In the end, it was the Volkswagen who caused the damage, but the insurance adjuster declared you dead. Too soon, we all thought, until I saw the numbers on the cheque from the insurance company... I guess it was your time. Way to go, old girl. You win.
Silas has developed a very good eminem impression. This is eminem in 8-mile. Pretty good.
I coaxed a smile out of him the other day. I told him it snows in wintertime. He thought that was funny. Joke's on you. Winter appears to be here.
Monday night, Silas met his Mother from a different brother. Mother Alward that is. We went to the Duke of Wellington and he got in without his fake id. 
Once done our nap, Silas and I got all gussied up in our leafs junk and pondered where it all went wrong. 
Silas had the idea to gather up a posse from the "east side", consisting of me, Silas and Matt. Turns out it worked as the Leafs pulled somewhat of a victory our of their collective rearends, complete with an extrememly foul mouthed tongue lashing from coach Paul Maurice in the second period. It was bad enough that the Sports shows showed the lecture and blurred out his mouth for most of it. 
Long story short, the leafs won because their newest fan stepped up his game. Booyah.
He's already got his sights on the pope's job and wardrobe and has really good taste in sports teams.
A colleague of ours recently came over to shoot some photos of Faith's prego belly for her portfolio. I must say I'm for sure cut out to be a model. look at that face. 
Well, we went to Cochrane for the Thanksgiving weekend, indulged in turkey for 6 straight meals and even spotted a UFO just outside North Bay
Predictions... LOST... I know the 6 episodes starting this week are going to catch us up with Jack, Sawyer and Kate with the Others. I believe Eko, Locke and Desmond are all ok, but I don't reckon we'll find out until February... Oh, and the others are just imaginary friends of the dog.
Well, it's been a few weeks, busy times. We finished the baby's room a couple weekends ago. It features laminate flooring, bought for about $25 total at RONA. That was a steal. The walls feature a light blue paint with weird looking tree-type thingy's all around. The closet doors are the same pattern but with inverted colours. We got the crib, aka the "Baby Cage" at Ikea on the 24th, aka "Our 4th Anniversary".
The next pic is of the 3 guys from Czech Republic that came over for hockey training. Left to right, Daniel, Zdenek (our translator from our trip in Feb) and Jan (pronounced Honsa). Zdenek is staying with us right now. He's a lot of fun. Daniel is here to train for the upcoming hockey season. Honsa is here to try to make a team, and it looks like he's gonna stick with the Kitchener Dutchmen Junior B team. I got to watch some of his tryout scrimmages. Good fun. I've spent the past week and a half learning as many goofy Czech phrases as I can, adding to my repetoire such phrases as "Help, Help, call an ambulance!", "My bum is on fire", and "give me your money or I'll punch you in the mouth". I'll be fluent in no time. This picture was taken at The Meeting House in Oakville, a church for people who don't like church. They had a good band there, and I ran into some old EBC folks. (Jamie Sanfilipo and fam, and April) Despite this picture, none of those guys are gay ("teple" in Czech (teh-play)). I learned that one from my Lonely Planet Czech phrasebook. Seem Teple (sem teh-play) means "I'm gay". I can also say "I have a methadone addiction" and ask if there are any gay clubs around. Useful book. 
Rounding things out, on Monday Faith and I went to Toronto in search of a djembe stand for my birthday (September 3rd, Sunday). We drove to Yorkdale and took the TTC to Queen st to visit Steve's Music store. We walked past the Condom Shack and City TV/Much Music, where the Olson Twins were drawing a crowd. Faith wanted to wait for a picture, but realized that they probably wouldn't show up on film, the anorexic zombies they are. We found a djembe stand for the right price and hauled it back on the TTC. We spent some time in Yorkdale shopping, I spent time waiting on the benches outside stores and managed to make a friend with an old guy. I was outside old navy, we started talking about watches, when he got distracted by a woman, and tried to draw my attention to a "nice ass". "Just look at it and take it in" he says as I laugh at his remarks and Faith walks out of the store. "Your not dead, you can look" he says as Faith arrives and we move on. Next stop, H&M where my old friend catches up with me and alerts me to a "foxy black chick" just as Faith walks out of the store. That was good for a few laughs. Good day.
