Sundays In My City - How my boys celebrate the new year...

With a trip to the park with their Papa of course!

Wordless Wednesday - Visiting the Great Grandparents

And now that I've shown you mine, show me yours:

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads!

Wordless Wednesday - Easter at the Beach

A Very Special Happy Birthday Wish!

He doesn't read my blog, but my grandmother does, plus I want you all to know that it's my Grandpa's (aka Pompa )'s birthday today!

Happy Birthday!!!

Wordless Wednesday - another way back day

me and my Opa

For those who remember, I shared some of his story a few weeks ago - you can read it here

If you're doing a WW post, feel free to link up here!

B2B with SITS Day 2 - A post that I wish more people had read...

I am participating in the SITS Girls Back to Blogging week, and as part of day two I am re-posting something that I wish more people had read...

The SITS Girls do an amazing job on their site of building community and unity between women and this week is no exception.  On top of everything else The SITS Girls have invited two very special SITStas on this week's Back To Blogging - Read about Thelma & Louise here and  check out the following links Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances, so that you too can win Thelma and Louise!  Check out their blog frog community  for more cool stuff!

I love to tell my Sunday Family Stories - I think they are my favorite part of my blog because I share my reminisces about my childhood and my family history.  I started publishing these fairly early on in my blog life and when I had to think of a post that I wanted more readers to see, I immediately clicked around my Sunday list... and realized that I often talk about my Nana (grandmother) and reference the many posts I've written about her, but I rarely go back to this one about a special man in my life, my Pompa or Grandfather...

So here is a post that I originally wrote on January 23rd of this year, 

entitled 10 Things I Learned from my Pompa

As the first grandchild born into my family, which now has sprouted to 13 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren for my grandparents I claim to be the one who has known my grandfather the longest... and the girl who christened him 'Pompa'

I'm guessing that when I was too little to remember, that I couldn't decide whether to call him grandpa or papa, so I combined them... but one never knows what is in the mind of a precocious toddler... it morphed somewhere to plain old grandpa but he's always been my Pompa...

So what did I learn from him?

Lots... but I will pick ten of my favourites to share with you today...

1. If you want something bad enough, you will work for it...  my grandfather started working at 8 years of age, quit school before he finished 8th grade and worked full time for the rest of his life until he semi-retired at age 75 and finally retired just a few years ago... As my grandmother wrote in her memoirs, "He never owned a bicycle and by the time he could afford one, he wanted a car.  Education was important to him and he made sure that the children got the best possible one so that they could enjoy a better life than he had."
2. Which brings me to my second point- get an education and stay in school... he matched dollar for dollar every scholarship we earned from other sources, allowing me to go to university without debts, and to earn my bachelors degree. 
3. More personally, he taught me to take time to spend with family - if you've read previous posts, you will have read about 'Iwannastay', the cottage that he and my grandmother purchased so that their kids would have a place away from the city...  Despite the fact that he regularly worked 60-80 hour weeks sometimes, he made the time to get away and be with family at the cottage - taking us for boat rides, teaching us to water-ski and fish, or just hanging out on the deck.
   
4. "Stay out of the way of hot spoons" ... if you sat next to Pompa at the cottage kitchen table for breakfast, you were likely to be treated to the 'hot spoon' treatment if you weren't paying enough attention to him... he would stir his coffee and then 'attack', with love...
   
5. You're never to old to have a birthday party!  My grandfather was 60 before he had a real 'birthday party' with all his friends and family.  I was especially proud to be the lone grandchild, at about 11 years old, to be invited to come to the adult party... and give a speech to him (one of my first writing/speaking engagements)
6. Naps are good - Siestas are fine in Pompa's book, especially during golf, baseball or other sporting events... but lead into the next two things I learned...
7. Never wake a sleeping Pompa - especially to ask about going for a boat ride to the "lodge"... it inevitably makes your time before embarking on the special trip much longer...
8. Never change the channel... it might wake the sleeping Pompa and he was 'watching through his eyelids'
9. Keep everything in good repair... even when he was 'off work' at home or at the cottage, if something needed fixing, he didn't procrastinate or make it worse...
10. Take the time to make fabulous memories - and cherish every one... this one is the hardest for me to write about and probably the most serious... as my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease several years ago, but as I write down my memories my grandmother is sharing them with him and its helping me to remember the special times, places and memories we share...

Now that I've shared my top ten lessons, I'd love for you to meet my Pompa in pictures: 

      On the deck at the cottage (Summer 07)

With me and my Grandma at my wedding, 1998 

The other question that gets asked today as part of the challenge is the ever present - why is this post important?

