The 3rd Brother

Robert Houben, the last of the brothers, is the 2nd youngest of the family.

Born on April 4th, 1959, while mom & dad lived at 3# Rd/Steveston, Richmond, BC.

He and I used to fight like cat and dog, but now he is a great brother and we get along quite well.

Here he is with one of his favourite tools.....






Mom & dad used to take whichever of us kids happened to be home for lovely drives around BC. We'd pack a picnic lunch and pick a direction and just drive - often ending up on logging roads back in the hills.

It was a lot of fun and we got to see some lovely scenery.

Driving could be a little nervewracking, though, especially for mom.... Dad would be saying "look at that" and mom would be saying "look at the road!". It would be straight down on one side of the car and straight up on the other!

In this photo are mom, Wim, Robert, and me.



Robert eventually met and married Loretta - a great sister-in-law! (I will talk more about her and their son Matthew in another posting.)

This is what Robert was looking like when he met Loretta.




And this is a recent photo of him with his son, Matthew.

Another Brother

The next eldest is Wim Houben, born on July 25th 1953 while mom & dad were living on 7th and Arbutus in Vancouver. Shortly thereafter they moved to Kitimat.

In Kitimat the winters were extremely cold & that is when he got the habbit of playing with his ears - initially it was because they hurt from the cold.

He had epilepsy when he was young, but luckily outgrew it. His only other issue is hayfever (which means I have to be the one to mow the lawn - sigh).








Here is a photo of Wim and the youngest of the brothers - Robert. This was taken at my sister Sylvia's wedding. It should have been a happy time, but was rather marred by the fact that dad had gotten into a bad accident just a few days before, when he was coming back from Vancouver picking up the bride's maid.

The bride's maid was very luck, especially seeing that she hadn't been wearing a seat belt. She had just turned sideways to talk to dad when the accident occurred & she slid under the dashboard instead of going through the window.

It was a very bad accident, with the driver of the other car dying. Luckily, an off duty policeman had been travelling behind dad & saw the whole thing (the other vehicle had cut in front of dad) and was able to testify that dad was not at fault.





Wim has never moved out. He's always lived with mom & dad, which has been a blessing - what with first mom's health issues (dad would not have been able to cope by himself) and now with dad and his amputation.

Here's a recent photo taken at Jared's wedding, with dad and Sylvia's daughter Donna.

Brothers....

Mom & Dad had 6 kids in all - 3 boys, 3 girls. As the eldest is a boy, I will start with the boys.




Antoon Mathjis Houben is the eldest; while we called him Tony when we were little, he now likes to be called Antoon. He is the only one of us kids not born in Canada.
He was born in Heerlen, Limberg, the Netherlands, on March 26th 1952, weighing 7lbs 8oz, (3.4kg), 51cm.

Here is a photo of mom & dad & Antoon just after they had emmigrated to Canada.










Taking after his dad, he was active in scouting, and attended several Jamborees and has many a tale to tell if one thinks to ask.

Knowing how to cook and his enjoyment in cooking probably stems back to his days as a scout... when on camping trips the boys (from about scout age and up) were expected to cook for themselves.







Here is a pic of Antoon and the next eldest, Wim, playing with their chemistry set. In the photo you can just see the red ceiling - it is red for a reason!
(Too many explosions!)

He is very bright - he skipped 2 years in high school and attended the University of BC from 1968 to 1971... he was 16 when he started at the University!

And just imagine, when he was in university, computers filled rooms and used punch cards!!!!








We were all very proud of him!

It wasn't easy for him either when he was in university, because in Nov of 1971 we moved from Burnaby to Mission. This meant he had to stay behind - move out on his own.

Mom felt bad having to do this, but they were being evicted by the owner of the house they were renting, and the only places they could afford to buy were out in the valley.








Things worked out well in the long run - he is a very successful computer programmer; he has travelled around the world (Russia, Australia, Germany... to name a few places); and he is a great brother!

Here he is in a recent photo with my sister Sylvia and her grandson Jack.

Spring is busting out all over... in this blog at least.

It may not be Spring outside...
but I'm determined to make it Spring in my blog!






Here are some of the best flowery pictures I took in 2008.

Enjoy!

... can't you feel the lovely warmth?

Spring has Sprung

... the grass is still buried under snow,

but the robins have come out in force!

There were around 20 in and around our crab apple tree on Tuesday morning eating the tiny frozen fruits.

more stories

Mom & Dad immigrated to Canada in July of 1952, when Antoon was just a few months old. They came over by ship and then by train across Canada to Vancouver. When they were going to board the train they had Antoon in a basket with a top (that closed over him) . A young black man was the porter and was stowing their luggage on the baggage car and wanted to take the basket too!
Poor mom & dad could barely speak English! Mom had to open the basket to show what was in it before he understood why they didn't want the basket in the baggage car. And the poor porter was so apologetic (and embarrassed, I'm sure).
Wouldn't that have been a hoot to have seen his face when he saw the baby in the basket, though!

*******

When they moved into their first house in Vancouver, they had to wait a week or two for all their furniture and things to arrive from the Netherlands. So for the first little while mom had to hang up bedsheets for curtains.
None of the nearby neighbours would have anything to do with them, thinking they were hippies.
Then finally the big crates with all their belongs arrive & mom put up the lovely lace curtains she had... then she started getting visits from the neighbours.
How sad that the neighbours were so stuck up! And I hope, if new neighbours ever move in around me, that I will go to say hi right away without passing judgement before I've even met the people!