Gabe is even more striking.

What's Happening

Last Friday we went to the dedication of the new bandstand in the park downtown. The kids had a blast. There was free hot chocolate, balloons, a bugle band and the high school jazz band. But the highlight was definitely the flame thrower.

On Sunday we left right after church for the wedding reception of friends in Calgary. It was fun to see so many people from St. Peter's and to meet the new second priest there, Fr. John, and his family.

The rest of the week has been busy as usual with school for Lily (her 1st term is ending next week), work for R (he's working for the Salvation Army for the Christmas season) and church, of course! Speaking of church, the OCA has a new Metropolitan and I have to say that it's very exciting. You can hear him over at Ancient Faith Radio and I'd highly encourage you to do so.

Gabe needs glasses!

Little Gabe needs glasses. Apparently he has the same far-sightedness as Lily. So in a couple weeks we go back and get his exact prescription and he'll have a new look!