We took a couple walks through old Montreal, hitting all the shops and being amazed at the bi-lingual skills of the beggars, and the incredibly weak stories they all seemed to have. We ate dinner at the original Montreal Keg Steakhouse, mmmmmm... and we shopped in the biggest underground mall I've ever heard of.
On Tuesday, we went to the flea market in LaChute(or Marche au Puces en francais). We found some crap, but it was mostly a waste of energy. LaChute's market is pretty big, but we didn't find much of any use.
Dave and Kyla Cassidy came to visit us at the cottage later in the week. The were fresh off the tail end of their honeymoon. We went to Dorwin Falls in Rawdon and basked in nature... anyways, that was our vacation. Maybe next time I'll post earlier so I don't forget wha happen'd...
We returned home to find our pool full of algae and the ball hockey team forfeited for playoffs... gay... pure gay. Now I'm gonna get fat(ter) again. That's about it.
This is a picture of one of the fish I caught on Monday in Cochrane on Menard's Lake. Faith's granddad and I went out a few times to canoe around the mostly private lake and catch some fishies. This particular fish was bout 5 lbs and was probably the biggest one we caught all day.
I will inform you that there was no alcohol involved in this picture, I was merely entertaining the old people in Cochrane. My set list consisted of three songs:
1. The ancient Chinese song "too-ning"
2. The shortest song in the world "Laura" (C-Chord)
3. The great nostalgic tune by Spooky Tuesday "Good Ol' School Days"
Anyways, good long weekend, hope to have the basement cleaned up with the entertainment gear setup up by the end of the month.
Booyah - Because they taste funny!
Well, there you have it... The canes made it....Twas a decent series, good game, enjoyable final. I'm glad Detroit and Ottawa didn't make it... that makes me really happy.
Brind'amour did great, Cam Ward was unbelievable, Frank Kaberle was solid... I hope the Leafs can take a page from the canes and maybe construct their team a little better... Awards on Thursday and Free Agency in 2 weeks... countdown to new season in 3 1/2 months!
He's back folks... the former nhl coach of the year, Ted Nolan is back in the NHL this year with the Islanders. It was puzzling why Nolan hadn't been thrown a bone after a great couple seasons in Buffalo about 8 years ago. The Islanders desperately need someone good to turn their crappy team around, so Nolan could be good. Nolan coached the Moncton Wildcats in the QMJHL (The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League or LHJMQ in francais) to the Memorial Cup Final, unfortunately defeated by the Quebec Ramparts (Coached by Patrick Roy himself). Best of luck Mr Nolan, you'll probably need it.
I'd love to go for the underdogs again and pick the oil for the cup, but I have to go with the ol' heart and root for the wonderdog, Kevyn Adams, to hoist the cup! Kevyn leads the Hurricanes in faceoff win % at a little over 60% success... Although, he hasn't had a point yet in this playoff, I think he'll come up with some clutch shot blocks this series to help the Canes defeat the Oilers in 7 games...
I can't purely make my decision on the Canadian team vs the American team... it's a flawed argument as most of the players, who make up the team, are Canadian on either side, with a bunch of Euros and the odd American (ie Adams) mixed in. With the same reasoning, if it were Ottawa vs Carolina in the finals, I could never pick the Sens to win, regardless of whether they're Canadian or not...
I expect a lot of good battles with more grit from Brind'amour and Adams, and expect to see Stillman keep rolling along on another stellar playoff... It'll be fun to watch Pronger wallpaper more people and Ryan Smith grind his share of goals in, but I think the victory will ultimately go to the Canes. Keep on trucking...
Well, carolina's my team this year, so here they go to the Cup finals by beating the Sabres in 6 games... it'll be a tough one, but the Wonderdog will light the lamp this series...
Aside from being the only Canadian team left, they have some good work ethic, an insane Home crowd and some pretty hot players (meow...) They're facing the hottest current team in the playoffs, but they're still the Mighty Ducks. Even if they pull out the flying V and the knucklepuck, I dont think they'll manage to change their fate of losing to Edmonton in 7 games. Sure, the ducks are flying, but the Oilers are greasing... go oil!
