This Just In

FEBRUARY FIFTH IS PANCAKE DAY We Love Pancakes You may not have been aware of this, but be informed. We most definitely will be celebrating (Brent LOVES pancakes). I like pancakes too (though not as much as Brent) and much much much prefer the kind that are featured in the Pancake Day video, known as crepes to some, but also favoured by the Dutch, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Icelandics (anyone else want to chime in on other ethnic groups liking "skinny pancakes"?). If you would like to join in the wonderful experience some might call pancake day, next Tuesday, we could have a united pancake moment! And if you would like to send us pictures, I would love to do a follow-up blog of the world-wide pancaking, with pictures and recipes included. If you need a recipe, I've got several. England readers? Vancouverites? Trev and Rach? Edmontonians are you going to allow we Calgarians to outpancake you??? What about you loyal-reader Central Albertans? I hereby call to order the first pancake challenge of amblingramblings. EDITED TO ADD: 1) If you're a facebooker, check out how many facebook groups there are dedicated to pancakes. Amazing. 2) I forgot about extending the pancake challenge to several major sly amblingrambling readers. Chefs De Andrade, if there's anyone who can outpancake us, it's you. We expect great things. :) Hamilton, Moncton and Toronto, what say you?

Me Mee Me Meeme

Now For Something Completely Different

In my opinion this does seem like a very odd pair, Barry White and Luciano Pavarotti!

A Birthday Breakfast

Last Sunday morning we went out on the town with Eric and Becky to celebrate Eric's recent 26th Birthday. We went to a small diner down on 17th ave, Nellies. Served a good variety of diner food, and was quite good in our opinion. Afterwards we walked up and 17th ave trying to work off our breakfast and stopped into some stores since we've never been down there.



Started off with Megatunes, a music shop with a very good selection of not so popular music, right in line with our CKUA interests!


From there we moved farther down the street to a neat little store that sold antiques, all of which were salvaged from overseas in China, Tibet, Nepal, or India. Very neat pieces for a house or office someday perhaps. After a couple more stores, we grabbed a coffee and took Kiera to the dog park to wear off some of her pent up energy.


After walking the dog we headed home to grab a movie and walked by a brand new playground so had to play on that for a bit.


The evening ended off with watching The Godfather. It has been our list of movies to watch for months and we finally got around to seeing it. So finally after months of trying we were able to have our breakfast and shopping, thanks Eric and Becky!

Earth Hour 2008

I'm in. Are you? Why not?

Josh Ritter: Indie Folk Rock Poet

If you haven't already heard of Josh Ritter, perhaps you should hear of him. He's coming to Calgary in February.

Happy Birthday to Eukadine

Today is Eukadine's birthday. Happy Birthday Eric!

To Ontario and back

The six days spent in Ontario were possibly the most carefree fun I've had in a long time. It was such a JOY to build relationships with our cousins there. Here are some pictures.

The airport in Calgary. Who knew it would be so busy at six in the morning?

Supper after arrived. How many cousins can fit on a bench? There were fourteen Siebengas and Bouwsemas in the house, ten cousins and four parents, a lot of work to feed and do dishes for!

Every home should have the farming game. We brought them the game and it was well-broken in by the time we left.

Ontario barns are so neat! This is Uncle Stan's. He's in the process of building a milking parlour off the right side.

We built a fort!

Beautiful tall Maple trees.

Nothing beats the heat of a woodstove. We all appreciated its warmth. If only we could install one here.
Brent and Lydia and Josiah at Tim Hortons. The girls have grown up so much since our wedding two and a half years ago (Maria and Lydia were our flower maids).

Skating on the home-made ice rink.

The fence around the farm.

New Year's Party!

So many brick buildings in Ontario.

Sleepy back-seat riders on the way to Uncle Cecil's.

More brick.

And more!

Uncle Cecil's barn.

And the man himself, with month-old knees, no less.

There's so much more that took place that we didn't get pictures of, including the infamous truck sledding adventures with Uncle Stan, the family reunion in Toronto, and the family meal with Uncle Cecil and Aunt Sylvia and Reuben and Liisa.

At any rate, it was a wonderful trip. Still, when the pilot of our homeward bound flight said "Welcome to Calgary and for all of you who like us call Calgary home, welcome home", I almost burst into tears. Welcome home indeed! We like Calgary.

Christmas and New Year's '07

First we went west, then we came home, then we went west!

We have had a very busy past two weeks. Busy but fun and full of gaining and building relationships with family.

On the 23rd, we packed up to go to Lacombe and dropped off a Christmas card at Coffee & S'Cream. They gave us our lattes for free along with two ginger cookies. We are so thankful for our coffee friends!

