Christmas 2025

 Nadolig Llawen!         Merry Christmas!         Buon Natale!

Christmas 2025.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

It is again our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over this past year.  May you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2025 brought us mostly very routine living.

Angela, Christy, and their dog, Adam remain well-settled at their leased townhouse in Richmond. Christy continues working her job with Microsoft from home while Angela works as the Studio Technician for UBC’s Pottery Club and continues to seek opportunities to apply her new skills with digital modelling while expanding her portfolio preparation. Together, they are developing a unique game, Christy writing the code and Angela developing the digital modelling.

As well, Angela continues as a ceramics artist, throwing new pieces and showing with the Dusty  Babes Collective. She has taken on a shared studio in Vancouver and uses the kilns in the Mergatroid Centre, within the catchment for the Vancouver Eastside Culture Crawl, qualifying her to participate in that major showing.

Angela delighted in meeting her cousin Evan and Amanda’s new little girl, Charlie.

David remains active with his music. As principal violist with the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra, he retains special musical responsibility. He had a wonderful surprise late in the Spring when the White Rock City Orchestra called upon him. He now plays for two community orchestras, rehearsing on both Saturday and Sunday each week. David also continues to perform with the VSO School of Music’s Camerata Strings adult ensemble.

Tina with David, ready for an orchestral performance

Apart from his music, David remains happy with his part-time employment with Meridian Farm Markets at their store in Tsawwassen. David’s travel interest took him to Florida early in the New Year and back to Ontario at the beginning of Summer.

David ’s adopted vegan lifestyle remains important to him. In response to his ASD, David continues to see his local support counsellor at Alongside You. He was also surprised to learn that the conductor at WRCO is also a professional counsellor with specific interest in ASD and enjoys periodic sessions with him. Tina and Ted remain thankful for such readily at-hand support.

Tina continues to suffer ever stronger back pain that increasingly limits her general activity and requires her to use a disability tag on our car and her walker when out and about. She particularly enjoys Ladner’s Shirley’s Walk as a walk she can handle. Tina’s new surgeon for her back identified bone density loss and guided her to medication for recovering bone density before surgery will be possible. Her back distortion burdens Tina’s left knee, damaging it that now she requires knee surgery sometime in in the New Year.

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted remains in good health, feeling very well indeed. His participation in the atrial ablation study out of VGH is now complete. He was part of the control group. During the summer, he did experience a month long spell of Afib that resolved itself. A brief scare with inordinately frequent PVCs during the Fall also resolved itself.

Ted continues to use long walks with Belle as his primary mode of exercise, usually twice daily and a shorter walk before putting Belle to bed for the night, every day of the week, although David sometimes takes on Belle’s second walk. With these, Ted usually easily exceeds the recommended minimum 10,000 steps per day. Tina continues swimming as gravity free exercise, and Ted joins her twice a week, swimming 2500 metres readily. Ted enjoys his camera, often carrying it while walking Belle. His collection of photos, here around Ladner and south Delta, certainly continues to grow.

Belle remains our delight, filling life with love and laughter by her spirited dog personality. She remains fascinated with balls, especially well lost ones she finds during her walks and carries home, filling the house with dog balls, tennis balls, lacrosse balls and baseballs! Bello also loves ball chase play which she often shares with her best friend, Rolly, or her occasional other friends. Belle’s susceptibility to ear infection remained well controlled all year. Thankfully, with veterinary care and prescribed medication, the frightening liver condition of the year before last has not reappeared and tested as fully resolved during the Spring. Troublingly, that test showed a new issue, low serum potassium. We learned that this could be indicative of something else that may be very serious indeed. Potassium supplementation and monitoring followed and continues with a four week trial special diet to start after Christmas. Otherwise, Belle is her cheerful self.

Beyond the immediate family, we continue to enjoy our extended family, although mostly only virtually still. Email and Facebook keep us in touch with with John and Liz. We get together with Norman and Barbara for a few occasions, especially when Gareth, Rosy, and their new blended family come up from Oregon to visit them, but will again miss them this Christmas with Rosy having reached an age that it is more appropriate to mark the occasion in her own family home  with her newly blended sisters and her grandparents visiting.

John and Liz visited in mid Spring with daughter Leah and grandchildren Lauren and Carter, enjoying North 40 with Norman and Barbara.

