Wordless Wednesday

 

COVID Christmas

Well, I'm sure Christmas 2020 will be one most of us will remember from all the rest.  We were asked once again to reduce our close contacts but single people were permitted to have close contact with one other household so I'm still bubbling with my sister and brother-in-law.

On Christmas Eve, we made two porch visits to drop off gifts to my nephew and neice and their families. We dropped off gifts at my nephew's place just before lunch. After this visit, I went back to my place to get the shrimp chowder started as I was hosting Christmas Eve dinner for the three of us. My sister and brother-in-law came over later in the afternoon to pick me up to go to my niece's place. There we played a ring toss on the antlers game.  

After playing ring toss, we headed back to my place for shrimp chowder, meat pie with salad and lemon tarts for dessert.  Usually my nephew hosts a big family dinner on Christmas Eve with both sides of the family joining in, so this was a quiet dinner but still nice. This was the first time I've made an Acadian meat pie. It didn't taste like my mum's but it was still good.

Christmas morning at my place was pretty much the same as in other years with the dogs opening their gifts. Only Keltic really gets it; I think Liam might figure it our but all he wanted to do was rip paper. Keltic even managed to get into one of the bags of treats. I noticed before he got too many out. 

Christmas Morning - opening gifts

Then it was off to my sister's place for brunch, presents, virtual gift opening and dinner. Quiet without my sister's children and grandchildren but three dogs helped keep things a little lively. We had a lovely brunch with appetizers, eggs, bacon, cranberry orange bread, coffee and Mimosas. Then we opened our socks. We had decided only to do gifts for the boys this year and just stocking stuffers for the adults but some of the stocking stuffer gifts were pretty extravagant. Then we did a virtual gift opening with my neice and her boys. They had put our gifts aside so we got to watch the boys open them. You can see my great nephew opening one of his gifts at the Baby Yoda link below; I had signed it from the dogs.

Our view

The view on the other side.

Opening Baby Yoda

Dinner was great, even though we had just the three of us, there was enough food for an army; even the dogs got to have some Christmas Dinner.

Since it was a crazy COVID Christmas, my sister had decided we should do Ugly Christmas sweaters so we had to take some pictures with our Ugly Christmas sweaters, masks and silly hats.

The last picture is with the napkins my brother in law had picked out. He hadn't realized, when they were folded, that they were a picture of Santa's underwear; my sister noticed right away.  

The evening ended with taking pictures of Liam by the snowmen where we usually try to get a picture of the grandkids.  

It was a quiet Christmas but we still were very blessed with family and good health.  Let's hope that 2021 will be much better and that we can have our family close once again.

Already

Today, it is already a year since I had to let Beckett go, how time flies even when you're not having fun. I chose the song A Thousand Lovers by Lynn Miles when I did one of his videos and the lyrics "But there's nothing in this world tonight that's going to take away my pain" still are true some nights.  The song that really tears at my heart now though is Joni Mitchell's River; it's one of those songs I'd heard before but never really heard the words. The lyrics "I went and lost the best baby I ever had" and "I made my baby say goodbye" really get to me. I know it was for the best to let him go but it's still so hard that I had to make the decision.

Beckett was my first heart dog, who knows maybe he's the last. I needed him and I believe he needed me. I always felt Beckett looked through me to see my heart and soul. It's not that I don't love the others and that it didn't hurt to lose each one of them but I so miss the connection I had with Beckett. It's not the same right now with the others, Keltic I sometimes don't even like even though he is a character, Teddy still feels a little like someone else's dog and Liam hasn't been with me long enough. 

Agility Trial Champion of Canada

Tucker and Beckett

Ceilidh, Tucker and Beckett

I gots your chin, mums. 

Fall photo shoot with Keltic and Beckett

Last photo together - 17 Dec 2019

We had a wonderful life together with so many memories. He was an awesome agility dog despite my limitations as a handler.  Agility Trial Champion of Canada, Silver Versatility, Silver Award of Merit, Finalist at the Canada Cup, Beckett took me farther in agility than I thought possible. He loved to play with me; wish he was playing with me still. 

Oh Christmas Tree!

So earlier this week I got my Christmas Tree and I decorated it yesterday.  Each year when I decorate my tree I think of the many family and friends that I have spent time with over the holidays.  

Each of my dogs has an ornament on the tree. This year, Beckett has an angel on the tree too. A surprise gift from a friend after Beckett had passed. I can tell you I cried when I opened it. It was the first ornament that I put on the tree this year. 

I put my other fur angel ornament up in behind the Beckett angel. If you can't read it; it says "My angel has four legs and fur". 

I had to add two ornaments for the new additions to the pack, Teddy and Liam. I also decided to get one for me, too. I think they'd say it was true, even if I have to say so myself. 

