Choosing Joy...and Barefoot Running!

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to see our friend David (the pastor who married us!) give a dramatic presentation of Paul's letter to the Phillipians. It was incredible to watch...he had that entire book of the Bible memorized, and presented it in period costume. He titled his presentation "Choose Joy," which fits the nature of Paul's message perfectly. Paul lived at the time of Christ and has a pretty amazing story...going from persecuting the early Christians to becoming one of the most important figures in early teaching and spreading of the gospel...and in sharing that gospel for all time throug the bible. His life was full of challenge and reasons NOT to "choose joy"...he suffered from a "thorn in his flesh" (though we aren't told what exactly this was), was shipwrecked, and spent considerable time in prison for his beliefs to name a few. But in his writing, the joy that he feels in his mission for Christ is evident. In the past few months, too, we have witnessed Dave "choosing joy" as he has faced a recurring battle with cancer but remained always cheerful, always positive.

It's been a bit of a rough week for me (H) in the professional area of my life (fortunately the personal is awesome!) I work with wonderful people and for the most part like my job, but in the past several weeks the number of sad cases I've seen has been almost overwhelming, and some personal conflict that is out of my control has reared its head (which it does periodically). My initial reaction is almost always to be upset, worry, and dwell on the issue to the point where I feel almost physically unwell. It took a while for me to put the pieces together and understand how much my brain controls well being! The cool thing about this week is that by focussing on the right things....which for me means prayer, reflecting on the truths of the Bible, and choosing to "choose joy," I've been able to turn the negative around and truly feel peace and joy. That feeling is so cool. Now if only I can get to the point where my initial reactions of worry and upset wouldn't even happen! Work in progress :)

I often find that running in nature helps me to reflect, pray, and be joyful...I guess being out in creation can do that :) Lucy and I had a great week of barefoot running up at Pinery (Andrew was in Montreal so he missed out. Next week!) 1:15 on Tuesday and 2 hours this morning left us both grinning, Lucy panting, and me with sore but happy feet. This morning was incredible! There were thousands of ladybugs clustered along driftwood and the higher shoreline (mating? dying? just hanging out? Must consult Wikipedia for that one!) One very saucy seagull kept pace with us but just ahead, causing lots of flat out chasing by Goosey. Tee hee :) It's pretty hard to not be inspired to choose joy watching Lucy and her love of life and the simple things!

Happy weekend, all :)

A Long Weekend Lucy-Style!

I always get super-woofy excited for long weekends...it means an extra day with Dad and Mom home! They know that a tired doggie is a happy doggie, so they spend lots of weekend time attempting to tire me out :) I pretend that they have somtimes, just to make them feel good! Actually, they did a pretty good job of keeping me busy this weekend...

Friday: Pack the car; head off for canoe shopping and camping. Turns out they found the canoe of their dreams in Toronto and nixed the camping in Huntsville as they didn't need to go up there to canoe shop anyway. Road trips always make me sleepy, especially when we get back home late...

Saturday: Early morning frisbee session! Ran into my buddy Goliath at the school and chased the spinny thing around the field for 45 minutes. Yay! Breakfast followed by a morning nap. Just a day "off" today, so I could catch up on my beauty rest for the next couple days. A visit from Rosie (Mike and Andrea's 12 week old chocolate lab...all the humans keep saying how cute she is, but she always jumps on my head and tries to steal all my toys...) in the afternoon. Country walk in the evening. Not tired yet....come on people!

Sunday: Okay, getting a bit more tired :) 23.5 km run with Mom and Dad in the morning, including a mid-run swim. Sent the humans off to church while I had a dance party with Pumpkin and Gooberette (the stuffed bear comes alive when no one is home!). The humans thought I was sleeping the whole time they were away...yeah, right! Off to try out the new canoe in the afternoon, followed by more swimming. I look like such a dork in my life jacket...

Mom and Dad had another 8.5 km of running to do in the evening...I really wanted to go, but my fur coat doesn't work so well in the heat. Maybe if I had an ice vest? Dragged the humans around the neighborhood for a walk later in the evening.

Monday: A bit of long-run tiredness, but still up for frisbee at 7:15 am! 45 minutes of frisbee to take the edge off, then sent the humans for a 3.5 hour bike ride. Dance party #2 of the weekend while they were away :) Then...oh boy oh boy...a walk up to the apple orchard to pick the first apples of the fall! A 2 hour round trip...with something REALLY yummy to roll in at the orchard!



Another hour walk in the country with Rosie to end the day....officially tired doggle :) Life is sooo tough...

Wedding Photos!

Hi all! Some fun news...our wedding photo gallery is online! The photographers (HRM Photography) were an absolute pleasure to work with (right down to putting doggie treats on the camera lens to get Lucy's attention)...we'd definitely recommend them to anyone!

