Merry Christmas and Happy New Year From Tim, Sophie, Ted, and Stasha

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Allyson Joseph
6 years ago
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1 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year From Tim, Sophie, Ted, and Stasha Best wishes to all for a Merry Christmas and Happy New, from all of us at our house. With all the electronic and digital technology available these days, I am forgoing traditional Christmas cards and am distributing our greetings by electronic mail. That way, we can continue to uphold the rich family tradition of sending Christmas cards out as late as possible. From the Home Front Stasha and Theo continue to outgrow their clothes at an alarming rate and pretty soon the kids and Sophie and will all be wearing the same socks. At almost 5 and 7, they have achieved the vitally crucial milestone of getting up in the morning and having breakfast without parental assistance, thus giving Mom and Dad a little extra sleep in the morning. Of all their accomplishments, this is the one we are the most grateful for. If we could get them to also make us coffee, life would be perfect.

Ted is in his first year at the Big House, aka elementary school, in a combined grade 1-3 Montessori classroom. He made the transition quite smoothly.

Otherwise, he loves school. Ted has taken up fishing a little, but doesn't get out as much he would like. He also plays soccer, took karate lessons, and swims and skates, not all at the same time.

Once more, she feels royally ripped off at not being able to go on all the kindergarten trips and activities; her consolation being that she is somehow the big kid in the classroom and the

2 Ted is in his first year at the Big House, aka elementary school, in a combined grade 1-3 Montessori classroom. He made the transition quite smoothly. Ted s main complaint isn t that the school day is too long, but that the time between school and bedtime is too short: I don t get to spend as much time with my parents he explains to anyone who asks. Otherwise, he loves school. Ted has taken up fishing a little, but doesn't get out as much he would like. He also plays soccer, took karate lessons, and swims and skates, not all at the same time. Stasha is still at the Montessori preschool and she and Sophie still have afternoons together. She can t believe she s not in kindergarten yet and neither can her teachers. Once more, she feels royally ripped off at not being able to go on all the kindergarten trips and activities; her consolation being that she is somehow the big kid in the classroom and the selfpronounced expert in pretty much everything. (To our chagrin, this attitude extends to well past the classroom). She has taken up soccer, also likes to skate and swim (but not at the same time) and is taking ballet. Her main wishes for life are now to have her own cell phone, television, and car. Sophie is slated to go back to the research station in September She has no idea what position they will put her in, since her old job is already filled, and due to various reorganizations, she no longer has a department or a department head. Tim's recommendation is that she should just go back to work and wait for someone to tell her what to do. She will probably retire without lifting a finger. Sophie has been busy this fall, and not just sitting

around the house eating bonbons. She teaches about four Yoga classes a week at the university and college as well as the YWCA.

We ve gotten a lot of use out of it and the children, who used to swim like rocks in a burlap bag, are getting increasingly adept at flailing around mostly at the water surface.

We re getting into skating and Sophie swapped her cruel and treacherous figure skates for hockey skates, thus succeeding in staying (mostly) upright and actually being able to help the children get

3 around the house eating bonbons. She teaches about four Yoga classes a week at the university and college as well as the YWCA. Teaching at the Y is great even if it s a volunteer position, because not only does she get access to the gym and classes, she gets access to all the city pools and ice rinks for the whole family. We ve gotten a lot of use out of it and the children, who used to swim like rocks in a burlap bag, are getting increasingly adept at flailing around mostly at the water surface. They ve just discovered diving boards and the deep end. We re getting into skating and Sophie swapped her cruel and treacherous figure skates for hockey skates, thus succeeding in staying (mostly) upright and actually being able to help the children get going. Additionally, Sophie has fallen into the trap of being the at-home mom who volunteers for everything ( sure I ll help sell coupon books! ), winding up as secretary of the Montessori society as well as helping out at numerous parish tasks. Tim continues to work at the research station through its various re-organization and re-structuring and to our everlasting amazement, continues to find his program high on the priority lists. Who thought biting flies, paralyzing ticks, and mosquitoes could seem so important? Something about disease transmission, West Nile and paralyzed cattle seems to keep people excited. He also continues to lecture at the university and work as a fly-fishing guide in the summer and fall. When he s not doing either of these things, he s recycling all the excess lumber we moved from our old house into various useful items, and painting them colours that make your eyes bleed. This year, Tim built a computer desk into a wall alcove, and also built a sewing table (pictured below) for Sophie. I have also built a ceramic topped picnic table, and we built a patio this summer. You can see the excellent help the kids provided on the patio construction project.

