Day-to-Day ... and a Birthday!

 

These are a couple of photos from around the College for Officer Training, to give you an idea of where we spend our days!  I won't give you a whole tour of the building, so you have an incentive to come and visit me!

 Above is the bistro / cafe self-serve area and the photo below is the chapel, where we meet 3x per week.

 One of our classrooms with a bunch of the first year - Joyful Intercessors getting ready for a presentation in our Spiritual Formation class.
Yes, there's a baby at CFOT this year and no, this is not her mom.  By the time we leave this place in 2 years, she'll be running around everywhere! 

 We took the boys to a FREE movie screening of Despicable Me 2 ... at 9:00am.  It was a fundraiser for Free the Children and popcorn, skittles and pop for breakfast was a good Saturday morning treat! 

We were back at the Assiniboine Zoo for a Community Life Social event put on by the College.  It was a lovely fall day.

 The teenagers of Waverley! 

 Some of the younger lads too! 

After lunch on our In-Sunday, we had dessert and lots of CANDY! in the basement at CFOT

 Even the cadet band was on-duty!

Rocking and Rolling at the local skatepark ...

The boys are thrilled to have a neighbour and honorary uncle Chad just down the hall who LOVES to play Monopoly.  This also makes me very happy, because if  the 4 boys are playing, I can escape .... 

 to a Women's retreat at Booth College with Women of Faith!

And all of a sudden there was a 10 year old in the house!  

 Thank you for the cards and pressies!  Jackson had a good day, but missed all of his extended family, this is our first time celebrating without one set of grandparents or the other!

So we thought we'd use the gift card from our Niagara Orchard Community Church family to check out the Human Rights Museum. 

 There was a great interactive kids exhibit called XOXO on emotions. 

 The kids were able to write a secret message on paper and crush it into a love token to share with someone. 

 There was an interactive digital dance floor ...

 and lighted alabaster walkways that criss-cross all throughout the building!

 Such amazing architecture!  It's like a journey from earth to heaven climbing through the clouds.  A whole lot of symbolism, but it is spectacular. 

 The view from the top would only be better if the scenery were a bit more like Banff or something.  But you can see the rivers and the cool bridge and the downtown buildings and the train tracks and the market ....

 Pizza Hut dinner was requested by the birthday boy (and they even brought us a cinnamon roll treatzza pizza)

 followed by OREO ice cream at home!  The boys don't like birthday cake anymore (weird, I know).

And that's what's up around here! 

Transportation

Did you know that Canada tried to build a flying saucer???

One of the only 2 built is on display at the Western Canada Aircraft Museum right here in Winnipeg!  Apparently, it successfully hovered about 4 feet off the ground but was directionally challenged. 

 The Museum had a special rate for Thanksgiving Monday and since all of our beloved family is soooo far away and there was not a Vineland or Ball's Falls Craft Show to attend (you Niagara folk will understand!), we spent the afternoon investigating engines and propellers and lots of knobs and switches (especially Xavier!).

 They have a really good play area for children with a mock cockpit to sit in, a control tower and security checkpoint, but best of all was watching the commercial planes take off and land from this vantage point in the lounge.  

The next Saturday saw us take the kids back to the Winnipeg Children's Museum.  I say "back" because we were here 3 years ago in 2012 during our "retirement" year.   Yep.  Still best friends, just with longer legs and more teeth. 
(Don't worry Dr. Denbak, Jackson still wears his glasses somewhat regularly!  We promise.)

 The engineers (past and future) hard at work! 

 Okay, so the next few photos show our daily transportation around Winnipeg using the CFOT fleet of vans. You certainly get to know people when you carpool everyday! 

 We even have a Manitoba plate on our Volvo now.  There is a certain irony when people cut you off with the "Friendly Manitoba" slogan on their license plate.  Hmmm. 

Part of the joy of community living here at the condo is the indoor covered parking spaces!  As you can see, there are a fair amount of bicycles, scooters, carseats etc to store as well.  This is only half of them, with a second bike rack in another parking stall. 

 

I had the privilege of attending a K-Gr. 3 chapel service at the boys school Linden Christian as Xavier's class was leading.  They use the on-site church's auditorium and music videos for worship.  I think the hardest part for Xavier was his part in the play when he had to "freeze" in position while holding the basketball for several minutes! 

 Here's a lovely picture of Xavier's class (he's in the red shirt, smiling at the camera). 

That wraps up another blog post, now I've got some textbook reading to do ... more about our studies next time!