Season's Greetings!

Merry Christmas!
2007 has been an incredible year for our family.

Erik played hockey, soccer, waterpolo and lacrosse last year and then used his birthday money to buy a membership to the Royal Regina Golf course. He also kept busy with paddling for the Wascana Racing Canoe Club in the summer. He's just learned how to play squash as well as tennis and recently he fulfilled a dream of becoming a certified PADI scuba diver. Needless to say, he loves sports!

Over the year Dieter enjoyed public skating, swimming, waterpolo and paddling (also with the Wascana Racing Canoe Club). He's also learned how to play tennis and surf. He continues to write amazing stories c/w original illustrations in his free time. He's taking a break from French and learning to spell in English this year. He is also very creative in his spelling and use of the English language.

Georg continues to coach hockey and he still seems to think he should also PLAY hockey. This explains why he's always whining about his aching back.

I remain forever grateful to my running friends who keep me sane and healthy.

While we all miss our lives from "back home" we are grateful to have this year to live and experience life as a family while travelling. Since the passing of my sister Linden, I realize how precious and fragile life is and, as such, we are commited to living life to the fullest each day. It's truly amazing how much we've learned from Linden's life - I guess big sisters are always teaching their younger "sibs."



I think she would have something to say about the younger sibs' activities. Two drinks each?

Christmas is always a time to be grateful for good health, good friends and close families. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Erik and Dieter received an early Christmas gift - their very own surf boards! As Mom says, we're "creating memories."

Merry Christmas from the Heucks!

Dieter hangs ten!

Today Dieter took his first surf lesson and experienced immediate success! Amazing everyone, he caught his first wave and rode it all the way to the beach. By the end of the hour he had caught at least 10 waves. He's already got plans to be out in the surf again tomorrow. I'm afraid he'll join his brother "out there" and we won't see him for the rest of our beach days.

There have been occassional daytime showers here in Waikiki, but the sun continues to shine so the rain doesn't keep people from heading to the beach.

We've started to settle into the spirit of ALOHA so it's difficult to keep track of what day of the week it is or what time of day it is. We generally know when it's morning and when it's evening and I'm sure we'll know when it's Christmas.

Good-bye Europe and Aloha Hawaii!

The weather was becoming increasingly cold in Europe so we "needed" to leave for warmer climes. Our plan for a year off was based on this need for warm weather. We intend to try to stay warm, avoiding the need for warm clothing.

London was wet and grey the day we left. We weren't sorry to leave, especially knowing we were heading for Hawaii> a place we have grown to love.

It has taken a few days to adjust to the 10 hour time difference. We've slept during the day only to be wide awake in the middle of the night a few times but we seem to have adjusted.

Hawaii will be home for the next two months. Here we will celebrate Christmas and we're even going to get to see friends from Regina during the holidays! Dieter is counting the days until his buddy Alex arrives and we're hoping we can go to the ZOO with the Most family. On December 31 our family, Erwin and Brenda and little Willem will arrive for a two-week vacation. All this will only enhance our days of fun and sun and sand and surf.

We really love this place!

Poisson in Portugal

Chef Girard sliced and diced and dipped and stirred until he produced this amazing mango fish dish. We were pleased to practice our French and Chef Girard seemed to be happy to talk in his mother tongue while preparing this tasty dish.
The bonus was a copy of the recipe to take home - 'er it would have been nice if it had been in English or French but I guess German is okay.



They play hard and of course they "Work" hard....


Then at the end of the day they sleep. That's when we are grateful for some quiet time and that's when we reflect on how bland life was before children.

Gelato

We love the gelato here! As part of our health and nutrition education we've classified this as a necessary food type: DAIRY. And everyone knows we need dairy products to build healthy bones, so we eat a little each day.

Our gelato days will soon be over as we head for Hawaii and Baskin Robbins. We've enjoyed our European experiences over the past couple of months. These past three weeks were supposed to be spent in Israel with our guide (my kindred spirit) Linda Epstein, but we cancelled because we were a little uneasy about the situation in Israel at the time. Linda is now in the Phillipines and we've agreed to experience Israel another time.

