Global Warming: Is It Your Fault?

For those of you out there who buck the global warming religion and still secretly harbour heretical doubts as to whether it really is happening, or if it is, you wonder whether the blame for every climate catastrophe rests squarely on the shoulders of humanity, here is the final say out of the mouth of one of my students.

“…the sun’s rays that come into the earth can’t go back to the space and thats why the earth is getting warmer and global warming is happening. Because of this the Antarica and Greenland ice is melting and turning into water. A funny thing is that when we fart, we also pollute the environment but thats not our fault and we can’t help it.” -grade seven girl-

So there you go, indulge in that bean burrito because the resulting effect you have on global warming won’t be your fault. I don’t know about you, but I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Although I’m not sure this guy’s off the hook…

Leah Video Update

Here’s a pretty bare bones update of Leah at just under 3 months. Now a 3 month old doesn’t do anything much more exciting than coo and wave the occasional arm, so this video falls strictly into the “for grandmas only” category.

In other news…

• Elisha returns to teaching in a week. After having spent the last 4 months as a stay at home mom, I think she’d admit that she’s a convert to that way of life!

Baby Shower

Our weekends often go by without anything remarkable to mention. This weekend, however, we were guests at a baby shower thrown in Leah’s honour. It was a nice time and something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a single picture. Whoops, so much for keeping it even.

Leah and Jakob get along famously.

Jakob can get pretty intense when he plays cars and planes!

Mommy made Jakob a house. He likes playing in it.

Trying to Keep it Even

Do you ever notice how people take a billion photos of their firstborn child and then any subsequent children are lucky if they have a dozen pictures to their name?  Well, I can totally see how that happens, but, I’m going to try hard to not let the months slip by without getting some photo or video memory of Leah. So here’s an update. She’s 12 weeks old.

Leah's a happy kid who is quick with a smile.

Student Emergency!?!

Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something happens that shakes my conviction. Today we had an emergency assembly in the auditorium to announce to the students that they were being sent home as a precautionary measure. The reason for their evacuation? Heavy rain was in the forecast and our school was instructed by the authorities that we had to send our students home and cancel classes for the afternoon. Unbelievable. And to top it all off, the rain never materialized! Oh well, who’s complaining?

There’s not a whole lot else to say, but here goes…

• Leah’s doing fine. She’s not giving Elisha much chance to rest, but otherwise she’s growing and healthy.
  

  Actually, this photo suggests that Leah sleeps a lot. Well, she doesn't. It's not uncommon for her to sleep less than 3 hours during the daytime and only about 12 in a full 24hrs. Not the greatest, eh?

• Elisha and I are trying to soak in as much warmth and sunshine as we can, since we are heading into the last 6 months of our time in Yanbu. I will definitely miss a lot of things about our life here. Namely, the weather is awesome, my students are great, my prep time and course load is super, our housing is tops, the cost of living is cheap, I have a sweet housecleaner, and the pace of life allows for a lot of family time. However, despite all those perks, it’s time to move on. I’ll be seeking a new job for the 2010/11 school year in a place that will allow for Elisha to stay home and limit herself to just one fulltime job. It’s our HUGE hope that I can have a job lined up before the end of June. God only knows where that job will be! As wide open as that is, we’re pretty certain we can narrow down our next address to somewhere in the Southern portions of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Alberta.  Ha ha. Oh, and I suppose I wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to work in Colorado if the opportunity arose. Anyway, here’s hoping(and praying) that I can land a sweet teaching job for next school year, preferably in a place that has great mountain and road biking…
• …kidding…
• kind of.  Anyone got an offer???

Landing a job can often feel like an endless assortment of hoops you have to jump through. Hopefully it doesn't get this bad...!

Hecla’s Gull Harbour and Other Things

I’ve probably been to the resort at Hecla Island close to 25 times over the course of my life and during that time the management has changed hands numerous times. It’s most recent owner is Radisson Resorts and they’ve put a lot of money into transforming it into a 5 star spa resort. I happened to get a reservation there for a great rate (1/2 price @ 99$) and so Elisha, Jakob, Leah and I went there for a night just to get some space and enjoy some time just as a family. It was very nice and I’d recommend it if you’re in the region and can get a good rate . I’m guessing they could use all the business they can get. Unfortunately for them, the hotel was almost totally empty – we counted 4 other groups and a total of 20 other guests. On the down side for us it meant that they were using a severe skeleton staff, on the upside, Jakob and I could use the adults only spa pools because no one was in there. Nice!  The spa hot pools were very peaceful and relaxing.

On our way back we went through the town site of Hecla and there happened to be a beautiful hoar frost coating everything that turned out some nice winter scenery.

This house is part of the Icelandic Village of Hecla located in Manitoba. The hoar frost this morning against the dark clouds made for a nice contrast in this shot.

An old wooden boat left to die on Lake Winnipeg's shore in the Hecla Village. Apparently the Ed Schreyer's NDP government forced the whole village to leave as they expropriated the land for the creation of the Hecla Provincial Park.

Oh the wonders of Youtube! I found some old Mr. Dressup videos and introduced Jakob to some classic CBC programs. He also really liked "The Friendly Giant" reruns I found. Too bad there are only a small handful of them on Youtube.

Yanbu News:

Apparently Yanbu got soaked with a heavy rainfall the other day. My friend sent these pictures to show us. Good thing there were no casualties like there were in Jeddah last month.

This is the main street after the rains left. Our villa is on the right side by the far tree.

Rain Falling

Rain Collecting...