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December 24th, 2010

Winter 2010

Where has the year gone – it seems to have flown by! We had a great time on our family holiday on the Big Island of Hawaii and would definitely return there again. We were able to enjoy a Luau, beaches, swimming with turtles, tropical fish and snorkeling with dolphins – a real highlight.
We actually ended up having a bonus trip as well. Daniel was playing in a basketball tournament in Las Vegas for the Victoria Prep basketball team so we decided to travel down and see it and experience Las Vegas. We managed to book the flights, car hire and hotel using our air miles and had a good time taking in the sights of the Strip and going to see Lion King and the Blue Man group – very entertaining. Plus we left Vegas with $75 in winnings from the casinos so a little bonus as well.
September saw Daniel moving across to Vancouver to attend Langara College for both education and basketball. We have managed to go across and see some games and they are doing well. They are a young team so if the coach can keep them together for a couple of seasons they could have a good run. Daniel is enjoying playing and has made some good friends. They are travelling to Oregon in the New Year to play some games and he is looking forward to that.
Anja decided to change dance schools this year and is enjoying that. She is doing four different dance styles and has also attended a couple of dance conventions in Vancouver. She always enjoys them as she gets the opportunity to meet and be taught by dancers from the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. Anja also is helping doing choreography with a local drama society and will be in their shows in February.
Mette is still busy with Real Estate and is enjoying it. Se has been doing this for five and a half years now and has met lots of people who we are still friends with.
Darren has been busy landscaping and also growing our www.emigreat.com website. We have now started venturing into New Zealand and Australia as well as Canada and the expansion will continue! We have started doing a newsletter so please remember to sign up for it on our website.
Well Christmas time is now upon us so we would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.
Cheers!

July 13th, 2010

Spring 2010 (Part Two)

The weather is still warm but there has been more rain than usual this year so a bit behind on the gardening. Busy times for everyone at the moment; I am busy trying to keep up with the landscaping, Mette is busy selling houses, Anja is busy completing school work before the Summer holidays come along and Daniel is focusing on graduating from school and getting ready to move onto college.
Talking of college, Daniel has been recruited by Langara College in Vancouver to play basketball for them so he has committed to them and has chosen his education courses is now looking at finding accommodation. An exciting time and we are very proud of him.
Daniel has also joined the Victoria Prep basketball team for the Summer and will be playing in tournaments in Vancouver, Bellevue and Las Vegas this year. Definitely more opportunities to travel with clubs and teams here.
Anja has been in her dance show at the Cowichan Theatre and now has time off through the Summer until she starts all over again in September. She will also be trying out for another musical as well so we wish her lots of luck with that.
We are still busy fencing our field and getting ready to plant crops. We just found out that there are two varieties of Olive trees grown on the nearby Gulf Islands so we may take a visit to them and find out more information. We are still thinking off blackberries and table grapes for our staked half off the field but may be open to Olive trees on the other half if they prove viable.
We have booked our Summer holiday and have chosen to go to the Big Island of Hawaii. It is somewhere we have always wanted to go and we are looking forward to it very much.
Until next time, Aloha!

April 9th, 2010

Spring

The weather is still wet but warm with the odd bit of snow but hardly enough to even lay. With all this rain and warm weather the plants and grass are really shooting up and the mowing season is starting early this year.
It is an exciting time to be in BC with the Olympics being held across the water in Vancouver. We managed to watch as much of it as possible and are truly in the Olympic spirit. We believe!
We were not able to get across for any of the events but Daniel and some of his friends went over for the final night and joined in with the thousands at the street parties and he said the atmosphere there was electric.
Daniel had a good basketball year and they qualified for the British Columbia Provincial Championships in Vancouver. Daniel had an exceptional first game scoring 31 points and winning the Player Of The Game award. They were in provincial and local newspapers and because this game was recorded they were even shown on different television stations across BC. Unfortunately they were drawn against the BC number one team and eventual tournament winners in the next round and lost but they had a great experience and I think they enjoyed their moments of fame!
Anja performed in her musical with seven shows at the Cowichan Theatre and two shows in Nanaimo. She really enjoyed doing this musical and has already put her name down for the next one. She was also in a dance show in Nanaimo and the focus is now on her end of year show in Duncan.
We had a special reason to enjoy the start of this year – we became Canadian citizens! We had to sit a citizenship test, not the kids as they are under 18, and we were told we passed about ten days later and attended a citizenship ceremony about ten days after that. At the ceremony there were sixty of us representing twenty nine different nationalities. We had to swear allegiance in both English and French in front of a citizenship judge and we received our official documents from the judge, a Mountie and a war veteran. We now have citizenship cards and certificates and we quickly applied and got our shiny new Canadian passports! Daniel and Anja both took friends with them and we went for a nice meal afterwards to celebrate.
This was the final tick box in a journey that started in 2001 when we first decided to emigrate to Canada. A journey that has been well worth it and one that we very much look forward to continuing on with. Canadian eh