As winter returned to us, we again watched South Delta’s annual return of vast flocks of Snow Geese, many now continued on to the Skagit River delta and/or California’s Sacramento Valley. Trumpeter Swans are back but less readily noticed. Resident Bald Eagles returned, starting to renovate their nests at the beginning of November. This is accompanied by a burst of new nest construction. Transient Bald Eagles have been slower to return. At home, our bird feeder remains frequented by Chickadees, House Finches, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, White Crowned Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, the occasional Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers, and Northern Flickers while Anna’s Hummingbirds use their feeders as frequently as ever (we have a heated feeder for the very cold weather). Steller’s Jays continue to take our steady supply of in-shell peanuts and make us laugh with their selective antics.

We remain attentive and concerned with events in our world beyond our family. Canada’s federal election satisfied us but we continue to hold concern that so much conflict persists world-wide, all continued from last year  May this season of peace touch and help resolve all this protracted strife.

And now we look forward to 2026.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

Merry Christmas with our love,

Ted, Tina, David, Angela, and Christy.

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!     Happy New Year!     Felice Nuovo Anno!

Christmas 2024

 Nadolig Llawen!        Merry Christmas!        Buon Natale!

Christmas 2024.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

As we come home from a Winter Harp concert, it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over this past year.  May you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2024 brought us mostly very routine living.

Angela, Christy, and their dog, Adam remain well-settled at their leased townhouse in Richmond. Christy continues working her job with Microsoft from home while Angela continues to seek opportunities to apply her new skills with digital modelling while expanding her portfolio preparation. She continues as a ceramics artist, throwing new pieces and showing with the Dusty Babes collective.

David remains active with his music. As principal violist with the New Westminster Symphony  Orchestra, he retains special musical responsibility. We enjoyed their Christmas concert, this year as a full orchestral concert. David also continues to perform with the VSO School of Music’s Camerata Strings adult ensemble, most recently in performance at the Vancouver Playhouse earlier last month.

Apart from his music, David remains happy with his part-time employment with Meridian Farm Markets at their store in Tsawwassen. While the Tsawwassen store was closed for renovations, he enjoyed a brief reassignment to Meridian’s Ralph’s Produce store in Langley late last spring. David travel interest took him to Yellowknife to experience Summer Solstice with very long days and night twilight, no full darkness. He now looks forward to a trip to Florida earl/y in the New Year.

David ’s adopted vegan lifestyle remains important to him. In response to his ASD, David continues to see his local support counsellor at Alongside You. Tina and Ted remain thankful for such readily at-hand support.

Tina continues to suffer ever stronger back pain that increasingly limits her general activity and requires her to use a disability tag on our car and her walker when out and about. She particularly enjoys Ladner’s Shirley’s Walk as a walk she can handle. Tina now has a new surgeon for her back but has to meet a new weight loss target before surgery can be scheduled.

Tina. David, Angela, Belle, and Adam along Shiley’s Walk on a lovely May Day yeah

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted remains in good health, feeling very well indeed. He remains a participant in the atrial ablation study out of VGH and periodically wears a monitor for a few scheduled weeks. He, Tina, and David did catch Covid-19 in September but, being fully up to date with our vaccinations, its impact was mild. For Ted, he experienced three days of total exhaustion, then it was gone.

Ted continues to use long walks as his primary mode of exercise, usually twice daily and a shorter walk before putting Belle to bed for the night, every day of the week. He easily to exceed the recommended minimum 10,000 steps per day. With Tina taking up swimming as gravity free exercise, he resumed semi-regular swimming, getting back up to 2500 metre swims fairly readily. Ted enjoys his camera, often carrying it while walking Belle. His collection of photos, here around  Ladner and south Delta, certainly continues to grow.

Ted is the one invariably behind the camera and not inclined to take selfies so, instead, here is his view of Saturn from September 9^th at 12:39 AM, a few days after opposition.

(Stack of 53 exposures on Olympus Pen-F at ISO 800 and ⅒ sec. with Dynamax 8 telescope, 2110 mm  f/11 projected through 20 mm eyepiece)

Belle remains our delight, filling life with love and laughter by her spirited dog personality. She remains fascinated with balls, especially well lost ones she finds during her walks and carries home, filling the house with dog balls, tennis balls, lacrosse balls and baseballs! Her susceptibility to ear infection remained well controlled all year. Thankfully, with veterinary care and prescribed medication, last year’s frightening liver condition has not reappeared. Belle is her cheerful self

Beyond the immediate family, we continue to enjoy our extended family, although mostly only virtually still. Email and Skype keep us in touch with with John and Liz. We get together with Norman and Barbara for a few occasions, especially when Gareth and Rosy came up from Oregon to visit them, but will miss them this Christmas with Rosy reaching an age that it is more appropriate to mark the occasion in her own family home with her grandparents visiting.

