Halloween

Here are a few pictures from the Plumb's very fun Halloween party. The kids were all very cute, the food was very yummy, and it was great to sit and chat with fun people.















Ruth, Angela and Vivian with their babies!















David, Sam, Ephraim - with their babies!















The game - the guys had to eat the gummy worms and candy out of a plate of whipped cream.




















Ken is victorious!




















Wendy the pumpkin and Ken the farmer. I was so excited to be a pumpkin for Halloween. Not a pregnant pumpkin, but that the baby was the pumpkin, except I wasn't quite big enough to fill out the shirt so well, I look kind of silly. And most people at the party didn't even realize that I was pregnant, almost seven months pregnant that is!

A Very Vibrant Fall

On Sunday after Stake Conference I really wanted to go for a drive and a walk. The fall colours have been so vibrant this year and I was getting worried we were going to miss the peak. After lunch the fall colours weren't quite as enticing as a nap. After the nap a drive into the country seemed too ambitious. We settled for one of the many parks in the city. It was beautiful but trying to get the right angle on the colours proved difficult as many trees have already lost most of their leaves.














And then there's the whole I'm pregnant and I don't have any pictures of me looking pregnant. We took a few pictures but I wasn't wearing the right shirt, so this will have to do for now.














I just love the fall!

Chinese Lantern Festival - Year Number Three

Ontario Place has, for the third year in a row, been host to the Chinese Lantern Festival. We've gone the last two years, and we've blogged about it. We weren't going to go this year as it is expensive and we figured we would take a year off. At school on Friday I had a conversation with Lisa Boyd, the teacher I share a homeroom with (this year I'm Boyd-Bacon). In the course of the conversation she offered me two tickets that she had won to the Lantern Festival. I tried to convince her to go, but I didn't need to, she had won four tickets and well, she didn't really want to go anyway. I happily relieved her of two of the tickets and yippee skippy Ken and I were able to enjoy the Lantern Festival for a third year in a row - for free!!

This year's theme was a world theme. The were landmarks - the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty, and there were animals from around the world. Canada was represented by raccoons that were taking over a house. It was a beautiful evening down by the lake. Here are a few of my favourite pictures. The rest are in an album on our picasa site. (Click on Ken and Wendy's photos... if you want to!)
















Wendy and Ken - self portrait.




















A pagoda made of cups, saucers and spoons.





















The Eiffel Tower.




















ANIMALS!!

Ken's Day Trip to North Bay

When we heard that Laura, Keenan and Will would be moving to Dauphin, Manitoba, my first thought (aside from yahoo - Keenan got a job!!) was, when are we going to see them again?! Ken decided to go up to North Bay for the moving day to help out. He left here (Thornhill) at 5 a.m. and spent the morning with Laura and Keenan and Will. After having lunch at Wendy's, the Radcliffe's headed west and Ken headed south.

When he got home I asked to see the pictures he took.
He said "They're not very good, I took them from the car".
I said "What do you mean? Didn't you take any of your sister and her family?"
He said "I was helping them move."
I said "What? This is the last time you'll see you sister for who knows how long and you didn't take a single picture???"
He didn't say anything...

I would like to call this - "Goodbye, we'll miss you! Have an awesome adventure in Manitoba!"














(Now if only that were their car driving towards Manitoba!)

Anna and Suzanne Come to Visit

One of Suzanne's best friends from high school got married on Friday, October 3. (Congratulations Neesa!!) Suzanne flew in for the weekend with Anna. We were all so happy to have Anna come to visit and well, it was nice to see Suzanne too! I think that Anna is just so cute, perhaps the cutest little girl ever - a title which she may retain... unless of course I have a little girl.




















Suzanne and Anna in their wedding attire.



















I love these next three pictures...














I don't like the cat hat.





















Seriously, are you done yet?




















Go on! Leave me alone!



But of course, no one was happier than Grandma!

Our Mini Vacation

We started our mini-vacation on Wednesday - almost as early as Ken had planned! Our first stop was Whitby to do two last moving-related errands and then we were back on the road to Gananoque. We had planned to visit with Sonia and Ben and Ben had graciously offered to take us out on his parent's boat. We did end up having a lovely visit with Sonia, Ben and Ben's Mom Winona, however the boating was not to be. A creature - possibly a river otter, or a mink decided to use the Elliot's boat as his personal fish gutting area, and bathroom - can you say STINKY!








