In the US eveything is bigger and better and in Texas everything is bigger and better than that. This is a completely (I promise you) typical house in Texas. We thought we had seen it all in Canada. No sirrrreeee! It was nice to see the nativity scene. We are in a very predominantly Christian state here. Click on the photo to enlage.

The boys with their hotel Christmas stockings!

Julie was as resourceful as ever and managed a great Christmas breakfast table complete with candles hand made by the boys and a wrapping paper tablecloth. Click on image to enlarge.

Christmas Day - Fort Worth, Texas We went to bed quite early the night before which didn't account for the fact that we didn't wake up until 8:15am. The boys had a little stocking at the end of their hotel beds and were really pleased that it had not been forgotten, even though we were miles from home. 

Since we had all four of us in our one hotel room/suite, we had already decided to have out Christmas breakfast with Mum who was in the room next door. We pooled our furniture and had enough to put on a good spread for our Christmas breakfast. There is a picture posted. 

This was definitely an occasion where less is more. Although the boys had far far less than any previous year, they were more than delighted with the little items they received. We had received a couple of parcels from the UK and a deal of cards. 

Much to our surprise the Christians of Texas (and probably all of North America) do not celebrate Christmas Day in church. The day itself was a Saturday. They go to church on Sundays and that's that. There was actually quite alot of evidence that the day itself is perhaps not as significant as it is in Europe. One of the houses in the cul-de-sac where my brother lives was being subjected to it's period visit by the garden care company. Alot of private house gardens here are tended by maintenance companies. They send in 3 or 4 gardeners and a truck load of equipment and visit for 20 minutes to half an hour twice a month. It's probably about $80 to $100 per month and is very effective. The gardens tend not to be massive (houses mostly occupy at least 50% of the lot that they sit on) so alot can be done in a short time. 

After a leasurely (over here they say "leeeeshirely") breakfast, we made our way over to my brothers house and generally made ourselves busy with Christmas day activities. We had a light lunch and prepared the table for our turkey dinner which was consumed around 6:30pm. We had present opening between lunch and dinner. The boys were again most gracious, preferring to hand out the presents to all the assembled family, rather than to receive. They only received a couple of small things again but were content and delighted in the day as much as anyone. Progress at last!

The boys finally get to play in the snow 1,360 miles south of Canada. We came to Texas for the cowboys and we get snowmen. (click on the picture to enlarge).

Christmas Eve - Keller (Dallas) Texas Our journey down to Texas was pretty uneventful. The most exciting part was our drive to the airport from Oakville to Toronto. The taxi driver arrived in a people mover (van) designed to accommodate someone in a wheelchair. This was just as well as the floor space in the van was filled with 13 items of luggage. The bench seat at the back took the 4 of us and Mum sat in the passenger seat. There was no room to put anything in the trunk as this was filled with his Christmas presents. Needless to say the van was fully loaded. We didn't/couldn't put on seat belts and the our driver drove like a man possessed. In classic Canadian style only 6 and half inches behind the man in front on him. Quite interesting. 

My brother Anthony and his wife Carolyn met us with 2 cars. This was a relief as we could not have got into 1. We are staying in a long term hotel / apartment type of thing. This is a large room with a kitchenette (with cooker, fridge, microwave etc). It has one double bed and one pull out sofa and all the other hotel type furniture. The cost is $41.88 per night (weekly rate) but goes down if you stay longer. There are people here who have been here for months and months. Well at that price you would wouldn't you? This type of accommodation is very popular in the US where there are large numbers of people who get posted to different places for months at a time. They were originally intended for business type customers (there are few tourists like us who would stay around here for longer than a day) but have become places for the displaced as well. Just perfect for us then. 

 On Christmas Eve we went to a huge church for their candlelight carol service. This was quite amazing resembling more of a West End musical than a church production. Julie and I counted nearly 2,000 seats inside and they were bringing in extra chairs and many were standing around the edges as well. I counted 7 flat panel PC monitors and 2 massive plasma displays in the foyer alone. The mind boggling thing is this was a regular sized church and there is one like this seemingly on every street corner (albeit that the steet corners are a quarter of a mile apart). There were 50 people on stage at any one time. The band included 7 strings, 5 wind instruments and a choir of at least 20. The "worship leader" (a title I use very loosely in this context) displayed his teams' skills and dexterity with a performance that Liberace might have presented in his Las Vegas hey day. Pure spectacle. When we were finally permitted to join his team (and surely detract from the level of performance he had so far achieved) by singing along, he was leading us with such panache and theatre that just for a moment I wondered if he might have been encouraging us to worship him rather than our Lord. I'm sure that this was just my Britishness (our desire to keep everything to the level of understatement) blinding me but it seemed like it to me. We arrived early as we were told (quite rightly) that we wouldn't get a seat if we didn't. We left with the crowd but being as we have arrived early we were at the rear of the exiting hoard. But what we couldn't fathom was that by the time we had reached the entrance door 2,000 plus people had evaporated into thin air. The car park was empty bar 5 cars. There was certainly no hospitality, fellowship or coffee - pooh! Nope sireeeee, the show was over, time to go home.

