yeeeehaw.

happy birthday to me.

what better reason to have a bbq than the fact that parents are in town & it's my birthday?

yay for omis & opas!

we were so excited to have mum & dad at our place for a while. they stayed at queen's landing guest house, a lovely victorian b&b that they highly recommend.

while they were here, we had many adventures, like lunch on the avon in stratford followed by brioche and a performance of twelfth night at the stratford festival.

we also took a trip to doon heritage village, where we saw a train, horses, petted goats, pumped water and tried not to melt in the heat.

we took a trip to st. jacob's market where we ate cinnamon buns and pretzels and mateo got a new diego hat.

probably my favourite adventure was at the cambridge butterfly conservatory, a stunning tropical place filled with birds and butterflies.

many books were read and laughs were had.

we miss you already like crazy omi & opa!!

xo.

cousins.

kampens took over kw (sort of) during the mennonite church canada conference at university of waterloo in early july. it was good to see keith & laura...

... and melanie.
it was so so good to see you guys!! come again soon!

xo.

oh happy canada day.

on july 1, our little family walked to the new apostolic church around the corner for their annual canada day picnic & fun day.

there was popcorn.

lots of popcorn.

& pretty stained glass windows to look at.

we ate watermelon cubes, petted snakes, and listened to the steel drum band.

canadian, eh?

xo.

abc 123

if you want to see david in his jackson 5 lipsyncing debut, click here.

(he's the tall one in the middle.)

mateo knows a girl named maria.

we know a lovely german girl named maria. she came to canada with her boyfriend markus so he could do his master's in german. she spent her early months here as an almost full-time nanny for us, & she & mateo fell in love with eachother. she is heading back to germany soon, & we will miss her very much, especially mateo, who loves his "mamia" with all his heart.

bis bald!!

xo.

kitchens are for baking and other things.

gone swimmin'.

hot sticky days are best spent.

farewell to pastor darren.

darren kropf has been the assistant pastor at breslau mennonite church for almost 4 years. he recently got married & is making some other major changes in his life, like finding a new career. to celebrate his time at breslau we had a potluck & soccer game on a friday night.

best part of said potluck?

watermelon, of course...

& the seniors' table. :)

master of awesome.

today i received my master's degree in german from the university of waterloo.

although i have already started my phd, (one of the reasons why this blog has been sorely neglected), it was important to me to mark the completion of my master's degree by attending my convocation.

i did not attend my undergraduate convocation. i don't know why exactly, i guess i just didn't feel like it was a very big deal. but this... this was different. afterall, i had a baby in the second semester of this degree. the valedictorian talked about being changed since our arrival, and that's really true in my case... i am fundamentally different. i am a better scholar, with a few more thoughts in my head, a greater appreciation for all the things i do not know... also, i am a mother. something that has changed me more fundamentally than any research i could ever do, no matter how ground-breaking.

so yes, i attended the university of waterloo's 102nd convocation. so did dave. his principal generously granted him the day off so that he could celebrate with me. it was so important to me to have dave there, because he's been with me every step of this academic journey, keeping me grounded and helping me to keep things in perspective.

for everyone else who couldn't be there, dave played photographer and has given you a pictoral version of the day:

in my opinion, the university of waterloo needs to hire a designer to deal with this mustard yellow problem they seem to have.
program. 102nd convocation in arts.

can you spy my name?
david looking pensive.
the procession begins. (tetyana reichert is the last red-robed person)
here i come.

lawrence hill, author of "the book of negroes" stands to receive his honourary doctor of letters. he also addressed the graduates.

tada!
dr. grit liebscher & dr. james skidmore, chair of german.
posing with porcelino outside modern languages building.
the story goes that rubbing porcelino's nose brings good luck. so, i kissed him.

thanks for the love & support.

xo.