Mink














River Otter


From Gananoque we continued east along the 1000-Islands Parkway to Brockville. We stayed at the Days Inn which isn't really worth mentioned except that it was connected to a restaurant, a restaurant named RePete's. I thought about devoting an entire blog entry to a discussion of appropriate names for restaurants but then I decided not to.















On Thursday morning we continued east to Upper Canada Village. We spent five hours visiting every single building on the site and asking question upon question to all of the costumed guides. It really is an amazing pioneer village. I'm not sure what I would consider the most interesting thing that I learned about life in the 1860's. Perhaps that sarsaparilla is essentially rootbeer. Or perhaps that there was a shortage of horses in Upper Canad in the 1860's because of the Civil War in the United States.














A view of the church and the canal.















Ken and I in Cook's Tavern enjoying Ginger Beer and Sarsaparilla.















A fortepiano found in the parlour of the Loucks Farm house - an example of a prosperous farm.















Also at Loucks Farm, a Dutch Style barn that Ken really liked.

After spending a long day at Upper Canada Village we hopped back on the 401 and headed west to Kingston. On Sonia's reccommendation we went to dinner at Curry Original. The food was so good, really so very good. We walked around the Kingston downtown a bit after dinner. The downtown/waterfront area is so fun and lively. There was a wonderful mix of people: students, families, couples, seniors, all enjoying a lovely summer evening.

Friday morning we awoke to rain and slight history overload. We decided that instead of going to Fort Henry or any other museums we would meander our way home. We drove along the Bath road to the Glenora Ferry and continued on through Picton.















The ferries pass each other - one on the way to Adolphustown the other on the way to Glenora.

Our next stop was the village of Stirling. Ken wanted to visit a cheese factory to buy some fresh cheese curd. We made a stop at the local library and found directions online to the Empire Cheese factory in Campbellford. We bought some lovely cheese curd and squeaked away to our hearts content.















Next we meandered over to Warkworth to try and buy bread, but they were all sold out at the Lionheart baking studio. We continued onto Cobourg, had some dinner and sat by the water and then traveled the rest of the way home.

It is really lovely to be able to enjoy a mini-vacation in your own backyard. There are so many amazing things to see and do in Ontario.

Done and Done!

Ken has begun the transition from full-time student to tax-paying citizen! On Thursday all of the students in his program had an open house at Fleming College in Lindsay. The open house provided them the opportunity to showcase their work on their co-op projects. This year's open house was the best attended open house in several years.

For Ken's project his team designed a notification system, to let industry and Aboriginal groups know when industry projects may effect Native land use areas. A company may submit information about a project to find out if it may potentially effect sensitive Aboriginal areas. If a conflict exists both parties are provided with information to begin a negotiation process before any large commitment of resources is made by the company. This also benefits the Aboriginal communities because they now better equipped to be proactive in managing their lands. The present area that employs this system is the Foothills west of Edmonton, but it may soon effect the entire Foothills region of Alberta. Ken's group's part of the process is facilitating data collection from industry partners (via a website designed by Ken) and the automated process of determining potential conflicts and the generation of reports for industry and Aboriginal participants. Doing this process manually would require too many resources on an ongoing basis for it to work in the long term. Because the process is sped up from more than half an hour to five minutes and simplified greatly for the user, the office will be able to handle up to 100 requests per day, with only one full-time employee running the program.

When I listened to Ken explain his project I was touched by his explanation of the potential benefits. Imagine if such a system was in place in many areas in Canada and beyond. Most native groups have no access to this level of technical ability, and by the time they are made aware of impending threats to their way of life, the stakes have already been raised by extensive investment in a plot of land. Until native peoples are involved in the planning stages of resource management, conflicts will continue to arise.















Kei, Ken, and Chia - KYM Group! The hats were from the "Foothills Research Institute", the group they did the work for.















Their posterboard display.















Ken giving an overview of their project - a non-technical one that I could understand!

More pictures...

I forgot to mention that the rest of the pictures from the trip are on my picasa album site.