A house in Keller, Texas, USA.

Day 134 - Oakville - 17th December


The Last Day of School

We arrived early bringing gifts, cookies, frozen dinners, cards and papers to hand out with our contact details and weblog address. The day started with the final advent assembley. Sammy and Julian (with all of grades 3 and 4) performed a recorder piece and later did a class song which can only be described as beautiful. Other grades did music or song and the teachers performed a gracious eurythmy excercise. Then we all stood and sang.

I then went to do my final juggling session with my grade 4s. There always comes a point where the pupils will begin to outshine their teacher. This point came today. Several kids are now able to do tricks that I cannot perform but can only teach. Julian has a particular advantage in that he is quite ambidextrous. So he can do two ball juggling in one hand using either his right or left hand. He combines 3 ball juggling with 2 ball in the left and then changes to the right. I just can't do that! Others are simply able to continuously juggle for longer that me. Pooh! Not fair! But my juggling has improved a great deal since I started to. So we are all winners.

I left on a very high note. On this last day the only remaining kid in the class who had yet to master it, finally clicked on continuous 3 ball juggling. It was like he had been holding back just to show me on the last day. And it wasn't like he only just managed to get it. He was juggling with 3 balls as if he had been doing it for weeks. He just cracked it there and then in the final session. It was like watching one of those cheesy Disney movies where the kid finally makes good at the very last moment. It brought tears to my eyes. I was so proud for him. It was a far bigger achievement than for those who had mastered it after only a few sessions. In this case perseverance, determination and true grit had won through.

Julie had brought cookies for all the kids in Julian's class (so had other kids) as he was to celebrate his birthday with them today. I went home around 10:00 am but we didn't have much time as today was going to be a half day and we had lots of children and parents (friends) who we wanted to see and say goodbye to.

We came back at 12:00 noon and started our rounds of goodbyes and card handouts. The class 3 kids and the teacher had sprung a surprise party for Sammy and they sung him an adapted Christmas carol with a line which went something like "please being Sammy back again". They had also prepared a rucksack for him. They had all signed it and it had a Canadian flag attached to it. Julie and I had tears rolling down our cheeks when we heard the song. All the kids were crowding around wishing him a good trip.

Julian's class has done a "secret santa" present draw. Each child had drawn a name from a hat and was to produce a hand made (and nothing plastic please) item to give to that person. Julian had sewn a cross stitched bookmark and a hand made card for his person. He received a rucksack which contained a felt hand made picture of a scene with a bat. This was done because Julian had completed a project on bats a few weeks earlier and it was a great work of art.

We said our goodbyes and had some emotional moments with some of our friends and with saying goodbye to our beloved teachers. We went home taking 2 other boys with us who wanted to spend an extra bit of time with us before we left. We just can't believe it is all over and that the place had become such a home from home for us. Praise the Lord.

Boiling lake phenomenon (click on photo for a bigger view). The air temperature is so cold against the "warm" water of the lake we get this "steambath" type of effect. Very eeirie.
 

No kidding for real - the temperature this morning. About a cold as a freezer! 

Daddy's juggling class in full swing. The whole class of 13 became jugglers after 8 weeks of 10 minute daily sessions. 

Sammy holds a great lump of ice that came from the river. The temperature dropped to neg 15 deg C today. It went down 12 deg during a 2 hour period in the day. With the wind chill factor we were looking at neg 30 to neg 40 deg C. 