My grandfather is a dynamic man - despite dealing with Alzheimer's and physical issues, he's still one of the most incredible people I know and his illness is actually a stronger impetus to make sure that the stories and connections are passed on to future generations... as far as unsung heroes goes, I nominate my grandfather - a man who came from little, asked for nothing and built everything for his family.

I hope you enjoyed meeting my Pompa today.  I am also pleased that this post was reprinted in the newsletter of the retirement home where he and my grandmother now live, so that I have been able to share my vision of my grandfather with his peers and their families.  

I am also adding a linky here for any SITStas who are participating this week - the linky will appear in all my Back to Blogging posts and you can link up by linking each of your Back to Blogging posts ~ Blog title - topic (ie first post, please comment, favorite title etc) - I am also making it a blog hop linky so feel free to add it to your blog if you want!

Sunday Family Stories - My Opa

I really don't have memories of my Opa, he passed away when I was two years old... but I have memories of great stories and a wonderful family heirloom to share with my children that was made by his hand...

I also don't know all of his story, but the parts that I do know make me proud to have had a man like Franz Loeffler as my grandfather... From early on, the stories I was told of my father's father - Opa, was that he was a quiet man who spoke with his hands... he was a carpenter and I remember the garage at the bungalow where my father spent his teen years and my Oma lived when I was a child to be full of strange and wonderful tools of his trade... chisels, planes, saws - almost everything he did was by hand, in the Old World style...  and he worked on a special piece for his first grandchild, a rocking horse... but I digress... I want to tell you some of the history that I know about him before we talk about my gift...

Franz Loeffler was a young man, growing up in Germany in the twenties and early thirties... as an apprentice and then journeyman carpenter, he was a socialist and believed in unions, trade and commerce... and as Fascism took hold in his country, he made the difficult decision to follow his beliefs and leave a country that no longer supported him and his ideals... from what I gather of the stories, he fled through Czechoslovakia and made his way carefully to Canada.

Upon arrival in Canada, he began to build a life, interrupted by the growing ills in his homeland and surrounding countries in Europe - the escape route he had used fell to German forces that occupied Czechoslovakia and Franz felt the need to return to fight against the oppression and atrocity being wrought and joined the Canadian Armed Forces and returned to Germany as a translator... it must have been an impossible situation as he headed into familiar territory to fight against oppression and tyranny of his own people...

While there, he met my Oma, Ursula, who immigrated to Canada shortly after the war to marry my Opa - she had two weeks after landing on Canadian soil, knowing almost no English, to get herself organized, acclimated and married!

They built a life in Canada, having three sons, my dad being the oldest... who married my mom in 1973 after having known each other off and on all their lives... and growing up down the street from each other... I was born in 1975 and from all accounts was my Opa's darling - he shared some of my firsts... he gave me my first beer, and of course, my first 'pony'...

I know so little of the intervening years...my Oma shared some stories with me before she passed away on January 1, 1998, but what I do have is a legacy... and my children call her 'Dotty'

Dotty is a fabulous, one of a kind preschool size rocking horse... and one of my greatest treasures... my Opa lovingly created her for me and never got to see me ride her... She was a Christmas present that he nearly completed before passing away.

I was inspired to write this before I could contact my family to get pictures to include... I promise to scan and add new pictures of my Opa and Dotty as soon as I can and I will announce the opportunity to come back and see this post come to life... but I really wanted to share this story with you as my Sunday Family Story today!

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Don't forget to check out my giveaways - Etch-a-Sketch Keychain and $45 CSN Stores Gift Certificate

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As usual lately, I am linking this post up at:

Sunday Family Stories - My first airplane ride (reunion wrap-up)

If you've been following along for the past few weeks, you know that when I was six years old, my grandparents, mother and siblings all piled into my grandparents motor home for a trip across three provinces and over 3000 kilometres to visit my grandfather's birthplace of Lac Vert, Saskatchewan.  If you haven't - well, before reading this week's installment, you might want to get some background by reading part 1 and part 2

After having spent the better part of two weeks in close confines, not to mention the stress of traveling such a long distance, my siblings and I were starting to become unbearable brats... no amount of prodding, gentle persuasion or even threats were keeping us from acting like little terrors.

I remember specifically sitting with my grandmother at the kitchen table of the motor home while she tried to share a news clipping about the family reunion and how special it had been, not only for our family, but also for the town of Lac Vert.  On any normal day, getting that one on one attention from Nana and reading the paper would have been important and special to me...especially since my name was printed in the paper as having attended... but my temper was so short and I was so out of sorts and tired that I did the unthinkable - I screamed, threw a fit and cried and said hateful things that I'm sure I apologized for later in life, but in the heat of the reaction, I was just a brat...