As winter returned to us, we again watched South Delta’s annual return of vast flocks of Snow Geese, many now continued on to the Skagit River delta and/or California’s Sacramento Valley. Trumpeter Swans are back but less readily noticed than last winter. Resident Bald Eagles returned early, starting to renovate their nests before the end of October but transient Bald Eagles have been slower to return. At home, our bird feeder remains frequented by Chickadees, House Finches, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, White Crowned Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, the occasional Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers, and Northern Flickers while Anna’s Hummingbirds use their feeders as frequently as ever (we have a heated feeder for the very cold weather). Steller’s Jays continue to take our steady supply of in-shell peanuts. Three seem to be constantly together and we suspect they are siblings that must have hatched very near us last summer.

We remain attentive and concerned with events in our world beyond our family. The electoral decision by our neighbours to the south shocked and deeply troubles us. We continue to pray that peace may be restored to a fully intact Ukraine with the ignoble invader driven out. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict keeps us alarmed, such a complex problem! May Israelis find a way out from brutal suppression of their Palestinian neighbours and Palestinian terror extremists moderate their responses so both can find peace together. We accept an apparent end to the civil war in Syria with concern about the successful rebel group. How can that horrible civil war in Yemen and the new outbreak in Sudan resolve? May this season of peace touch all these and other conflicts.

And now we look forward to 2025.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

Merry Christmas with our love,

Ted, Tina, David, Angela, and Christy.

The day after opposition, on the night of December 9^th at 10:53 PM, Ted enjoyed an opportunity to connect his camera to his Dynamax 8 telescope and photograph Jupiter with its four Galilean moons.

(Stack of 6 exposures on Olympus Pen-F at ISO 500 and 1/15 sec. with 2110 mm  f/11 projected through 20 mm eyepiece)

P. S. This letter was scheduled, with intent, to arrive on Christmas Eve .

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!        Happy New Year!        Felice Nuovo Anno!

Christmas 2023

                         Nadolig Llawen!        Merry Christmas!        Buon Natale!

Christmas 2023.

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

Again, at this very special time, it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over this past year.  May you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2023 gave us a mix of very routine living and a substantial challenge within our life experiences.

Angela, Christy, and their dog, Adam remain well-settled at their leased townhouse in Richmond. Christy continues working her job with Microsoft from home while Angela seeks opportunities to apply her new skills with digital modelling. Angela’s year  has been filled with portfolio preparation. The ceramics artist shows through in her digital works and Ted and Tina remain constantly impressed by the beauty in the creations she has showed us As an additional expression of her creative inclination, Angela has taken up sewing and found a wonderful opportunity to purchase a top-of-the-line but antique and fully functional sewing machine, at less cost than current bottom-of-the-line counterparts.

Angela, Studying Her First Sewing Creation

David remains active with his music and continues private study on his viola, with Thomas Beckman. As principal violist with the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra, he has special musical responsibility. We enjoyed their Christmas concert with a Richmond dance ensemble. David also continues to perform with the VSO School of Music’s Camerata Strings adult ensemble, most recently in performance at the Vancouver Playhouse earlier last month. The highlight of the year came last Spring the Camerata Strings included David’s composition, Memories, as part of a public concert.

Apart from his music, David remains happy with his part-time employment with Meridian Farm Markets at their store in Tsawwassen. He recently received recognition for his five years’ service to the store and enjoys an increased but somewhat variable working schedule. David has picked up an interest in travel, arranging and taking his first ever flight on his owner a trip to Ontario. He now plans two trips away in the new year.

David ’s adopted vegan lifestyle remains important for him. In response to his ASD, David continues to see his local support counsellor at Alongside You. Tina and Ted remain thankful for such readily at-hand support.

Tina continues to suffer ever stronger back pain that increasingly limits her general activity. She qualified for a disability tag on our car and uses her walker when out and about, a great help when Tina has to walk more than a few steps. That scheduled initial appointment with a surgeon in January only led to heartbreaking disappointment for Tina in particular and for our whole family. With new referrals, she is back to waiting on other scheduled initial appointments with different  surgeons, one not until 2025, November, the other pending the result of an upcoming MRI.

Tina and David at North 40 for Belle’s Second Birthday, July 1st

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted's health continues stable; in fact, he feels very well indeed. He remains a participant in the atrial ablation study out of VGH and periodically wears a monitor for a few scheduled weeks. Otherwise, he has not even been bothered by any occasional colds this year.

