nofixedaddress: November 2010

Gratitude is often misplaced in our society as we tend to take life as it passes for granted. As Loreen and I move into the next phase of our life and reflect on our life's journey we have so much to be grateful for.

We are extremely grateful to our parents who had the understanding and patience to allow us, with their guidance to grow into the personalities that we both became. They were the ones that taught us respect, morals and work ethics. They provided us with roots and wings: we have stayed mostly rooted through our working careers and now will try out our wings.

We have great gratitude for our siblings as they helped mould us into the resilient people we are today. Siblings torment, love, support, teach and can bring out your worst and your best. They have always been there when we needed them and provided support with love and kindness.

Our parents and siblings taught us tolerance, acceptance, and curiosity to explore the world and the people that inhabit it. They gave us the foundation to build our lives on and what a rock that foundation has been.

We are extremely thankful for our daughter Keenan. While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about. Our daughter, in her own way, educated us in tolerance and acceptance of life in an ever changing modern world. She taught us a love that is strong and binding for life.

We are grateful to the schools and teachers that had the patience and, in my case the perseverance, to provide the education and guidance that helped accomplish our goals and get us to where we are today.

I have many people to thank for the opportunities provided to me throughout my working career. People that not only put their trust in me to be able to perform the tasks assigned, but mentored and taught me confidence and ability go outside my comfort zone and continue to learn and grow. I was fortunate up to my last day of work to work with people that continued to provide me opportunity and learning’s. I certainly am grateful to the amazing people I have had the opportunity to work with.

Friends play a big role in one’s life and growth. Through a lifetime one makes and has many friends – some are fleeting, some you lose and never gain back, some you lose and find again, some are for life no matter where life takes them or you. We have been blessed to find special friends from school, relatives, in-laws, and work. They have all provided laughter, support and growth. Thank you all.

This journey of ours to travel the world and experience different cultures started years ago when we were blessed to meet some very special people through a college student exchange program. Over a period of 11 years we had the good fortune to be host family to exchange students from Japan, Korea, Greece, France, the USA, and the Maritimes. In all, some 20 young people brought their cultures to our home. These were wonderful experiences for us and taught us that people are mostly the same all over the world; they just have different cultures that need to be explored.

So with gratitude, we thank all the people and events that have helped bring us to this place in our lives.

Danny & Loreen

Well we have started our transition into retirement with the first adventure to Ontario from October 14-23. What a great feeling - no home, no bills, and no place we had to be for ten days. We are down to a 10 by 10 storage locker, our car and a 45 day rental (to December 5) on an 800 square foot condo downtown.

We spent the first two nights with Keenan in Toronto. We went to a restaurant, owned by Lynn Crawford of Food Network fame, called Ruby Watchco. At one time the building was occupied by the Ruby Watch Company, hence the name Ruby Watchco. It was a wonderful meal with a set menu, created the previous day dependant on what the chef's find fresh in the market place we had pumpkin soup, pork chops, roasted root vegetables, pumpkin cheese cake and a cheese course. Keenan had a filet of halibut.

We then ventured into the wild to catch the last day of Oktoberfest in Kitchener, but due to unscheduled stops at the Farmers Market in St Jacobs (first and largest Farmers Market in Canada) and a three hour horse and wagon tour to an Old Order Mennonite farm and maple sugar plantation, by the time we got back to Kitchener the tickets were sold out for the Oktoberfest festivities. But being resourceful we found a lovely meal of pig’s tail, schnitzel and trout, with sauerkraut and pilsner at the Heidelberg Inn in Heidelberg. By the way, pig’s tail is delicious!

The next morning we started out in Elmira and drove through the fascinating Mennonite and Amish country side. From what we had learned from our tour guide the day before, there are three orders of Mennonites and then the Amish.

Old Order Mennonite will use electricity and motorized equipment to farm, but will only travel by horse and buggy - rubber tired for the farm work but wooden wheels for church and town. The young gentlemen have their courting buggies, open topped and fancy lights on the steps etc. The guide compared the family buggy as the mini-van and the courting buggy as a Mustang. Keenan couldn’t imagine what they did in that open topped buggy while out courting!

Moderate Mennonites will drive a vehicle but it has to be black, so if they buy a red or green auto they take it to the shop and paint it black - even the chrome bumpers are painted.

Progressive Mennonites live like everyone else and worship in the Mennonite church.

Now the Amish thought the Mennonites were getting too modern so they broke away and formed their own church and rules – they live with no electricity, no power equipment - everything still done by horse or by hand.

Loreen and I then were off to eastern Ontario. We spent the first day touring Prince Edward county and Belleville and visited Keenan’s friend, Anya. This is where the Colonel did his nasty deeds and the trial was on while we were there.

We drove the country roads along Lake Ontario rather than the freeway to enjoy the scenery and small towns. Unfortunately, we were a week too late for the fall colors, although from the remnants of leaves on the trees it must be very pretty.

We have a friend Nathanael in Kingston that we visited in the evening and spent the day sightseeing. Kingston is where my great-great grandparents, maternal and paternal, on Dad's side landed as immigrants from Ireland and England during the potato famine of the1850’s. So it was great to wander along the wharves and see the city where they landed. The stone cannon revetments that guarded the St. Lawrence entry into Lake Ontario are still standing. One wonders what the thoughts were when they landed in a new land. I’m glad they came to Canada.

The next day we drove the back roads along the Rideau Canal to Ottawa. We visited the War Memorial, (an amazing piece of sculpture), walked around the Rideau canal locks, the Supreme Court of Canada building and Parliament Hill. The buildings are constructed of stone and the size and architecture is amazing. It was very nice to see the nation’s capital. I was somewhat surprised by the size of the Ottawa River, that separates Ottawa and Hull, Quebec. It is a lot bigger than I anticipated. I found Ottawa to be very windy, mostly around Parliament Hill, well there are a lot of politicians there, but a local assured me the wind was coming off the river not from the House of Commons, hehe. An individual has set up an outdoor cat shelter on parliament hill – the stray cats are neutered and then placed in the shelter where they are provided with food and water. This is all done through donations at the site. When we were there a pair of Raccoons had moved in and were the alpha animals at the food dishes that day.

We were then back to Keenan's where we made a post-Thanksgiving dinner for Keenan and friends. Well I made the roasted red pepper/squash soup. It was a delight, everyone said so!

At the last moment Keenan decided to come with us to the airport and return our rental car. That was lucky as the Gardiner Expressway was closed and I would not have known the alternate route she took to get us to the airport on time. And this is just the beginning of hair-raising trips to airports!

So that is our transition into our big adventure. We have both submitted our letters of resignation and will be officially retired the end of November. We now have just 16 sleeps and we are off to Bali. :o)