A week back in the south already!!!

Its hard to believe, but we have been gone from the north now for a whole week already. We moved back to Toon Town on Friday evening last week. Dean finished up all of his final practicum requirements and then had to be back in the city for a final presentation to his colleagues and profs for Monday, November 30th in the am......

AND NOW HE IS DONE!!! He is officially a grad nurse. He will start working in M. L. on January 5th as far as we know. We have yet to find a place to live there and he starts a month from today!!! YIKES is all I can say!!

The only remaining item on Dean's schooling is to write his CRNE in February 2010. This is the final certification exam and it is about 6 hours long. From now till then, he will work as a grad nurse.

Here are some photos from over the years. A tribute to the man I love....who has worked so incredibly hard and achieved his goal!!! Hard to believe these years have already come and gone. At times it felt like we would never see the end of it, then eventually we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and its already come and gone now!!! WOW.

A few of deans school colleagues. I believe there were about 10 males in his class of approx. 160.

One of his rotations was at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon. A neat experience!!! An insight to see whether a person would want to specialize as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse or not.
Some nursing peeps doing a group project at our place!!

Some more of our nursing buddies!!! Jenn and Lacey.

A request from us to you!!

I know some of you might be new to the 'blog' world.... but now that you know how to access it, lets take it another step.

We would love to know who is all looking at our blog and following our journey... so up until now, you have heard from us.... now lets hear from YOU!

All you do is select the 'comment' tab at the end of each post. Once you click on it, it will open another window. You don't need a google account, you can select the Anonymous option... but please make sure you type your name at the bottom of your msg so we know who wrote it!

We have more posts coming later on this week. Will try to tackle that task tomorrow :)

Hope all is well with you all in the mean time!!!!

D and S

Last weekend in the north!

We had a great weekend this weekend up in the north...and spent a lot of it with our dear friends, the Coe's!

Some of the activities included:

-attending the craft fair
-attending the Ski Club Fundraiser supper as well as the ski swap. Learned a lot about xcountry skiing and how to wax your skis, what type of skis to buy, etc.
-listening to a guitar player from Montreal, a very talented man by the name of Rob Lutes. He plays a classical guitar I believe it is and the type of music he plays is a lot of blues/jazz.
-We also caught the second fish of the season up here!!! In a matter of a week, Dean caught two fish and hadn't caught anything up until now in three months!!! So he is very pleased to say the least. Both of the fish were caught 'ice fishing'
-study this am with the coe's

Here are some pictures of the ice fishing adventure. It gets dark around 4:30 or 5 pm here. We fished until 6 pm. So some of the pictures are 'night shots'.

Father and Son


Our favorite kiddos from the north!!!!
Got em

Admiring the fish.... he is in the centre if you look hard enough.
Matt got a fire going... it was only a 10 footer ;)

Capturing the moon....

Ice fishing already? Who woulda thought in this weather

Here are some beautiful pictures Dean took while he was out ice fishing while Shaughnessy and I stayed home to bake on Nov. 11th.

These were taken from his new phone.

TWO WEEKS LEFT???? WHERE DID THE TIME GO?

Well the count down is on, (not that we aren't liking it here) but sorry to see that we only have two weeks left in a way.

1) we will miss the beautiful northern scenes of nature....
2) we will miss the friends we have made here....
3) we will miss the new experiences....

But another chapter of life is soon to close and another to begin!

Dean is gearing up for his 'FINAL' presentation in PA to a select group of nursing staff and students there. This will likely be around the 27th or so.

This past Wednesday, I invited Shaughnessy over to bake in the morning. She loves to bake, as DO I!!!!!! :) Dean went out to fish on his day off.... and yet again... no fish in these lakes!! We started out with a recipe for Lemon Meringue drop cookies. However, we were having trouble with the egg white 'peaking' so I had a bright idea to just make one big cake.... and why not make it a TIE DIE ONE!!! See the pics following.


This is the other masterpiece we made.... but followed the recipe and it works! It is the deadliest cake I have ever had. It is the Roasted Squash Cake out of the October issue of Canadian Living.... mmmm mmmmmm goood!!!! You can't stop at just one piece. Type of squash? Butternut. This is similar to carrot cake... but soo sooo good.

Here is Glenda and Jayden. Glenda is a dietitian that works in the LA community. She is also a Yoga teacher. Jayden is showing her his 'downward dog' position here. :)

After baking in the am, and Jayden's little yoga session, we took off to Don Allan Trails just north of town with Matt, Jeannie, and kids (minus Matthew as he was sick with a cold) and Glenda as well as Celia (spelling?) Celia is a pharmacist in the LA community. So these two gals do work closely with Jeannie and are a lot of fun.

Don Allan is a nephew to Tom Young. Don is also the dad of Lyle, and Terry and Vern. (Tom's relatives that are up here).

The Don Allan Trails are specific for xcountry skiing. They are groomed trails and it is very beautiful there. There is a steady incline up a hill and at the summit you can overlook the lake, enjoy a picnic lunch and camp fire.... so that's what we did.

Jayden is only four, so to walk a 5 km hike was a little much for him. Jeannie brought along their innuit baby carrier, called an AMAUTI. Jayden still fits in it.... and managed to fall asleep a couple of times along the hike.

Here the us girls are all watching the procedure of 'loading' Jayden :)



The beautiful S.H.A.U.G.H.N.E.S.S.Y.Double hunchback? nope, its just Jayden :)
We reached the top!!! There is a tiny cabin up top and picnic tables as well as a camp grill.

Watching the boys whip up a fire...




Warming up.... hands, backsides and water for tea!


Matt and DeanMatt and Jeannie packed supper for us all.... smoked salmon, capers, red onions, rye bread along with cream cheese!

Halloween Night... warning some of these pics might be too graphic for some...

Yes, can't say that I would have thought we would be practicing suturing on Halloween, but you never know being with two nurses I guess!!

Jeannie is now a nurse practitioner and one of their duties as an N.P. that R.N.'s don't do is suturing. So she wanted to teach Dean how suture... some of them are pretty gruesome... these are pig hocks that they are practicing on.



Matt got in on the fun too.....



And some more pics of the kids throughout the night. (mostly of Jayden as the other kids were out for a good part of the evening trick or treating)





QUACK!!!You may have already noticed, but some didn't. HAHAHHA. Dean is hiding under that brown sheet in the corner and got a good kick out of scaring the beejeebies out of many.... one being a member of the Coe's, but won't mention any names. :)


This is Brooklyn. She lived in St. Walburg where the Coe's were previous to their current location. She babysat the kids and decided to move here when they moved. She is now managing one of the local restaurants in town.

This is Shaughnessy Coe and Mickaela (sorry I think I totally butchered the spelling of her name) She is a great great niece of Tom Young's. Her and her daddy have been to a couple bible studies at the Coe's. They are a great pair to get to know. We look forward to spending some more time with them before we leave town.