Ted continues to use long walks as his primary mode of exercise, usually twice daily with our Poodle, Belle, as a companion, every day of the week, allowing him easily to exceed the recommended minimum 10,000 steps per day. Ted enjoys his camera, often carrying it while walking Belle. His collection of photos, here around Ladner and south Delta, certainly has not stopped growing.

Belle remains an utter delight, filling our lives with love and laughter with her spirited dog personality. Her fascination for balls, especially well lost ones she finds during her walks and carries home, gives us dog balls, tennis balls, lacrosse balls and baseballs everywhere! Ear infections and a frightening liver condition worried us but with veterinary care and prescribed medication, Belle is her cheerful self.

Ted’s Favourite Belle Portrait

With its diversifying new variants, COVID-19 remains an active concern. All of us have kept up to date with booster vaccinations and strive to avoid exposure. As usual, we all had our Flu shots soon  after they came available.

Beyond the immediate family, we continue to enjoy our extended family, although mostly only virtually still. Email and Skype keep us in touch with with John and Liz. We get together with Norman and Barbara for a few occasions, especially when Gareth and Rosy came up from Oregon to visit them, as will be for this Christmas.

As winter returned to us, we again watched South Delta’s annual return of vast flocks of Snow Geese, many now continued on to the Skagit River delta and/or California’s Sacramento Valley. Trumpeter Swans are back and more readily noticed than last winter.  Resident Bald Eagles returned early, starting to renovate their nests before the end of October. Now, trees along Highway 10 and in the North 40 Park Reserve have started to burst into our annual crop of transient Bald Eagles. At home, our bird feeder remains frequented by Chickadees, House Finches, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, White Crowned Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, the occasional Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers, and Northern Flickers while Anna’s Hummingbirds use their feeders as frequently as ever (we have a heated feeder for the very cold weather). Steller’s Jays continue to take our steady supply of in-shell peanuts. Four seem to be constantly together and we suspect they make up a family that must have nested very near us last summer. As we write, a huge flock of Red Winged Blackbirds is settling into our backyard Hawthorne trees. They won’t stay long but they’re great to see.

Trumpeter Swans on a Ladner Farm Field, December 19th

We remain attentive and concerned with events in our world beyond our family. We pray that peace may be restored to a fully intact Ukraine with the ignoble invader driven out. The new Israeli/Palestinian conflict has us alarmed, such a complex problem! May Israelis find a way out from brutal suppression of their Palestinian neighbours and Palestinian terror extremists moderate their responses so both can find peace together. When, oh when, will the civil wars in Syria and Yemen resolve, sadly, not as long as other powers continue using the various sides as proxies. May this season of peace touch all these and other conflicts.

And now we look forward to 2024.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

Merry Christmas with our love,

Ted, Tina, David, Angela, and Christy.

P. S. This letter was scheduled, with intent, to arrive on Christmas Eve but has ended up delayed with our apologies .

        Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!        Happy New Year!        Felice Nuovo Anno!

Christmas 2022

Nadolig Llawen!        Merry Christmas!        Buon Natale!

From our home to yours, dear Family and Friends,

Again, at this very special time, it is our pleasure to share a little bit of our lives over this past year.  May you enjoy a full and restful Christmas/New Year season.  2022 certainly kept up the flow of different and more limited life experiences.

As the year winds down, Angela has just completed her studies in computerized three-dimensional modelling at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Angela’s artistic talent has always been primarily three-dimensional. This BCIT course of study was very intense, demanding her full-time attention but she excelled. What Tina and I have seen of Angela’s digital creations so far impresses us as amazing.

Angela, Christy, and their dog, Adam remain well-settled at their leased townhouse in Richmond. Christy continues working her job with Microsoft from home while Angela worked hard at her studies.

David continues private study on his viola, with Thomas Beckman, Principal Violist with the Prince George Symphony, online through most of the year with occasional in-person sessions. David remains a violist with the New Westminster Symphony Orchestra. Much to David’s delight, the orchestra continues with in-person rehearsals but he is concerned that concert opportunities remain disrupted. Happily for David, the Camerata Strings ensemble at the VSO School of Music also remains active and gave a public performance at the Vancouver Playhouse earlier last month.

Apart from his music, David remains happy with his part-time employment with Meridian Farm Markets at their store in Tsawwassen. He has had his working schedule increased. As a grocery store worker, David is among “essential” workers and experiences no loss of work as a consequence of COVID-19.