Things came to a head after that outburst, and the adults in the family realized that maybe another week to ten days cooped up together wouldn't be a fabulous idea after all... so while I calmed down and had a good cry on my grandparents big bed in the back of the motor home, a plot was hatched.

We'd drive to Saskatoon, the nearest city, and my grandparents would part ways with the rest of our clan... heading off for some well deserved 'adult' time, while my mom, sister, brother and I would embark on a new adventure together - an airplane ride!

We stopped in at a store on our way to the airport and we each got to choose a small toy and a book for the trip - my sister and I chose little dolls that came with accessories and a carrying case that strapped to your wrist and if memory serves, my brother picked a truck... These toys were safely stowed in Mom's carry on until we reached altitude and promised to behave for the rest of the trip, knowing that our new treasures would disappear if we fought (too much)

My sister and I sat together in the front of the plane, while my mother and brother sat a row behind us... I remember that neither Catherine, nor I got a window seat, because we had taken whatever seats my mom could book, so some poor business man was our window seat companion.

I had the aisle seat and remember people watching and talking to the flight attendants as they walked back and forth up the narrow aisles - I was lucky that for part of the trip my sister napped... so I couldn't fight with her too much :)

I also remember craning to look out the windows at the fluffy clouds and blue sky as the pilot crossed over Manitoba and brought us back into Ontario.  I marveled that a trip that had taken us more than a week by land was over in about 3 short hours...

I'm sure we saved my grandparents sanity, and probably my mother's when the decision was made to head back quickly rather than staying with them and it capped off an adventure of a lifetime for this 6 year old and made memories that have lasted a lifetime!

What was your first experience or memory with airplanes?  Do you have memories of family reunions or family summer trips?  Please feel free to share them in the comments - or if you've written a post about it, leave a link for us to read about it!

Sunday Family Stories - Saskatchewan Memories... family reunion part 2

I started this story last Sunday with a memory of a place... Kakabeka Falls and I was right... my mother convinced my dad to find a way to send me pictures from our trip there... his scanner is broken, so he took pictures of the photos with his camera and uploaded them for me.. so the quality is a little rough, but you'll get the idea...

I'm the taller girl, my sister Cat is the shorter one and the blond is my brother and the adults are my Nana and Pompa (grandparents)

Today's story continues the theme... but moves to Lac Vert, Saskatchewan.

I didn't know my grandfather's family as well as I know my grandmother's for the simple fact that there were far more miles between us... We had many reunions with my grandmother's family, held at various homes throughout Southwestern Ontario... but our trip to Lac Vert, Saskatchewan just outside Saskatoon was my one and only opportunity to meet most of my grandfather's family.

I have fleeting memories of this time - I was only six years old, and while I was precocious, I really didn't understand the gravity and magnitude of the endeavour undertaken by the Morris family to actually congregate together...

From my grandmother's memoirs, I've come to appreciate just how much of an undertaking it was:

"Kenneth Cecil Morris, was born on April 13, 1927 to James Albert Morris and Agnes Edna Eastwood at Lac Vert, Saskatchewan.   Ken was the fourth son and youngest of nine children.

He started school at the age of seven and a half, and was taught by Mrs. Hussey at the Lac Vert Public School.

As a boy, he delivered milk and vegetables to town; in the winter by dog sled, and in nicer weather on his Shetland pony, Tony.

In 1937, at the age of ten, his mother was gored by a bull in the pasture across the road from their home.  Kathleen, his eldest sister, who was pregnant with her fifth child, watched in horror as the bull charged.  It was later learned that Ken’s mother was menstruating and that the blood attracted the bull.  She lived just a few days.  Kathleen’s husband, Carl Wullum, had died two months earlier of a ruptured appendix.  Kathleen had a baby boy that same year, a brother for her four girls.

Ken and his sister Doreen, who was two years his senior, were left to survive on the farm with their father.  A decision was made to send Doreen to Toronto to live with her paternal aunt, Frances Morrison.  She and her husband owned a hardware store on Bloor Street and were childless.  There were many tears as Ken and his father took Doreen to the train, hoping she would have a better life in Ontario.

The farm was sold in 1940 when his father enlisted in the World War II Veterans’ Guard after having served in World War I.  Ken was left behind to work on a neighbouring farm while his father criss-crossed the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the National Guard, ferrying German prisoners who were interned in Canada.

