Fort McMurray

Harv and I packed up our camper and a covered trailer full of equipment and headed up to Fort McMurray in northern Alberta last week.

For those of you unfamiliar with this town, it is the centre of the Oil Sands industry in Canada. It was a town built to accomodate its population of 30,000, but with the rapid expansion of the oil sands, it quickly outgrew its infrastructure and now boasts a population of 70,000 or more. Many of the people working there live in camps but those who try to find housing for their families find real estate and rental housing at a premium. Even hotel rooms are hard to come by although that has improved in the past year as more hotels have been built. Even so, the last time Harv was up there, his hotel rooms ranged from $200. - $300. /night! Not what you'd expect in a town 5 hours North of Edmonton.

Because of the high cost of hotels and meals, we opted to take the camper and I came along to do the cooking and to keep Harv company in the evenings and on the long drive (15-18 hours one way). I love going along when we take the camper. I bring books to read and various projects to keep myself busy and I love cooking in my little tin tent. This time I worked on one of my photo books and sorted through my old binder of recipes, throwing out unused recipes and organizing those I use regularly.

Fort McMurray is one of the few places I know that has traffic jams heading out to seemingly nowhere. The various oil companies have their operations in territory that can be 100 km from the town and there are 2 and 3 lane highways heading out to the oil sand sites and the same number of lanes coming back to the town. At shift change times, the highway is bumper to bumper with buses, pick-up trucks and service vehicles. Every so often all the vehicles on the road have to pull over to the shoulder in order to let trucks with MASSIVE loads go by.

Truck boxes for the largest trucks in the world, sections of new plant construction and nameless components that defy description - all have to be transported to the various sites.

Being in the oil filtration business, there are a lot of applications for our products in Fort McMurray. Harv's job this trip was to demonstarate how our filtration units can clean the oil in the wheel planetaries of some of those huge trucks. Because of the very viscous (thick) oil, this has been difficult to do. However our equipment did the job in an efficient and remarkable way. I'm very proud of my husband who devised a way to solve the problems
Here is a comparison of the dirty oil before filtration and the clean oil after it's been filtered. This oil is very expensive and when it is contaminated with dirt and water, it damages the working parts. So using our system can save the companies huge amounts of money in maintenence costs.

It was a successful trip and we are excited with the positive results and the enthusiastic response from our customer.

(I'd hoped to post a few more pictures but our server is down and with it, access to the pictures I need, so it will have to wait until later)

More on our trip in the next post.

Two days in Vancouver

Mothers Day this year fell on the same day as the opening of the Canadian Institute of Mining Trade Show in Vancouver. Klassen Specialty Hydraulics (our company) had a booth at this show and Harv and Rick had to attend the opening in the evening. So we decided to celebrate Mother's Day in Vancouver. Rick and Adele and Harv and I headed into the city after church and spent some time walking around the waterfront area and then had supper before heading to the show. It was a gorgeous day and it set off the beauty of Vancouver to perfection.

The show was held at the new Vancouver Trade and Convention Facility on the waterfront downtown. What a fabulous building! It's won numerous environmental awards as it uses many "Green" technologies and techniques including a marine habitat at it's base, and a six acre "living" roof that features 400,000 indigenous plants and grasses (we even saw wild strawberries in bloom) and 4 beehives. It is a massive building with so much space in its public areas.

The views from the Convention Centre look out to Vancouver's North Shore. The stylized drop of water on the plaza beside the Convention Centre represents the rain, and sea in Vancouver.

Harv and Rick posed in front of the massive mining truck tire that sat at the entrance to the hall.

A 5 member pipe and drum corps opened the Mining Show - making a very impressive entrance as they played their way into the building and down the long escalator.

For our booth, Harv and Rick designed this big mining truck tire and hub display to set off the filtration system Harv devised to deal with very high viscosity (thick) oil. It's received alot of attention and we are pleased with the customer interest it's generated. Didn't they do a great job?

Monday I took my Dad in to Vancouver to visit the trade show.