PADI certified

It's been a week of fun activites for the whole family. Dieter's enjoying basketball and fitness classes with me while Erik and Georg have kept busy with scuba diving and squash. Today Erik received his PADI certificate so he joins his Dad and Uncle Erwin as a scuba diver. Thursday will be an adventure at sea where they travel by boat for a scuba dive. Needless to say, he's excited.

Day three in Madeira

We're off to another beautiful day here in Madeira. Our morning run was quite nice although Erik is getting too fast to run with his Mother so I "chased" after him for 6 km.

Dieter enjoyed his first yoga class last night and proved that age is the reason for the lack of flexibility. He easily folded himself into a pretzel without grimacing at all. With all the aquatic activity Dieter decided to get a short haircut. I think it will be easier for him and he really likes it.

Georg and Erik signed up for their scuba lessons and will begin on Friday. Georg will recertify and Erik will get his junior C card. I guess it's a three-day class. Dieter and I will snorkel in the area shown in the photos above. We have been told there are no jellyfish here.

We have a cooking class at 3:00 pm today with the chef from France. I guess this will be a cooking lesson and a French lesson at the same time. Should be fun!

Day two of Boot Camp?

We started the day with a trip to the nature reserve area for Nordic Trekking (walking with poles). It was definitely a worthwhile experience and everyone is willing to do it again on Thursday. Three mornings the group runs and two mornings are reserved for the pole walking.

This experience bears some ressemblance to the four-month military training I undertook when I was a student needing a summer job. At the time the idea of getting paid to get into physical condition seemed like a good idea, although I now refer to the whole experience as "boot camp" (maybe because of all the time and effort spent on "spit" polishing those ugly black boots).

We're experiencing a similar pace as boot camp because the kids are so excited to do everything and anything NOW (not later). Yesterday we ran, walked, swam, played squash, pumped weights and took an aquafit class. Today the list includes waterpolo, yoga, and circuit training.

This is, however, a SPA and as such there are opportunities to soak and relax. Personally, I'm having a bit of trouble adjusting to the European spa attitude where everyone walks around nude in the saunas, turkish baths and lounge area. So the question is "Where are you supposed to look?" and "Is it more rude to stop and freeze with mouth open or back out of the room?" I'm not sure what to do really, but MY swimsuit is on the body, not over the shoulder.

We've been told that the tourist population is 90% German which would explain why the menus are in German. And since we speak more German than Portuguese, we're now in German immersion. Erik is able to understand most of what is said, but Dieter is having more difficulty. It's been a long time since I studied German at University and I'm not impressing anyone with my French accent, but folks are quite helpful. Of course Georg is in his element and HE knows how to ask for CREAM in his coffee. (I'll never live down the sour cream in the coffee episode in France).

So we expect to keep moving for the next two weeks. Personally, I'm thrilled that football is over, although we're now pursuing hockey highlights online with TSN. (I wonder if this is why I was given that shirt "We interrupt this marriage to bring you the football season" and Diane suggested we use velcro to change the sports with the season.) Everyone is elated with the Roughriders' victory and we'll be talking about this for a long time yet, but at least we don't have to watch it anymore.

We just found out "we" get to play shinny in the gym tomorrow. The guys are getting excited but they miss the old shinny games in the bay.

Madeira Portugal

We arrived in Madeira Portugal late in the day so we really weren't able to see much of the island until morning, November 26. Using Booking.com we have been able to scout out accommodations suitable for families with active children. We've added FREE INTERNET and BREAKFAST included to our list of priorities.


So this hotel seems to fit, except we think we should add LAUNDRY facilities to the list next time.

The Sport Hotel Galosol (Ondamar) is part of a group of facilities that include a fitness facility, several restaurants, three swimming pools, and a spa. We're quite excited to be here and were pleasantly surprised to learn about all the fitness programs available to us here as part of our stay. This morning I joined a running group at 7:30 a.m. We boarded a van and drove to a nature park about 15 minutes away from here. The view together with the scent of the Eucalyptus trees were inspiring as we ran along a narrow path through a nature area. Tomorrow the rest of the family will join me (they promised). Other activities available today include: Aquafit classes (2 of them), aerobics, basketball, squash, turkish bath for ladies, abs of steel, body blast, body sculpting and hiking. There are also free times for lane swimming and weights, treadmills, step machines etc. Tomorrow there is even a kid's swim session for two hours! Dieter (the child with gills) is pretty excited about that.