Brent made an apple-coffee cake which we took with us over to Grandpa and Grandma B for the Bfamily get-together. We both really enjoyed visiting with all the family there--it was the first time I had really talked to any of the cousins!

That evening we drove up to Lacombe, accompanied the whole way by Handel's Messiah playing on CKUA. We, of course, sang along as best we could.

Christmas Eve we had the big turkey dinner with Brent's family and a couple of guests and then went to CrossRoads Church in Red Deer. Back for present opening and the traditional late-night Christmas eve movie-watching with brother Kevin. This year's feature was Brothers Grimm. Me and scary movies are not on very good terms and I was on the edge of the couch most of the movie, digging finger holes in Brent's arm. Kevin, on the other hand, fell asleep. ;)

Christmas morning we opened stocking with the B family and then headed to S's. Present opening was limited as our BIG present was our flights to Ontario (more on this later). However, fun was had by all.

Boxing Day morning Mum, Theo, Brent and I went for a long walk through the fields and then we came back and I made aebleskiver, which are kind of like pan-cooked donuts invented by the Danes. Yum!

Images of BC trip: Calgary to Fairmont to Kelowna and home again

Castle Mountain, west of Banff.
We've scrambled it (in the summer, that is).
Anticipating Fairmont and seeing Brent's parents

The "Bavarian" village of Kimberley,
where we went Christmas shopping and just looking around

Lunch in Kimberley.


Being blissfully lazy in the suite. I am curled up on the floor by the fireplace,
something I had been looking forward to doing since we first decided to go to Fairmont

Mom and Dad took us to see the old Fairmont hot springs bathhouse.
One tub per room, water runs in one side of the building and out the other.
Hot water coming out of the ground.
Note the green plant. The water is HOT!


Looking at houses, getting ideas for PJB Design.
Rich Albertans retiring to Fairmont build lovely houses.
Waiting for avalanche control work on the Trans-Canada between Golden and Revelstoke.
We only survived the 3/4 hour wait by eating Dad Bouwsema's yummy flatbread. ;)
Beautiful and snowy in Revelstoke National Park.

At last, Revelstoke, where we met my parents.
And then, homeward again two days later, after several lovely swims in the hotel pool,
a funeral, good visits with cousins and aunt and uncles and two Starbucks trips. ;)

Out the hotel window the morning we were to leave:
almost six inches of new snow and still falling.
Breakfast with Jorgen and Theo in the hotel before we leave.


Tense driving with thickly falling snow all the way from Kelowna to Golden.

In case you were wondering, we made it home safely. :)

Farvel Bedstemor

My Bedstemor, pictured here with our family, died on Monday. She was three months away from her 97th birthday. She was born in Denmark and moved to Canada in the fifties with her husband, with four small children and a baby on the way. She was a faithful Christian and humourous, kind and interesting lady. She will be greatly missed but she is in heaven now, free from her broken and bent human body.

Vi elsker dig, Bedstemor!

River-- Sarah McLaughlan

A lovely musical interlude: We knew the month between semesters was going to be busy but it has become now busier yet. We got a call from my mum on Monday letting us know that my Bedstemor, her mother, died Monday morning in Westbank, British Columbia. So, rather than driving back to Calgary on Friday from our visit to Brent's parents in Fairmont, we're driving to Kelowna Thursday afternoon for the funeral Friday morning. It will be good to say goodbye to her and to connect with the Sveistrup family and our Danish roots.

Two Bit Suit

Last year at about this time we found ourselves in the little town of Nanton to visit with friends of ours and to see John Wort Hannam for the first time ever. After this small coffee house concert we gained a great appreciation for his music. So when the opportunity to see John again in such an intimate venue we couldn't pass it up. Thanks to Tyler and Rachel for inviting us to go! He certainly did not disappoint putting on a great show, very personal.

John debuted a new song never sung for an audience before. He had to sit down because he did not think he could sing it standing.

Handel's Messiah, audience participation style

Our friends Rachel and Trevor saw what looks to have been a truly amazing version of Handel's Messiah in Korean, see their blog about it here.

We too, went to a performance, with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic Choir.

Rach and Trev's version had a choir of no less than 500....
our choir was comprised of, among many others, us! It was the singalong version, where the audience pays twenty dollars each for the opportunity to be a part of the chorus. It is an AMAZING experience. I highly recommend it to anyone interested (and who can read music).

Brent's mum and I sang in the Alto section and Brent's Dad and Brent sang Bass.

And last but not least, our conductor was no less than Handel himself. ;)
And, finally, Stephen Avenue, downtown Calgary, when we left.