December 1, 2013
Greetings to All,
… and may you all have a healthy, happy, and safe Christmas and New Year. Here in Barriere, we are all doing well and slowly getting used to Dad not being here with us.
The first part of the year, Wim and I were busy keeping up with the bills and with Sylvia’s help, getting the estate all sorted out and into our names. This has all been completed, so we are all set for the time being. The bills… well, that’s a work in progress. (Isn’t it always!)
In July, Antoon asked if he could stay with us for a while, so he has moved in, here in Barriere. Initially, he came with three dogs, Kidu, Charlotte, and Maggie – all lovely (big) dogs. Two of the dogs, Maggie and Charlotte, actually belong to his previous roommate, and eventually Maggie was sent back to that roommate who had in the meantime moved to California. Kidu and Charlotte are still with us. Antoon, and sometimes Wim, take them several times a day for rambling walks all around Barriere. During the summer they got to play in the river; they’ve chased deer a few times; and now they are getting used to snow. This is Charlotte:
Antoon has been a great help so far, doing some odd jobs around the house (with Wim’s help, of course), such as the fencing in of the back yard, so that the dogs have a nice, safe area to play in – and so that they don’t go around chasing our neighbour’s chickens! You should hear Charlotte when she gets excited (like when she sees a horse) – you’d think someone was killing her! She is slowing getting used to horses and other ‘strange’ things.
Cleo, my cat, was initially quite put-out about having dogs in the house. She is now 17 years old, and not very fast anymore. She is also quite scared of dogs. Luckily, we are able to keep the dogs out of most of the house, so she’s getting used to things again. This last month (November) she’s started coming back upstairs again on a regular basis, and, while her ears twitch a bit when she hears them bark, she no longer runs back downstairs at the sound. She’s also getting used to seeing Antoon and only runs from him if he moves particularly fast. Last week, for the first time, she actually sat on Wim’s lap! Yay!!!
We’ve got another great-niece on the way. My niece Donna, who lives in Australia, is pregnant and is expecting a girl! Yay!!! The baby is due in mid December. All the rest of our nieces and nephews and their children are doing well. I hope all our cousins and their extended families are doing well also!
Sylvia has moved to her own little basement suite – still in Merritt, though. If any of you want to write to her, her new mailing address is Box 1925, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8.
Robert and Loretta still live in Vancouver and are writing their own Christmas letter to everyone on their letter writing list.
Merina has been doing well in her studies which are still ongoing. She’s had a variety of marks: C, C+, B-, B and A (not necessarily in that order). She doesn’t have full time work, so she is struggling a bit with raising enough funds each semester for her tuition fees. Otherwise she is doing well. For those of you wishing to send her a Christmas card or letter… she has moved again. Her new address is 7116 Fleming St., Vancouver, BC, V5P 3H9, Canada.
The garden is doing nicely, with the grapes in the front yard growing every year. This coming spring I will need to make a bit of a trellis for them to climb. After last fall’s pruning, all the trees did pretty well, except for the apple trees. There was only one apple this year. Next year should be much better. The cherry and plum trees had lots of fruit busy forming, then we had a sharp frost which killed pretty much all of the cherries, but only a few of the plums. Hopefully this spring there won’t be a late frost. The pear tree was covered, and I had to pinch off most of the fruit as it would have killed the poor tree (it’s still quite small). I ended up with about 17 or 18 pears. Yum! My work on the Family Tree is going well. If you want to see what I’ve got, go to geneanet.org and search for the surname ‘Houben’ from the town of ‘Sevenum’… then look down the resulting list for entries by ‘nebuoh’ – that is my ‘name’ on that sight (it is Houben backwards). All but the most recent additions are there. I will eventually update it with the latest additions. For those of you on Mom’s side of the family, if you have a chance to look at it, please let me know if you have any names or corrections to the information for me. I would greatly appreciate it!
In September, for the World Wide Paint Out, which the local Art Council participated in, I did some painting for the first time in about 7 years… here’s one of the resulting paintings:
How are all of you – friends and relatives – doing? Are you all well? Happy? Any new additions to your families? Pets?
I wish all of you all the very best for the Holidays and God’s Blessings for 2014!
Merry Christmas to all and a very happy and healthy New Year!
Fröhliche Weihnachten und Ein Glückliches Neues Jahr!
Prettige Kerstdagen en een gelukkig Nieuwe Jaar!
Love,
Margaret, Wim, and Antoon!