This is our new cat, Moggy... she's real small and cute and she doesn't really like me yet... It's kinda like we cloned Amerylis, but over cooked the clone cause she's got a darker face. She's pretty funny when she wants to be. This picture is of her reading by association and preparing for next christmas... she'll also know everything there is to know about our new house. I wanted to name her Chewbakka, but Faith thought she was too attractive for that. We almost compromised by naming her Mongo, but figured that'd be in poor taste... Good luck Moggy, hopefully Jooje won't hate you forever.
so there's something different at the Grace homestead... the balance has been thrown off and there is something new in the home. I can't tell you exactly what it is, but it does have something to do with chocolate. I like chocolate... Jooje hasn't given her comment yet, but she isn't too sure about it either.
That's all I can say right now... I think they're listening... the others... watch LOST on wednesday... it's getting freakin good.
I wanted to wait to post a picture of the sold sign, but now I'm the opposite of lazy. It's really exciting. Everything will be sorted out by the end of the week, by which time I will be poorer than I've ever been. So long as the inspection on Friday doesn't go horribly wrong, this beauty will be ours... so there.
A big part of our time there was playing hockey. Playing hockey used to be the good excuse to get a visa to enter the country, but now it's more of a good way to get people's attention. We've noticed that if we play better against a Czech team, they are more likely
to listen to what we have to say and will likely respect us more for our game. It's strange playing hockey against them cause we've been taught the Canadian style of hockey, safe plays and crashing the net. They've learned that a long pass up the middle that will result in a breakaway 1 out of 15 times is the way to go and they really enjoy the drop pass inside the blue line. We found that the breakaways didn're really bother us playing against them, but I got the rare chance to play with a Czech team against a Czech team and boy, did I feel out of place. This photo was taken on Monday when we played the HC Skulls, featuring a bar-code instead of a name on the back of the jersey. We won 18-11, but found that there were a couple players on their team that I had met 4 years ago in the same town. They invited me to play for them on Wednesday, so I donned the 
HC Skulls jersey for a game. It was a lot of fun, but me being a Canadian, I crashed the net waiting for the puck to arrive and the rest of the players were still farting around inside the blue line. I felt a bit out of place, but I did score a goal, which made me feel better. We won 6-5. It was funny to me that some of the Czechs on the other team hit me a few times, spotting me as the outsider... I laughed because I never get hit in the non-contact league I play in so it's funny to me when I get rocked. This photo was taken with a guy who rocked me late in the game when I had my head down. I lifted my head only to see orange and then I was on my can... he's a good guy. On the week, we won 3 games and lost one in a shootout. After the game we won 18-11, we had a shootout for fun with everyone from both teams, so I scored my patent pending goal with my stick between my legs... it was priceless. Hockey was good.
Another really cool opportunity we had was to go into local public school classes and talk for a class. Some classes were English classes so we helped them practice, some were classes in Grography so we told them about Canada. The class in the picture was a lot of fun, we shared about Canada, they shared some of their culture and I made balloon animals for everyone. I'll never forget when the teacher (the one in the red turtle-neck with the whie poodle on his head) showed us the Czech version of the hokey pokey song and did the "put your bum in... put your bum out... shake it all about...." Very hot.... It was a lot of fun talking to kids, telling a bit about why we were there and entertaining. This was the first trip in Hlinsko that got to go into the schools and the Principal gave us an open invitation to come back anytime, a big door opened to the missionaries in the town. Very cool.
Prague was very cool, we had a day to experience the city, do the tourist thing and have fun. My feet still hurt from all the walking, but it was a good day. 
We saw the castle, ate lunch at the patio of the Lubkowicz Palace Cafe in the Castle. That was very cool, with a very nice view of Prague, and very good food. We saw a girl get her foot smashed by the Castle Guard's rifle because she got too close during a photo. Very funny, I mean, where's her head... you just don't get too close. One thing I found weird, especially during the olympics, was that I could not find a single good quality Czech Hockey Jersey for a reasonable price. There were lots of cheap cheap ones and there was only 1 place I found that had Nike Jerseys with no name or number for about $200 cdn... crazy.
Woke up at 4:30 am in Prague to catch our flight at 7am and ended up in Kitchener at 8:30 pm (2:30am Monday in Prague). Such a long day, with a 6 hour layover in the mostly forgettable Amsterdam. I mean, the red light district was gross, the uncooked big mac's were gross and all the nice buildings had construction blocking any good pictures... blech... We're home now, and I'm sick and tired of being jet-lagged, sick and tired... good trip though. Want to do it again.