At twelve years old, and not very big, he worked as a man; driving four horses.  Many times, his pay was the runt of a litter of pigs.  There seemed little future for him in the west, so he made the decision to join Doreen in Toronto where he came to live with another paternal aunt, Sade Lyons."

By leaving the west at an early age, and being the youngest child, my grandfather didn't know his siblings as closely as he did his sister Doreen, who still lives near Toronto and whom we got together with more often...

My great grandfather had passed away early on in my grandparents marriage and a family that had scattered to the four winds based on circumstances had drifted even further apart... my grandfather himself had not seen some of his siblings in many years at the time of the reunion and had never met nieces, nephews and their children....

The reunion took place at the Lac Vert community centre and was filled to the rafters with 'relations' and pot luck food... as an ankle biter, I wandered around in a bit of a daze with my nametag on and people asking me the same questions over and over ... who did I belong to, where did I live, how old was I and did I know who they were?

My mom was busy talking to everyone - a social butterfly... my dad was dealing with my little sister, who had sprained her ankle just before the reunion... and I think my brother was taking a nap, when I latched onto the one person who didn't ask the same questions over and over .. and was my size...

my cousin, Trevor - we hung out and danced, played chase and generally ignored everyone else - unless it was time to head to the buffet tables or get a drink...  and the time went much faster

I wish, as an adult, that I had more recollection of other relatives and their stories, but at six, I was more interested in just having a good time... and at least those memories are all good :)


Read the exciting conclusion to this trilogy here

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I'm linking up with a few blog hops again today and want to thank anyone who has landed here from them - If you leave a comment on this or any other of my posts, I will happily return the visit... 

Stop back again tomorrow for a yummy MMMmonday recipe and there are great things planned for the rest of the week too!

If you want to know more about my grandfather, I recommend checking out this post


I'm also hanging out with MannLand5 and she's got a few questions...

1. What kind of athlete has the hottest body? 

I'm pretty partial to baseball players

2. Are you a planner or a procrastinator?

Can I say that I plan to procrastinate?...  I'm pretty good at planning things I want to do, and forgetting about the stuff I don't...

3. Diet or regular (soda)? diet, if at all...

4. What's your one "must have" for Fall?  Comfy shoes

5. What's your favorite fast food restaurant? Arby's

6. What do you think is the sexiest profession for a guy? Professor... I like my guys smart ;)

7. Did you wear braces? no

8. Would you rather have a guy that's super sexy or kind? kind, all the way

Sunday Family Stories - Kakabeka Falls

I was six years old and off on an adventure... my grandparents, my mom, my brother, sister and I all packed into my grandparents motor home in late July for a three thousand kilometer journey from our home in Toronto, to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and later, a small town just outside of Saskatoon called Lac Vert... my grandfather's hometown.  Why, you ask?  A family reunion... but that's another story, because today we are focusing on the journey, not the destination...


A year or two before that summer, my grandparents had bought a motor home and started traveling all over the place, taking trips to the Southeastern United States in the winter, and taking off all over Ontario in the summer.  I remember going away overnight with them one fall weekend and stopping by a farm in rural Ontario for freshly picked Mcintosh apples - yum...

but, again, I digress.. that trip was part of the scheme to get my sister Catherine, who was five, my brother Mark, who was four and myself acclimatized to the camper and feeling at home with a long drive... we loved it!  Quite simply, the fact that we could get up and get a snack out of the fridge or go to the bathroom without stopping was a novelty and we relished it...


So, as I said, in July of 1981, and yes I'm that old, we headed west.   My grandfather was at the wheel in the big captain's chair... and I remember the adults talking about hitting the open road once we got past the traffic of suburban Toronto and setting the cruise control... I knew it had something to do with driving, but in my six year old mind, I pictured an autopilot dummy popping up to drive the motor home when my grandfather wanted a break... 

Our journey would take us at least a week, because even with the amenities of the motor home, a kid needs breaks... so we stopped and found playgrounds in towns all the way along the Trans Canada highway.  Our first goal wasn't to get to the reunion - that was a somewhat vague notion at the end of the trip, but to get to the mythical Kakabeka Falls... My grandparents had been building up the place in our minds - partly because it was a goal to reach there by the second or third day of the trip and because, quite honestly I think that saying Kakabeka (ˈkɛkəˈbɛkə) was just so much fun!

You can read the wikipedia entry about Kakabeka falls here,  


While it's no Niagara Falls, to a six year old, Kakabeka Falls was amazing - the rush of water over the 40 foot cliffs was almost deafening and the awe of watching the swirling pools at the bottom.. well I'm sure I was awe inspired...