Georg and Erik are watching the football game online. I'm keeping the results a secret until they finish watching.

We are looking forward to our two-week stay here on this beautiful island.

I'll post some pictures when I'm back on the Mac.

We don't recognize these people either

We've been travelling for a week since the cruise- wearing the same jeans and t-shirts day after day. Looking back at the cruise pictures, we're not sure who these people are anymore. We certainly don't look anything like this anymore!

Oh we'll sure be glad to get settled in for a longer stay in Madiera!

En route to Lisbon

We enjoyed our day in Chamonix France and have vowed to return one day to ski in the Alps. Our plan was to stop in Geneva to meet Martin and Doris, but we had to change our plans when we learned they were forcasting snow for the area. Our timing just hasn't been good - no snow when we wanted it and snow when we didn't want it. We stopped in Geneva long enough to call Martin (Georg was able to speak a little German) and continued our way on towards Lisbon. We were happy to have a chance to get to know Martin well enough to learn that his son is studying in REGINA SASKATCHEWAN. We hope we'll meet again one day.

Pushing on towards Lisbon with no particular destination for each day, we took time to enjoy the scenery and notice the many land uses along the way.

By 8:00 p.m. we arrived in Tulle where we stayed in a modest "room" for the night. We were grateful to find the hotel because our efforts to stay in Clermont failed when all rooms were booked at every hotel. In the morning we toured around this quaint little French community, sampling croissants and pastries and visiting the market.

The next day we drove to Bayonne France. This is a region rich with wineries (it's near Bordeaux) so we decided we needed to sample the wine and soak up the scenery during our one-night stay.

After a long day of travelling we arrived in Castelo Branco Portugal. I guess we were somewhat affected by the "highway incident" in October so we didn't really want to spend any extra time in Spain and opted for a long day of travelling to reach Portugal. The countryside is so diverse and, although we tried to take pictures, we realize the photos don't do justice to the life-size views.

Once in Portugal we found accommodations at the TRYP COLINA DO CASTELO. I've managed to figure out alot of Spanish and Italian but I'm finding Portuguese is a little more difficult. I can tell you that "Colina" means "Hill" and this hotel is, in fact, on a hill overlooking the city. The sunset was very impressive and this morning's sunshine has provided us with a tremendous view of the valley below. The trees are golden and the weather is about October-ish type weather in Saskatchewan. Chilly but not cold.

Today we will drive another 2 hours to Lisbon and catch our flight to London. Tomorrow we fly from London to Madeira.

Chamonix Mont-Blanc France

We left Venice and began our travel towards Lisbon: DESTINATION Geneva. We got off to a rough start, experiencing our first real traffic jam > we travelled less than 10 km in 2 hours! We managed to amuse ourselves listening to the radio in Italian and translating and singing along in our very limited (creative) Italian. Also, we had a nice picnic in the car and a couple of impatient Italian drivers provided additional entertainment for us.


We drove for about 5 hours before we arrived in Chamonix Mont-Blanc France. You wouldn't believe the excitement at the sight of SNOW in the mountains! We decided to bunk in the mountains and settled in to the Best Western for the night. After much discussion we agreed we should go skiing here, but alas the slopes don't open for another week.

Erik is extremely disappointed to be here in the French Alps sans skiis!


We have been in touch with Martin from Geneva and have an offer to stay there this evening. Thank you Wes for introducing us.

Rome how could we forget to post Rome?

We travelled from the French Riviera to a small hamlet 15km north of Rome called Tarquinia. Our hotel sat perched atop a hill providing a commanding view of the farmland and sea. What community wouldn't have a 13th century castle? This was one of those ancient "gated communities" complete with a huge stone wall. We don't appreciate the yawns from the boys "Oh yeah, another castle uh huh, seen a few of those already Mom and Dad."

We took the train into Rome (wow fast and very inexpensive) and once we arrived we hopped the metro over to the collesium. We stepped out of the metro and there it was! This prompted discussions of gladiators and we now need to see the movie again.

The sites/sights of Rome are permanently etched in our minds. It was a day to remember for sure.

Not much more to say other than WOW!