Like nomads, but with more stuff

Of course I had heard of Stampede before moving to Calgary. The rodeo thing, right? And when we moved here I heard a bit more about the p...

 #21.  In a very generalistic, vague picture of reality, I'll explain that most of my days are spent trying to teach, coach and convince...

 #10:  The kids. I am not at all the same person I was before they were born – mostly for the better. They challenge me and push my out of...

 #8: Today I am grateful for daylight savings time. I know that isn't popular, but I much prefer Alex biking to school in daylight than ...

 So I guess this is how it's going to be this year.  Sigh. Gratitude #5:  My health. Really. It’s a trope in my house that I don’t get s...

 I love November gratitude. We should all be doing it every day of the year but at least it's an effort. It really does make life a bit ...

 Things felt relatively normal this year - fewer than half the kids wearing masks and a sense that kids weren't being kept at home due t...

What's not awesome? Returning home from vacation to find the freezer door wasn't properly shut and everything is (thankfully) cold ....

Amazing Terry made a bird feeder from old pallet wood scraps and the plastic siding of Costco cashews.  It hangs from a tree in the front ya...

 In a conversation about how awful we are as parents for forcing her to go on vacation, Alex gave an example of a small town where there is ...

Alex likes having a particular place in the fridge to put her things for the next day's lunch, so she can just grab the stuff, pack it u...

 One of the birthday coupons the kids got last year was dessert for dinner.  Zoltan used his on something relatively mundane. Alex, on the o...

 This is what it is like to raise children.  The Scene: just after lunch, at Zoltan's room Me:  Zoltan, go downstairs and put away the m...

 Zoltan complained about his throat feeling weird on Sunday. On Monday morning he had a bit of a fever, lots of sneezing, and congestion. Ab...

Last weekend edition: Was the gorilla always wearing that purple tutu? If the onion was going to bite anyone, it would have been me.

Frankfurt reminds me of Philly. There is the downtown with skyscrapers, but much of the housing is 5 stories or less. Lots of green, lots o...

One of the kids, kicking a tree: Look, I'm a footpecker! Terry to me, after he shared an article and started a conversation about...

My day started, unfortunately, around 4am when Zoltan had a nightmare. I managed to crawl back into my own bed an hour later. I did get to ...

Language training is still wonderful. I definitely speak German better now than I ever spoke Russian, even after banging my head against th...

The musical group The Zambonis, which we are not sure are even still together, put out this little gem some time in the last. It is a much-...