Our new home

We've started to settle in out here in the 'burbs - we arrived on Saturday, Elijah came with my parents on Sunday, and we are still unpacking. Tonight's great accomplishment was setting up the computer for an internet-starved spouse (although I did manage to stave her off for a while with my laptop and a weak open wireless source I managed to sniff out).

I am already in love with the commute to work (or lack thereof). I can go from door to door in about 10 minutes on the motorcycle. It was about 45 minutes on a good day before, usually more like an hour or 75 minutes (or worse, if there was an accident on the freeway or something). I hardly feel like I've started before I'm there. I can't wait to get back on the other bike (the pedal one), but I think I need to heal a bit more first (for those who don't know, I had a hernia done on August 10th, just after getting home from Ontario).

Here are a few pics from the new place. We'd love it if you came to visit!

The view from the backyard, with Elijah getting in some last-minute sandbox time.


Elijah jumped in even before I was finished setting up the sandbox. He has settled in already, almost more easily than the rest of us! His comment on the sandbox was "I happy."


The Venema girls hanging out in the new master bedroom.

Delving in the photo archives

We have a large number of family pics that haven't seen much circulation - mostly because of busy-ness or a reluctance to overload emails with attachments. So, I think I will pick out the best of them and periodically post them (in no particular chronological order). These pics are from right around the time Davin was born in March.

Davin in her hospital bassinet

Davin's homecoming. If you look closely you can see that Elijah has a hospital band on as well. Daddy had a band, mommy had a band, and Baby Davin had a band, so it was no surprise that Elijah wanted one too!


Davin having a nap at home. For the first few weeks, Val & I lived downstairs in our back room and Davin slept in this bassinet. Val wasn't able to go up stairs due to her C-section.


My friends Carolyn and Hannah (with little Claudia) came to visit us not long after we came home.


Elijah playing outside. He would dig into any dirt he could find with his toy digger. As a treat for him, I built a sandbox not long after Davin was born.


Feel free to comment!

Homesteading, Venema style

As some of you know, my brother Dwayne, his wife Jen and son Hendrik live in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. They recently purchased some rural land land to escape the hustle-and-bustle of northern small town life (!). Dwayne is in the process of building a log cabin on the property (you can see his first work, a shed, in the background).

Quite the undertaking!

A Visit to Ontario: Aug 3-9, 2005 (Part Three)

A Visit to Ontario: Aug 3-9, 2005 (Part Two)

A Visit to Ontario: Aug 3-9, 2005 (Part One)

After meeting up with Val & the kids in Canmore, we braved the ravages of a flight to Ontario... and survived (barely). We stayed at Charlie & Bev's in Ottawa on either end of the trip, and spent the other days out at Val's grandfather's farm. Elijah loved the farm, and the tractors, and riding on the 4-wheeler with daddy, and throwing sticks in the stream...

It was great to meet Val's grandpa: at 94 he is just now leaving the farm for a retirement appartment in Perth. Val hadn't been back for a long time, not properly since she was 11.

The pictures are of us in Perth (where we stayed at a B&B), at the farm, out for pancakes at Wheeler's (a maple sugar operation near the farm, and at Charlie & Bev's place).

Nana & Big Papa's House: Aug 2-3, 2005

Some pics of our time at David and Wendy's in Canmore. I flew from San Fran to Calgary and Dennis & Alison were kind enough to drive me out. The outfit Davin is wearing is one of Val's from when she was a baby that Wendy still had; the mountain shot was stitched together from three pictures taken on one of David's "walks" (read "hikes") that he enjoys near their home.

Pics from San Francisco: July 27-Aug 1, 2005

I recently attended a developmental biology conference in San Francisco while Val went to her parent's place in Canmore. The conference was interesting and a good professional development opportunity.

While in San Fran I stayed at the Green Tortoise Hostel near Chinatown, the same place that Jan and I stayed at on our 1996 motorcycle tour of the US Pacific coast. The hostel hasn't changed much in the last 9 years. Good memories!

The last picture is down on the pier by the Bay Bridge - just a chance to be a photographer again!

Welcome to the Venema family photo blog!

Hello friends & family!

Why a blog, you ask? Lately I have been inspired by my friends Jan & Cindy and their excellent blog, The Long Trek Home. That and I have recently been musing on how to share the latest round of photos from our travels with all of you. So, instead of overloading your inbox with attached photos, now you can pop in and see them whenever you like. You can also download pictures for yourself: PC users can right-click on images to save them, and Mac users can do the same by holding down the control key while clicking on an image.