We took the sky train from Surrey and had an enjoyable and hassle free commute to the city.

After lunch we toured the show and then walked around the convention centre for awhile, admiring its wonderful design. The day was glorious and once again we couldn't help but be impressed by this beautiful city.

The Pan Pacific Hotel and its attached convention centre - known locally as "The Sails" If you haven't visited Vancouver on the West Coast of BC, try to do so. It must be one of the world's most beautiful cities.

Busy Busy

I looked back at my last post and realized it's already 2 weeks ago. Time is just flying by.

what Am I so busy with?

Oil Sands Trade Show - we dedicated a week to the trade show in Edmonton. It was tiring but so much fun and very worthwhile for future business. I even had a bit of time to do some shopping - found a few Christmas presents and 3 pair of new shoes!

Ladies' Bible study started last week. I had to find something to fill in for the material I'd ordered back in Sept and hadn't arrived yet. I found out yesterday that the company I'd ordered it through closed its doors right after I'd called in my order - why oh why didn't they email or call to let me know so I could get the material elsewhere.? I wasted hours trying to call/fax/email them and then more hours trying to round up enough books for the group. I'm still short a number of books so I had to photo copy pages and pages (Yes, I had permission).

We spent a weekend at our friend's 'cabin' on Little Shushwap lake - we were 7 couples altogether and had a lovely, relaxing time. We walked, ate great meals, played scrabble, funny rummy and golf, celebrated 2 birthdays, discussed ideas and caught up on each other's lives. Thanks to Gerry and Jan for their generous hospitality.

We bought hardwood for the dining room floor and so we've been moving furniture -table, 10 chairs, buffet and china cabinet (do I really have THAT many dishes?) which are now filling up the floor space in the living room and kitchen. The floor is done - it's gorgeous. I had a decorator friend come in and give me colour advice ( am I brave enough to follow through?). We want to do some electrical before painting and putting up trim and there's not enough time before the weekend so we have to move the furniture back in so we can have Thanksgiving dinner.here.

Our children are all coming home for Thanksgiving. Horray! We will have a housefull for 2 days and a partial housefull for a week. The kids from Seattle will be here Friday to Monday (our newest grandboy will have his first visit to PopPop and Nana's) and our kids from Saskatchewan will be here from Sunday to Saturday. Of course, our kids from Greendale will pop in often over that time.

Thanksgiving dinner is at our house on Sunday afternoon - extended family and a friend or two - we should number around 25. Yes - it will take place in the unfinished dining room. This is nothing new - if we'd waited to finish anything in our house before having company - we'd be very lonely people.

We are very excited to have the whole family home. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

Here they are - 2 of my precious "grands"

smiling in the new loft built to make room for the new addition to the family.

They are 5 now in just over 800 square feet - that's including the loft!

And very content to make it all work - as it does. They have proven that a family does not need all the stuff that fills our larger homes. The children have plenty of play space and toy storage, Dad and Mom have both made sacrifices - getting rid of some things and putting other things in storage but they have succeeded in making their home a welcoming, warm and open place with room enough for all who come.

And here is the newest one- checking out his admiring grandma.

I spent 3 days and 4 nights with my son, DIL and grandkids, helping out however I could. Mom needs to take it easy for awhile to recuperate from her C section so I lifted kids, put toys away, made beds, grocery shopped, drove Nate to preschool, made meals for the freezer and baked a few goodies. It was wonderful to have the time to spend with my DIL whom I love and admire so much for her patient way with her kids. We have had so many great talks about parenting, cooking, marriage, friendships, and spiritual things and I was blessed once again by her warm and generous heart.

It is also amazing to me to see my tall, gentle son being such a terrific husband and father - so loved by his wife and children. God has truly blessed him with spiritual wisdom and we are humbled by his godly example.

Grandprincess is 2 1/2 now and is at the age of testing mom and dad's limits but those big dark, dark brown eyes just melt me into a puddle. Here she is swinging in the hammock while singing along with Nana " Rock a bye Ella in the tree top.... when the wind blows the hammock will rock..."