You can look through the gallery (all 500 photos! Yikes!) by going to http://clients.hrmphotography.com/ and scrolling through the wedding galleries to "Heather and Andrew." It's all alphabetical. Actually, our engagement gallery is still there too, further down the page. The username is your e-mail address; the password is "Hanik."

Hope all is well with everyone! Happy Wednesday to all :)

Seriously Amazing Salad

Mmmm...we're in the middle of cooking up our take on a salad that we discovered one lunch in Paris. We read about "Relais Gascon," a restaurant in Montmartre that was known for its big salads...a great find! Here's our take on their recipie...amounts of each ingredient are whatever is on hand or desired on the day :)

-mixed greens
-corn kernels (ideally, fresh off a cooked cob)
-beets (roast at 450 F for 60 minutes, then remove skins and chop)
-shredded carrot
-fried potatoes (mmmm...do up with olive oil and salt)
-fried egg(s)
-shredded hard cheese (currently using asiago)

For dressing:

-olive oil
-balsamic vinegar
-salt and pepper

One of the many fun things about being in Spain and some parts of France was eating amazingly good salads which weren't "disguised" by flavoured dressings. Often, the waiter would bring cruets of olive oil and balsamic to the table for us to make our own dressings (along with salt and pepper)...yummy :)

Happy cooking to all!

Running Doggle...

Forget "running man"....our little running doggle Lucy is quite the star these days. My (H's) parents whipped her into shape for us while we were in Europe, with multiple frisbee sessions each day and lots of walks. Frisbee sessions are, to adapt a quote from our friend Andrea, "intervals on crack." [editor's note...the original quote, "Kentucky Fried Chicken on crack" was used by Andrea to describe the yummiest duck dinner EVER on our last night in Paris! More to follow when we actually get back on track with the trip blog!!!] Anyhoo, thanks to her frisbee sessions, Lucy is running like the wind these days. It sure helps my leg turnover when I've got her attached to the other end of the leash :)

Andrew and I are aiming for a fall marathon...it has been a while since his last marathon, and I've only ever run one and have some seriously unfinished business :) The great meltdown (time and heat wise) in Chicago 2007 left me feeling pretty unsatisfied, so I'd like to erase that with a good run. Miss Lucy is a star training buddy for us!

So, life right now is consisting of running, some riding for fun (and to try and keep the great fitness we got riding the big mountains across the pond), normal day to day stuff, and some extra work for me (our other vet is on holiday for the month of August...back next week. Yay!) We're loving the remaining days of summer...it is gorgeous here right now, though there is a slight chill in the air at 6 am now. On a random personal note...being married to Andrew rocks :)

Trip blogging to resume next week...no, really :)

Sweet Spot in Spain!

And so begins our after-the-fact blog chronicles of our amazing honeymoon in Europe! We flew out of the Toronto airport on July 10 (and got to see the Airbus A380 parked at the gate as we taxied...huge plane!)

After a few hours between plane transfers in the Charles de Gaulle Airport (which provided us with our first "pain au chocolat"...croissants with chocolate filling that Andrew might almost kill for!) we arrived in Barcelona. Car rental took a while, even though it had all been set up over the internet. Or so we thought. Anyhow, we wound up with a compact VW minivan-type-of-thingy which served us well in the following couple of weeks. Off we headed to find the farmhouse that we were staying at. After about an hour of driving, we came across this gem of a town, much of which dates back to the 12th century. We didn't stop as we were beyond exhausted, but there was NO way I'd leave Spain without going back to see this place sometime during the week :)


We pulled into "Can Cruanyes," an incredibly beautiful stone farmhouse about 35 km from Girona and in the middle of countryside and were greeted by roosters and the neighbour's dog. We can't remember her name, so decided to call her "Esmeralda," or "Ezzy" for short. Ezzy soon became a good buddy, especially when we were cooking dinner :)



We ventured into Tortella, the nearby town, for dinner and were amused by the spoon-shaped streetlights. Off to bed after dinner....as climbing the Col du Tourmalet for our first rendezvous with THE Tour de France lay ahead for the next day!

We're Back!

Hi to all! We've been back in Canada for a few days now....our trip was PHENOMENAL. We managed to keep ourselves busy with lots of riding (including a couple of 9 hour days on the bike and multiple climbs up Mt Ventoux), sightseeing, and great eating. All of that led to no blogging...but we'll make up for it!! Starting next week, we'll post every day or two and do a retrospective day by day trip album.

Gooberette will also have some fun photos to post on her blog...lots of travels for a small bear. Unfortunately, she has now developed a taste for fine wine, coffee, and chocolate and insists that we receive air mail of such from France at least once monthly. She may need a job to support her new habit :)

Heather's parents stayed with Goosey while we were away, and we are still visiting with them for a couple more days. There is talk of a trip to St Jacob's market on Saturday :)

Happy weekend to all! Here's a first "teaser" photo...