Day 132 - Toronto - 15th December 2004 We dropped the boys off at school, did my juggling lesson with Julian's class and headed into Toronto. Mum arrived over the weekend. We went to the Indian Embassy and spent most of the day depositing papers and passports in order to obtain visas to visit my sister in New Dehli. Mum is going to visit them out there during February and we thought it was a good idea to get tooled up as well. I makes you really think how lucky we are not to live in a culture where rudeness and unhelpfulness is the norm. Mostly we are curteous to each other and do not treat fellow human beings as pieces of dirt. We can often even smile at each other. Some other cultures do not value these qualities as we do, even when they are on very public display in a foreign host nation. Quite an eye opener to get a taste of what it must be like to live in India without even being there. Perhaps we are just too soft. Anyway we left all the passports up there with a promise that they would be ready by Monday afternoon. We fly on Tuesday. Lets just say it is cutting it a bit fine. We're taking bets ..... Tonight we went to our last home church group meeting. They had made us a Bon Voyage cake. It is very sad to say goodbye to them all. We have been so welcomed and enjoyed great fellowship together. We have laughed so much it made us cry. There were prayers for our travels amongst others and gifts for the boys. What did we do to deserve all this?

Day 130 - Oakville - 13th December 2004 There is so much going on. I keep thinking I must update the blog. Then I get to do it and by then I have forgotten half of what I wanted to say! I have made a final entry in the Mastercleanse Blog. We are back to normal again but we are also changed and overall I do believe it was a good thing to do. Just don't ask me to do it again for a few years. I think the book about it suggests 2 or 3 times per year. Well you can forget that. We have done loads since the last blog. On Sunday the Grade 3 class (Sammy's class) had a party in the afternoon as a Christmas thing and a goodbye to us. Julie received the gift of a very special rolling pin and we also got a lovely hand made blank journal. We just can't believe how generous and warm people are here. It has made us feel very special. Alex our friend from UK went home on Sunday morning. This necessitated a 5:30 am drive to the airport which was fine as I came home and went to bed again. Sammy had been quite poorly, so we didn't go to church (only the 2nd time since we have been away that this has happened) and we all rested in bed until something like 11:00 am. Can you imagine? As we were at our party, Mum was arriving at Toronto airport. She was collected by my brother's sister-in-law Pam, who kindly brought her home, arriving about 10 minutes after we got back ourselves. It's nice to have Mum back. She and Paul were with us at the beginning of the adventure when we toured the Great Lakes and there is lots to share with her. Paul has gone to UK to be with his Mum for Christmas. Today the school had it's third advent assembly and we all went. Sammy and Julian did their recorder pieces with their classes and also their singing. I then went to do my juggling.

Our beloved lake. See, there is a little dusting of snow. Looks just like a postcard. This was taken at 4:00pm on 12th December, 2004. 

Day 125 - Oakville - 8th December 2004 Here is the home movie of the house we saw with all the lights - House Movie. They are not all like this but every other house is covered in sparkly lights. The amount of money spent on this type of adornment can only be matched by the amount it costs to keep them lit for a period of 4 weeks. There is enough energy being consumed on this one decorative folly to power a small third world country for a year (or thereabouts). After spending money on exterminating spiders from the side of your house, this has to rate as the next best (worst) example of conspicuous over consumption so far.

Julie and Wendy outside the school building. 

The snow at school this afternoon. 

Cookie decorating. 

Day 122 - Oakville - 5th December 2004

I was invited to drum at church today! You can imagine what a privilegde and pleasure that was. I had to get to the church at 8:00am (the local AMC 24 screen cinema complex - we were in screen 13 today) to help set up. The drum kit has to be trucked in and set up every Sunday. As does the sound system, the overhead projector system, all the catering (coffee and bagels for 300 people) and all the peripheral equipment. All church members have name tags here which is great if you have a problem remembering names.

Julie and the boys turned up at 10:00am for the start of the service and it was great to see them sitting in the front row as usual. We did several carols and some regular worship songs. It was great to be playing again. It has been over 4 months since I last played and playing has been such an important part of my spiritual journey that it is never far from my thoughts.

From church we went straight to the boys school where the Advent Fair was in full swing. This is one of the major school events of the year. Hundreds of people come to it. Every classroom is decorated for some activity or other. Cookie decorating, candle making (dipping), story telling and loads more. Most of the products on sale were either made in the school or by people related to the school. Lunch was provided and cooked by the parents. We stayed until 3:30 pm and then made a pit stop at home and went straight onto our house group Christmas party. More home cooked food and fantastic fellowship. We have had so much fun with our house group since we have been there. Julie and I have never laughed so much. On wednesday we had tears rolling down our cheeks. They are such a laugh.