Nate is 4 1/2 , a real helper already - a great conversationalist and is fascinated with his baby brother. He loves to hold him - although he always checks to see if he is "poopy" first - and can hardly wait til he grows enough to play with him.

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Sunday we are leaving for Edmonton where we have a booth at the Oil Sands Trade Show.

It is definitely worth the time and money spent to take part in these trade shows as we usually only need to make one or two sales to cover the cost of participating. We always come back with a long list of contacts - many of which result in sales later. It's hard work getting everything together, packed up into the truck, then unpacked, set up and then packed up again and driven back home to once again unpack.

I fill the role of "go-fer" ("Will you go for coffee? Can you go find more brochures?...") and help with recording contacts and putting together information packets while Rick and Harv draw in potential customers and do their sales pitch. I love watching my men work and am so proud of their technical knowledge, their integrity in sales and their dedication to customer service. It's made them very successful in what they do.

These pictures are fom last year's show. we had a lot of compliments on our booth. Rick did all of the gaphics for the booth and they equal or surpass the professionally done graphics in the other booths. We look forward to having another good show this week.

Fall Footnotes

Fall is definitely here. We travelled to Edmonton leaving on Sept.17th, and then went on to Saskatchewan getting back home on the 25th. As we drove through the rockies and the prairies evidence of the coming season was everywhere. The trees were turning golden and shedding their leaves with every breeze. The mountains had a fresh dusting of snow and the air was crisp and clear. Travelling through Alberta and Saskatchewan, we saw huge combines devouring the golden fields as the farmers gathered in their harvest. Everywhere we went we heard the honking of geese flying in formation overhead. We saw snow geese looking like a covering of snow on the blue, blue waters of the numerous lakes and sloughs. The skies were amazing with ladders of clouds descending to the horizon. Mornings demanded a warm jacket and a hot drink.

Now that we are back home, it is evident that Fall has taken up residence here as well. My plants on the patio look have lost their brightness and look cold. Our maple trees are distributing their curled up leaves all over the lawn and I need a jacket and, more often than not, an umbrella to walk from the house to the office. the forcast this week is pretty gloomy - rain, rain and, oh yes, more rain.

We were in Edmonton for the Oil Sands trade show. Trade shows are alot of work - deciding which units to display, what configuration the booth should take, what graphics and signage are needed and which brochures to bring. Then everything has to be packed into crates and bins and loaded on to our trailer. Setting up the booth takes the better part of a day and taking it down when it is over, takes almost as much time. However we feel it is well worth the effort because of the contacts we make. Ultimately we really only need to sell one system to make a trade show pay. This trade show resulted in better contacts than usual so we are very pleased.

After packing everything up and reloading the trailer, Harv and I headed further east to Dave and Chris' to see them and the grandboys. The house they bought is small and very old and in need of some TLC. But they have already made it into their home and are working hard to improve it even more. The boys are thriving! They love the freedom of living in a small town. They can ride their bikes around the block without Mom or Dad accompanying them and every destination in town is within walking or bike riding distance. Daddy rides his bike to work and is home for lunch everyday and Mommy and Kyle can walk Evan to school. There's a library, the church, a grocery store, a gas station, hardware store, insurance office - everything they need all within a few blocks. Harv and I played with the boys and helped out with a few projects while we were there and then after going to school with Evan to see his classroom on Monday morning we headed home.

Now it's time to get back into the swing of things. Care Group, Ladies Bible Study, office work, entertaining, yard work and the like. Summer's over and it's time to get oraganized and back into a semblance of routine.

I'm praying that I can also return to a regular time of Bible study and prayer. Why is it so difficult to maintain momentum in this area? My prayer is that I would once again experience that intense desire and passion for time alone with Him. If I were to graph this area of my life, there would be so many peaks and valleys. I don't understand it - the benefits and joys that come with a daily quiet time are huge - so why is it so difficult to maintain? I am ever grateful to God for His love, and forbearance with me - my God is so faithful even when I'm not!
Praise His Name!