Somewhere in my parents pictures of us, there is one of all three kids standing with my grandparents in front of this fence at Kakabeka Falls... and if I'd been better organized, I would have asked my dad to scan it and send it to me for this blog post, but I'm not and I didn't... so my six year old self will have to remain my my mind's eye for now and when my mom reads this blog entry, she'll ask my dad to dig out the old photos and find the one of me, Cat and Mark standing with Nana overlooking Kakabeka Falls... found it:

I remember just fragments of the trip really, getting off and on the motor home, stopping at several provincial and national parks and of course, that just before the reunion, we had stopped at one more park to play - and my sister had fallen off the monkey bars and sprained her ankle... I also remember meeting a myriad of relatives, having lots of pictures taken, and dancing with my cousin, Trevor - the only kid my age at the party.  


But, the one thing that sticks out in my mind from that trip forward is that no matter where we were going on a long car trip, an imagined ride in the car or boat at the cottage, invariably our destination would be Kakabeka Falls... whether we got there or not.


Next Sunday, I will have my act together and my mother will have browbeaten my dad into finding some pictures from that era... and I'll post them here with another memory of that long ago motor home trip across 2/3 of Canada to reach into my grandfather's roots.


Please check out part two of the story of our family road trip in Summer 1981!


As for other stories about my family, I invite you to check out:

10 things I learned from my Pompa (Grandfather)

Iwannastay

I'm a Tea Granny

Happy Father's Day!

to some of the most wonderful Dads I know:

 Pompa! (great - grandpa)

 (Papa- My father-in-law)

 (Grandpa - my daddy)

 Daddy * Uncle Wayne (My hubby)

Sunday Family Stories - 10 things I learned from my Pompa (Grandfather)

As the first grandchild born into my family, which now has sprouted to 13 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren for my grandparents I claim to be the one who has known my grandfather the longest... and the girl who christened him 'Pompa'

I'm guessing that when I was too little to remember, that I couldn't decide whether to call him grandpa or papa, so I combined them... but one never knows what is in the mind of a precocious toddler... it morphed somewhere to plain old grandpa but he's always been my Pompa...

So what did I learn from him?

Lots... but I will pick ten of my favourites to share with you today...

1. If you want something bad enough, you will work for it...  my grandfather started working at 8 years of age, quit school before he finished 8th grade and worked full time for the rest of his life until he semi-retired at age 75 and finally retired just a few years ago... As my grandmother wrote in her memoirs, "He never owned a bicycle and by the time he could afford one, he wanted a car.  Education was important to him and he made sure that the children got the best possible one so that they could enjoy a better life than he had."
2. Which brings me to my second point- get an education and stay in school... he matched dollar for dollar every scholarship we earned from other sources, allowing me to go to university without debts, and to earn my bachelors degree.
   
3. More personally, he taught me to take time to spend with family - if you've read previous posts, you will have read about 'Iwannastay', the cottage that he and my grandmother purchased so that their kids would have a place away from the city...  Despite the fact that he regularly worked 60-80 hour weeks sometimes, he made the time to get away and be with family at the cottage - taking us for boat rides, teaching us to water-ski and fish, or just hanging out on the deck.
   
4. "Stay out of the way of hot spoons" ... if you sat next to Pompa at the cottage kitchen table for breakfast, you were likely to be treated to the 'hot spoon' treatment if you weren't paying enough attention to him... he would stir his coffee and then 'attack', with love...
   
5. You're never to old to have a birthday party!  My grandfather was 60 before he had a real 'birthday party' with all his friends and family.  I was especially proud to be the lone grandchild, at about 11 years old, to be invited to come to the adult party... and give a speech to him (one of my first writing/speaking engagements)
6. Naps are good - Siestas are fine in Pompa's book, especially during golf, baseball or other sporting events... but lead into the next two things I learned...
7. Never wake a sleeping Pompa - especially to ask about going for a boat ride to the "lodge"... it inevitably makes your time before embarking on the special trip much longer...
8. Never change the channel... it might wake the sleeping Pompa and he was 'watching through his eyelids'
9. Keep everything in good repair... even when he was 'off work' at home or at the cottage, if something needed fixing, he didn't procrastinate or make it worse...
10. Take the time to make fabulous memories - and cherish every one... this one is the hardest for me to write about and probably the most serious... as my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease several years ago, but as I write down my memories my grandmother is sharing them with him and its helping me to remember the special times, places and memories we share...

Now that I've shared my top ten lessons, I'd love for you to meet my Pompa in pictures:

On the deck at the cottage (Summer 07)

With me and my Grandma at my wedding, 1998