As a change in David’s life, he has adopted a vegan lifestyle. Following David’s ASD specialist psychiatrist’s retirement, David continues to see his local support counsellor at Alongside You. Tina and Ted remain thankful for such readily at-hand support.

Tina among spring blossoms with David and Angela at Paulik Garden in Richmond

Tina continues to enjoy complete retirement from nursing but her health remains a challenge as she continues to suffer increasing back pain that imposes increasing limits on her general activity. She uses her walker when out and about, a great help when Tina has to walk more than a few steps. Tina did receive intermittent treatments giving tiny and only temporary relief. Finally, in January after a three and a half year wait, she will see a surgeon for a first appointment whom we hope to find helpful

Ted with Belle at the North 40 Park Reserve, Delta’s large off-leash dog park

With exercise and prescribed medication, Ted's health continues stable; in fact, he feels very well indeed. He remains a participant in the atrial ablation study out of VGH and periodically wears a monitor for a few scheduled weeks. Otherwise, he is bothered only by occasional colds.Ted continues to use long walks as his primary mode of exercise, usually twice daily with our Poodle, Belle, as a companion, every day of the week. Belle fills our lives with her spirited dog personality. These long walks allow Ted easily to exceed the recommended minimum of 10,000 steps per day. Otherwise, Ted enjoys his camera, often carrying it while walking Belle. His collection of photos, here around Ladner and south Delta, keeps growing.

Belle among summer buttercups at the Patterson Park off-leash area

COVID-19 remains the dominant unsettling factor in our lives. Even with eased restrictions, public indoor mask-wearing, physical distancing, and limited public gathering all remain our norm. All of us accepted COVID booster vaccinations throughout the year. On top of continuing COVID variability, flu is expected to be particularly nasty this winter. As usual, we all had our Flu shots soon after they came available.

A bit of drama came our way during the summer when Ted had a car accident. ICBC ruled our Mazda MPV as a write-off and we had to seek an alternative. The insurance settlement allowed us to replace it with a nice little used Kia Spectra.

Beyond the immediate family, we continue to enjoy our extended family, although mostly only virtually still. Email and Skype keep us in touch with John and Liz. COVID-19 restriction relaxation throughout the year did allow us to get together with Norman and Barbara on a few occasions, especially when Gareth and Rosy came up from Oregon to visit them. 

Weather variability extremes have become more to be expected with anthropogenic climate change but we really feel the past week’s sharp cold snap. Heavier than usual snowfall even proved challenging for Belle as she preferred being out on previously tromped paths over pushing through deep snow.

As winter returned to us, we watched South Delta’s annual return of vast flocks of Snow Geese, many now continued on to the Skagit River delta and/or California’s Sacramento Valley. Trumpeter Swans are back but not as readily noticed as with other winters. Resident Bald Eagles have now returned to renovate their nests. Very soon, trees along Highway 10 will burst into our annual crop of transient Bald Eagles. At home, our bird feeder remains frequented by Chickadees, House Finches, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, White Crowned Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, the occasional Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers, and Northern Flickers while Anna’s Hummingbirds use their feeder as frequently as ever (we have a heated feeder for the very cold weather). Steller’s Jays continue to take our steady supply of in-shell peanuts less frequently. The current snow has brought flocks of Red-Winged Blackbirds to our feeder. When we bought this house we gave it the name Ty Adar, Welsh for “House of the Birds,” and how right we were.

We remain attentive and concerned with events beyond our family. The attempted insurrection early in January to thwart the electoral will of our neighbours to our south gave a strong shock. As 2021 wound down we shared dismay with the rest of the world at the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders but were really alarmed last February 24th when Vladimir Putin actually had his military invade his peaceable neighbour on very spurious grounds. Ted eventually had to have some say, sharing his thoughts on his blog. We pray that peace may quickly be restored to a fully intact Ukraine with the ignoble invader driven out of that sovereign nation.

And now we look forward to 2023, to hope for continuing COVID-19 decline, a flu season not as severe as anticipated, a return to peace wherever conflict threatens people’s lives all around the world, and a more normal year.  Recent weeks, of course, have filled us with Christmas preparations.  We hope yours have gone well and we wish you a Blessed Christmas and all happiness in the New Year.

Merry Christmas with our love,

Ted, Tina, David, Angela, and Christy

P. S. This letter was scheduled, with intent, to arrive on Christmas Eve. 

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!        Happy New Year!        Felice Nuovo Anno!