News Update

It has been a week of grieving in Canada as we lost a fine political leader, a man widely respected by citizens of all backgrounds. So much so, that the Prime Minister accorded the unprecedented honour of a state funeral for Jack Layton. Jack's closing remarks to Canadians are remembered on the photo: "Love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic, and we'll change the world."

Finally, we are back on the shore of Lake Superior in my hometown. We passed the week here after driving down from Kenora on Monday. I've been catching up on garden and lawns; the weeds have taken advantage of my absence to grow in a wide variety of locations and at a prodigious rate. I've been battling them all week—taking no prisoners, but like the Gaddafi loyalists, there still remain many to root out! The back lawn will take a few cuts to get back in shape, while the front one is pretty much the right length already—thank you, Travis. The garden is producing tomatoes, beet greens, beans and spinach—thank you, Erin. I've managed a a couple of sessions of golf practice during the week with Erin & Kristian. The markets have remained pretty crazy, but I managed to have a great week and recover a bit from the earlier losses. I am hoping that things settle down for the remainder of the year so I will be able to predict things better. Riders took advantage of the week off to fire two of their coaches. We hope they will also use the time to learn how to play football!

Wendy returned to work at Wal-Mart; she definitely found the full shifts on her feet to make for a long day. She has also been catching up on paperwork over household finances as well as the church books. Still, we did manage to get out for a breakfast date yesterday—a nice treat.

Erin celebrated her birthday last week with her first set of golf clubs. She played a few times in Regina, and really enjoyed it, so she was glad to get the set for her birthday and has been practicing and playing this week. Kristian enjoys that as well.

Trav has been working to establish an office for his newly funded business venture. He has picked out a location, and will now continue with the selection of furnishings and equipment. Joanna continues to be busy, but we did enjoy having them over last evening along with Andrew.

And that's about it for this week.