Teddy

Liam

As I said there are many memories on the tree but especially of my mum and dad. There are ornaments that they gave me and ones that I had given to them that now adorn my tree. These two birds were stocking stuffers I gave them one year. Funnily, the red cardinal is the one for Mother with Love and the other bird's tag says to a Special Dad. You'd would have thought that they would have made the male cardinal an ornament to a dad. 

There are many ornaments that are ones my parents gave to me. The little squirrel in the acorn they gave to me after I bought my second house. The Air Force Academy one, they brought back for me from their trip to Western US, including Colorado.  I had drawn a picture of the Academy Chapel shown in the ornament in Grade 7 as part of an assignment in math class. The glass ornament is from a set of four. They bought them for me at the World's Largest Christmas store in Frankenmuth, Michigan. It's getting harder to find nice glass ornaments like them any more. 

New Home

Air Force Acadmeny

Bronner's, Frankenmuth, Mich

I did get one other new ornament this year. This one I bought from Etsy, supporting a local crafter here in Ontario. I think it's very appropriate for 2020. Hope you can read it!

2020 Ornament. 

After all the ornaments are put on the tree, I use Victorian tinsel to fill up bare spaces and add a little bit of glitter to the tree. The final touch is to place my snowmen at the base of the tree. And there you have it, my Christmas tree for 2020 with all it's Christmas Tree treasures and memories! It's beautiful, even in this pandemic year.

Six!

Hey there, it be me Liam. I be six already, six months that is. I has growed a lot. Mums says she hopes I don't growed too much more. She maded dis picture of me so youse can see how much I growed.

Liam - 10 weeks to 6 months

Mums told me about my brudder-before Beckett and said I gots big shoes to fill but I gots big feet so I think I can fill da shoes, if'n I have to wear shoes. 

Mums tooked me to a store for my half birdday. I had ta get my nails trimmed but dat wasn't too bad. I gots a new wubba toy and some Scooby snacks to share with Keltic man and Teddy buddy. 

She also maded us some cookies but we didn't gets many as Mums says dat there for Crispmas. I don't know who Crispmas is but I sure hopes he shares his cookies.

Mint Carob-dipped dog cookies

Today Mums also maded some cookies for the peoples too. She says we doggies can't have any of those cookies, dat they is too rich for us.

Christmas Shortbread

Mums says we is going to get a tree soon so she putted away my x-pen as she says it would be in da way.  I gets to eat in the kitchen with Keltic and Teddy now. She says da tree is for Crispmas too, I don't know why he gets a tree. We already has trees outside in our yard.

Mums says if I be a good boy dat Santa Paws will bring me pressies.  I sure want to meet dis Santa Paws guy.  I think I been purdy good. I hasn't chewed up to many things, mostly just toilet paper. Well dats all I got to say for now. I promise I'll be back. See youse all, Liam. 

Tasty Travel

Inspired by friends who over Thanksgiving weekend planned menus from restaurants in Paris, I decided to travel to London for a nice dinner. Since we can't physically travel, I selected a restaurant in London called The Ivy and used their menu for the inspiration for the dinner.  I invited my sister and brother-in-law to join me for this Taste of London travel dinner.  

Except for the Parmesan Zucchini, I hadn't ever made any of these recipes so it was quite an experiment, but it all turned out quite well. Timing the courses of meal is the hardest thing to do. I did most of the preparation throughout the day so I wasn't all doing it in the last couple hours.  I made the filling for the bacon and leek tarts on Saturday as the recipe I used says it could be made up to three days before. I made the English toffee cakes the day before the dinner, then all that had to be made on the day of the dinner was the toffee sauce. 

Since the Ivy is quite a formal restaurant, I decided that we should dress for dinner. The dress code was "outrageous" as you can see we were quite outrageous but still classy.

The boys even dressed up too. They were our "wait staff"; but all they did was wait. They didn't even get any leftovers.

"Wait" staff

So onto the dinner, the appetizer was a Bacon Leek tart made with goat cheese. These were really good, definitely worth making again. 

Bacon Leek Tart

We had a little bit of a pause before the main course as the cod fillets were still a little frozen so they took longer to cook.  The main course was Crab crusted cod fillets plated on a white bean, lemon and clam stew. The Ivy menu uses cockles but those are hard to find here. It was served with Citrus steamed Broccoli and the Parmesan Courgettes. (Brit speak for Zucchini.)  Everything turned out quite well.  The white bean stew actually surprised me, it was quite flavourful. 

Crab-crusted Cod

Lastly there was dessert, English Sticky Toffee Pudding with French Vanilla ice cream. We only needed a short pause here as all that needed to be done was to bring the sauce to a boil for a couple minutes and warm up the cakes.  

English Toffee Pudding

I had three white wines ready and chilled for our dinner. My sister selected the Pinot Grigio, I hadn't noticed the name when I purchased it but it was rather appropriate.

Corona wine?

We had a good time with this Outrageous Taste of London dinner.  I have made a promise to myself that I will go back to London someday so that I can eat at The Ivy wearing the same dinner jacket I had on for this pandemic dinner.