January 9th, 2010

Winter

This Winter has definitely been different to last. We had snow for a couple of days, then mainly wet but surprisingly warm. We haven’t really had any frosts to talk about either. I suppose we had our fair share of Winter last year. The funny thing is that our friends and relatives in Europe tell us about the snow and cold they are having, yet we are supposed to live in the frozen North. It’s a funny old world eh!
Daniel’s high school basketball season has started again and they won the Cowichan Welcome Back tournament, winning every game by at least 20 points. They have also been to play in the MaxPreps Holiday Classic in San Diego and finished third in their division so a wonderful achievement. They spent New Years Eve in Disneyland and thoroughly enjoyed that experience.
We worked it out that this year Daniel has been to play basketball in the US five times this year: Seattle twice, Las Vegas, San Diego and a training camp at Gonzaga University, Washington as well as the games and tournaments in Vancouver and across Vancouver Island. And that is just this year! We can thoroughly recommend that if you have a child who is into sports, to get them into a school or club team because travel opportunities are huge here.
Anja is still busy dancing three times a week and was successful in getting a role in The Music Man musical, so this now means practising for this two to three times a week. She enjoys anything to do with the stage and has made some good friends through the musical society. We are pleased that they both have the opportunity to pursue activities that they both enjoy.
We had a great Christmas, although we had to be up early on Boxing Day to drop Daniel off with the team at 4am. We had our New Years Eve party as per usual and enjoyed yet more lashings of fine food!
A New Year is here and also a new decade. Long may the good times continue.

September 2nd, 2009

Summer

The Summer is here and the sun is shining, what glorious weather we are having. Vancouver Island Summers are normally nice and this one is no exception.
Its been a busy year in the gardening world, good weather means being busy. We have also started deer fencing some of our field ready to start growing crops in there next year. Mette is also keeping busy as houses continue to sell.
Darren’s mum has been over for a break and split her time between here and Darren’s sister in Vancouver. Both his mum and dad will be coming over again in September, as will Mette’ mum and they will actually overlap by one day so will also have the opportunity to see each other.
The jam has been selling like crazy and we have had a record year this year. There have been bumper crops of plums and blackberries and this has enabled us to make plenty of jam. We also sell garlic and sell both the scapes and the cloves.
Daniel has been playing basketball for Victoria Prep and they won a Vancouver Island tournament and have also played in tournaments in Vancouver, Seattle and Las Vegas. The Las Vegas tournament is big and they managed to finish in the final 8 of their division which is a great result. Daniel was also spotted playing there by a US college coach and he has received a lot of letters regarding his college for education and basketball, so we will see what happens. Daniel has passed his driving test and has got himself a car, so there is no stopping him now. It also helps us if we need any shopping or if Anja needs picking up from somewhere as we have a keen volunteer.
Anja performed at her dance show in the Cowichan Theatre and is now trying out for a musical that will have shows in Duncan and Nanaimo. If she gets in there is a lot of rehearsals and this will be the first musical Anja has been in.
We went to Seattle to watch soccer and watched Seattle v Barcelona and the legendary Lionel Messi. What a great player he is! We did a stadium tour of the Quest Field and ate in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. We enjoyed our time there but couldn’t watch a baseball game as it was sold out. We went on to Mount St Helens, a very interesting trip. We continued on to Portland for some tax free shopping and then went to Bonneville Hot Springs for a nice, relaxing break. See, I told you we like hot springs! A great family road trip.
School will soon be back in, both sets of parents will soon be here, and the good weather continues. We love it!