Before leaving

During our last week in New Brunswick is was also my aunt Trish's Birthday so my uncle Gene called us to see if we wanted to come have lunch with them in Richibucto. We gladly joined them and stuffed our faces full of deepfried seefood. Here is Trish with Bela.

Our vast amounts of fried deliciousness including clams, scalops, fish and fries.

Mom holding Béla back from the fried goods.

Gene with the Béla. 

The food was good and Béla got lots of smiles from the surrounding table and the waitresses.

On the way back to St-Ignace we caught my uncle Jean-Yves in between school bus runs and he got to meet Béla too and show us his new pad.

Later that night (or possibly the next day) my good parents stopped by too. Here is Gilles...

And Laurida playing with Béla.

The night before we left we went to Marlene's in Moncton for the night. And there we had more visitors. We got to see the Kellies again before we left. 

And my good friend Laffy stopped on his way back to Halifax from Trois-Rivière with his 3 year old daughter Alisha (not seen here). Marlène made us all some very good Lasagna that we ate before the Kellies got there (hahaha). 

The next day, we left for the airport in the afternoon and met up with my parents who had come to say good bye and get back the car they had lent us (thanks). 

The flight back to Toronto was much better than Béla's two other flights. He was relatively happy until the descent. Once in Toronto it was my turn to say good bye to Béla and Julia since they were staying in Canada for another week and I was on my way back home to Jena to go back to work or as it turned out be sick at home most of the week (and the week after).

Visit with the Kelly's

After having fun being snowed in with the Halifax gang we briefly went back to St-Ignace to recuperate and then we were off again to Fredricton to see my cousin Crystal and the family; Joey, Taryn and Olivia. They recently moved there and are liking it very much. They were all very happy to meet Béla who was very happy to play with the girls. Here are Taryn and Béla sitting with me on the couch.

We read some books and played hide and seek and the sleeping game where Taryn puts me to bed and tells me to sleep. Here I am reading 'Dr Seuss's ABC' which Joey noticed was the abridged version. 

And Crystal was very happy to hold Béla and play with him for the first time.

And here is Taryn and me making faces at the Camera. Béla was being to cool to participate. 

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The next day we drove back to St-Ignace . 

New Year's Eve in Halifax

After a couple of days in New Brunswick, we were headed to Halifax, for a New Year's Eve party at the apartment of Marie and Lynn. The party was fabulous, including a trivia contest which we won, earning us the fabulous top prize of a ShamWow (they're made in Germany, you know). We got to see lots of friends from Halifax too, and Béla seemed to have a good time too. Alas, we neglected to take a single picture at the party itself.

The next day Jer's dad called, to ask if we were planning on driving back early (we'd hoped to spend a couple of days), as a giant winter storm was en route to New Brunswick. Jer's sister Marlène had come with us, and had to be back at work in Moncton on Monday, so she got a ride back with Marie's cousin Veronica, while we opted to wait it out, and hope the storm wasn't too bad.

On the 1st we headed with Marie and Lynn down the road to Rishad and Anjulee's new place, where we had a look around, and hung out for a little while.

At this point we were all pretty hungry, in a slightly hung-over sleep deprived way (despite the excellent brunch they put out for us that morning), so we went out for fantastic Chinese food on Quinpool. In this picture it looks like I'm the only one eating, but it's just because everyone else had finished that course and left me some while I was feeding Béla (who's sleeping under that receiving blanket in front of me).

We decided to rent some movies and have a quiet night in at Rishad's place, so while some people went to get some videos, Jer and I headed back, to minimize the time that Béla was out in the blizzard. Yup, Paul was right, it was a pretty good storm, and I'm glad we weren't driving that day.

Upon getting back to Rishad's, I found that Béla was rather enjoying my new sweater (a Christmas gift from Jeremi), as the front pocket made for convenient handles for him while in the carrier. It was pretty cute.

We all stayed over at Rishad's to avoid walking home in all the snow, and headed out the next morning (Saturday) to the weekly market. We were a bit late getting there, and some of the vendors were still on Christmas break (alas, no sweet sushi rolls), but it was still good to go down there. We picked up some nice root vegetables for a big winter stew for that evening, and then headed to the Henry House, a nearby pub, for the afternoon. This was a bar where we'd ended up the first Saturday after the giant blizzard when we lived in Halifax (aka White Juan), as it was one of the only things open after we'd hiked across town in the mistaken hope that the market might be open, and we'd had great fun drinking away the afternoon while playing cards. This afternoon was a much tamer version of that, with somewhat less drinking and considerably more eating, and definitely more baby.

Not to worry, he napped fine on the pub bench while I played cards.

The next day was Sunday, and we'd considered driving back that day, but the storm was pretty much just rotating over New Brunswick still, so we ended up staying until Monday morning, when we finally headed back. It was great to see everyone, and we much appreciated the hospitality during our extended visit! Here's Béla, all packed up for the trip home, in one of his two Team Canada Olympic outfits. (He got one in red from my parents, and one in black from Aunt Connie and Uncle Ray out in Vancouver. He's so well kitted out now for cheering on our athletes from afar!)

Christmas at the Thebeaus

After a two hour flight from Toronto to Moncton that Béla did not overly appreciate, my siblings Marlène and Nicolas, who had flown in the day before, met us at the airport. They were waiting for us at the luggage carousel and trying to recapture Béla's arrival to Canada with the with the video camera my family got us for Christmas. The original take of this was to be when Béla actually first arrived in Canada in Toronto, but was foiled by some technical problems explained in previous post). Then we jumped in the car and headed for downtown St-Ignace (there is no downtown St-Ignace... there is no town of St-Ignace).

A big family supper was waiting for us when we arrived with pâté (meat pie, including deer meat) and a big Capon with fixings of course.

Here's Béla, tired after his long trip.

And here he is catching up with my dad.

And here he is being my hat (aka "chapeau Thébeau").


The next day we had a big open house at my parents so family and friends could drop by and meet Béla (if he was so inclined as to be awake). A ton of people stopped by. This made it a lot easier for us to see everybody. Thanks to everybody that could come.

Here are my aunts Diana and Emilia with most of my immediate family.

Here are my parents good friends Onil and Hugette playing with Béla.

My uncle Gene and Grace and Josh.

Later on there were mussels.



And here are Grammy and Béla opening some presents. A nice blue knit tuque and christmas bib ...

 

and a Bertrand/Clifford book from aunt Joan.

Here's what Grammy got for Béla. She commissioned a beautiful quilt for him! It's really nice. We're thinking of painting what will eventually be his room to match.



And this is what we gave Grammy: a fancy tea and saucer set from the Erzgebirge, a region known for there high end craftiness.

Here are my cousin David's wife, Jennifer, and kids, Zachary and William.

Aunt Helen with William and me with Béla.

A big hug from Zach.

Last year we got our fathers Feuerzangenbowle punch bowls. Feuerzangenbowle is basically a German wine-rum-punch made by lighting a high proof rum doused sugar 'hat' (solid cone of white sugar) above the bowl and letting it caramelize and fall in. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any high proof rum sold in New Brunswick or none that will burn properly. So this Christmas we got my dad high proof rum from Germany that's made just for this purpose.

Also, the bowl broke in transit last year, which is why we're using a pot. I'm not sure if it is lit in this picture (it went out a few times) but you can see that the sugar has started to melt and caramelize.

After second Christmas it was time for New Years (next post).