4 Fierce Creatures In addition to the dog, Tassie, whose butt is visible in the picture of Ted, we have added to our menagerie this year. Our cockatiel, Finnegan, is now over a year old, and is pretty much queen of the house. She is fully flighted, very tame, and will land on our shoulder to ensure she gets her share of head-scratchings. We also have a pair of lovebirds, named Bijou and Piper. Bijou is the red-headed one (called a peach face), and Piper is a Dutch Blue. They are the same species, just different color varieties. These two birds are pretty entertaining. They are very active, and also quite tame, although Piper tends to bite Stasha a bit. She doesn't bite anyone else. How do we know they are male and female. Well, we don't for sure, but we have witnessed various activities that suggest Bijou is a boy and Piper is a girl. One night, there was a commotion in their cage, and Stasha started yelling Bijou, stop that. What's Bijou doing? Sophie asked. Stasha's reply Bijou is sitting on top of Piper and pushing him around the cage!!. Guess that's why they're called Lovebirds. Travel I had to a bit of traveling this year, mostly for work. It started in March, when I went to Fort Collins, Co. then Laramie, Wyo. for some bug meetings with the USDA. We did manage to get a fishing trip down the Grey Reef area of the North Platte. Had to be one of the windiest fishing trips I have ever been on. I hooked and lost two, and landed a third, just in time to keep the boat from smelling like skunk. Not sure what fishing had to do with our bug meeting, but it seemed like an important team building exercise. In April, I went to Kamloops to collect ticks for a couple of days. When I got back, I had to go Edmonton for a mosquito committee meeting to plan the province's mosquito surveillance program. I went to Great Falls Montana to speak to the Northwestern Livestock Diseases Conference in May. In June, I had to spend a few days in Saskatoon for a science program meeting. It was largely a waste of time, but I got some work done. I took a brief trip to the coast in August, and made it to Uncle Ken's memorial service. I spent a day visiting with Toot and Dad, and that was fun. Toot and I went to Granville Island with the kids. In early October, I went to a meeting in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, to give a talk about tick paralysis. Four of us went

on another team building exercise one day, this one was on the Clark Fork. We fished for rainbows, and boy I caught a large one. It put up quite a fight, and was, I think, the fish of the year for me.

Emily came to visit, and spent a week with us. She has started university, but will likely be transferring schools so she can live with her grandmother in Dallas and attend a nearby college.

5 on another team building exercise one day, this one was on the Clark Fork. We fished for rainbows, and boy I caught a large one. It put up quite a fight, and was, I think, the fish of the year for me. In late October I went to Cincinnati, Ohio for the Entomological Society of America meeting. I was supposed to go to Ottawa in November, but gave that meeting a miss. Emily came to visit, and spent a week with us. She has started university, but will likely be transferring schools so she can live with her grandmother in Dallas and attend a nearby college. I have been asked to go to other meetings, but will be staying put until at least March. Fishing I actually got a decent amount of fishing done this year, even when I wasn't out of town working. The fires in the area made it somewhat challenging to get to good waters in August and early September, but there are so many good streams and lakes to fish that I made do. I fished the Crowsnest quite a bit, and also made it up the Westcastle River. I hiked up to Window Mountain Lake, and also fished the upper Racehorse Creek. I fished Summit Lake in B.C., Michele Creek, and the Oldman River (three different sections), the Livingstone, Cochrane Lake for pike, Lees Lake, Beauvais Lake, and probably some other areas I forgot about. Some highlights were catching four bull trout on dry flies in waters I have never caught them in before. This is good, because bull trout are endangered, and have been protected by special regulations for the past five years or so. The regulations seem to be working. I will close with some pictures of a couple of fish I caught this summer. Once Again, from all of us, to all of you... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Tim, Sophie, Ted, Stasha.

Lisa, Tim, Hank and Sean

Lisa, Tim, Hank and Sean Hi! We are so happy to introduce our family and tell you about our life and the special times the four of us share. Soon we will become five as we add a child through the gift