Day 121 - Oakville - 4th December 2004 Another jammed packed weekend. Saturday started with Julians birthday party. This was programmed from 10:00am to 2:30pm. We ended up with 9 kids, including our 2 boys, Alex's boy Scott (visiting from UK) and another child (a friend of Sammy's) who we were sitting for the day. We started out going to a local park down by the Lake. It was blowing a gale. 4 or 5 of the kids fell in the stream and soaking wet feet which were then in danger of being frost bitten. All of the kids got muddy. They loved climbing over the fallen logs perched across the stream. We came back to the house and played various games including pass the parcel, musical statues, balloon stomping and Alka Seltzer rockets. Lunch was followed by origami and stone painting. Julian said it was his best party ever and most of the kids said the same thing. Julian received the most amazing presents including a full art painting kit, a set of Magnetix, a book, a game of scrabble and a Harry Potter Quidditch PC game. He was overjoyed. A state of being that he rarely experiences. It was very exhausting for us but great fun for the kids.

Day 116 - Oakville - 29th November 2004 Very good day today. Most probably because of this diet that we are on (see the Mastercleanse if you don't mind the gory details) I am feeling on top of the world. Life is working. Do you ever get that feeling? You don't? Well you should check out this diet. We are on day 8 of it so far. Went to school and did juggling with my (notice "my") children again today, as I do every day. However, the children had an Advent whole school assembley today. So juggling was delayed for a while. Then one of the parents of a child in my class turned up at 9:30 am with a goat. So that was quite entertaining. We got to juggling at about 10:00 am. The class were really on form (or the form were really class?) and several had made great progress over the weekend. One of them, who was struggling to get 3 balls up, informed me that over the weekend he had achieved 117 consecutive catches with 2 balls. This was a major breakthrough. He was enthusiastic again after nearly giving up with the whole thing. It was so encouraging. At the end of the class 5 kids were selected who were judged able to complete enough catches (32) to be able to do a juggling display. Julian was asked if he thought he could do it and he said yes. I hadn't actually seem him complete more than 7 or 8 before but we gave him the benefit of the doubt and he joined the group. And then to prove it he juggled the required number straight off! I never dreamt I would ever see Julian juggle. Not being the world's best catcher (in comparison to Sammy say) he was not immediately suited to the pastime. When we left to go on this trip I set up several achievements that I would like to have completed before go home. One of these was that Sammy would have learned to juggle. He could already do 2 balls when he left home but I felt it was something we could finish whilst we were away. Now it's Julian who can do it! You have to know reader, that this is truly amazing. I am so happy. It's like anything is possible for him now. I went to the supermarket on the way home from school and picked up some groceries. Even though we are not eating at the moment. I have not calculated how much money we have saved but I would estimate about £75 so far. It was a nightmare looking at all that food. It is the "Holiday Season" here. They have "Holiday Season" offers, "Holiday Season" foods, "Holiday Season" cards, "Holiday Season" wrapping paper. It is after all the "Holiday Season". We in the UK will need to get used to this as we are about five years behind North America in terms of being PC. Smoking is now virtually illegal anywhere. I know we have started to have this conversation in UK about Christmas not being called Christmas but over here it has been banned (or it seems like it). Julie has not been able to find Christmas Cards anywhere. The mention of Christmas it seems, is not permitted. The whole season has turned into a retailers excuse to push more product and a buyers excuse to buy more. Expect the same in a country near you soon. Alex our friend from the UK arrives tomorrow with her son Scott. She will be staying for 10 days after which Mum arrives then we leave for Dallas. So it's full steam ahead now, packing up, preparing the house, making bookings for cars and places to stay in the US, looking at places in Mexico and Cuba. What else can we do and where else can we go?

Day 114 - Oakville - 27th November 2004 It was a beautiful winter day here today. The sun was shining and although the temperature has been down to 1 deg overnight, it warmed up to about 5 deg during the day. But it is still dry, dry, dry. Even though we had a whole day of rain the day before yesterday. Everything is dry again. We went to a farm today with a friend from school. We bought some wool from them for Sammy's knitting and crocheting. Julie had some as well. Then we went to see the sheep that the actual wool had come from. The lady who owns the farm, a Frau Troutmandorf originally from Austria, also sends wool to the school that has not been spun and another lady comes to the school and spins it in the classroom. Then the kids use the wool to knit or crochet. Now they know the whole process from sheep to wooly hat. We are still on the diet/fast (see Mastercleanse if you don't mind the gory details). It's just amazing what your mind does with this not eating thing. the food Julie was preparing today for the boys was driving us mad. I think we were actually dribbling. This afternoon I spent a couple of hours in the garden, raking leaves and cutting some dead branches from one of the firs trees. It's a great pleasure to garden without coming across slugs and snails all the time. Sammy helped me with the sawing and throwing the leaves over the side of the garden into the inner skin of the sea wall. Sammy then went for another sleep over with Vito. I just know it's going to be painful leaving again.