Andrew, Katherine, Edward and Aaron: June 2015

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Summer Travels 2015: Thornhill and Waterloo June 2015

Climbing at the playground near cousin Audrey's North York home in Toronto. Amazing park space with lots of new amenities, including a neighbourhood pizza oven for community gatherings.

The next day, Baby Lee was born, a brother for Audrey, at Mount Sinai hospital. He decided to arrive so fast that he was almost born in Stan and Margaret's BMW.

. Luckily, Stan's speedy driving got them to the hospital just in time, with twenty minutes to spare! Welcome to the family!

That following week, Grandpa Lee took up the driving duties of taking Edward to his tennis camp at the local Thornhill Tennis club. Thank you Grandpa!

Mom and Dad were in Waterloo for Andrew's COSY conference. We brought the boys up for a night to enjoy the hotel's pool and to have dinner with us.

Andrew's talk at the conference was well received and later that week, there was a banquet held to honour Andrew's PhD supervisor, Dr. George Elliott's 70th birthday. Memorable toasting and roasting took place as well as the awarding of the Israel Halperin award. Lovely evening.

On our last weekend in Ontario, Canada, we found the time to visit Cousin Lydia in her new home in Oakville. Her twins, Paul and Theresa, are now one years old. It was great to see Justin and Chelsea there and celebrate Justin's recent fourteenth birthday with some cheesecake. Audrey is sitting beside Chelsea in the top right, now three years old. Very happy to spend some time with the Lee family.

Fortunate enough to be at the Lee residence for Father's Day this year, we celebrated it with a family dinner and remembering it by taking this family portrait, blessed with the latest addition, Baby Lee.

The next day we made one last family outing, driving to Niagara Falls for the afternoon. We walked by the Falls on the Canadian side and took this family picture. Then we bought tickets to the Tour Behind the Falls to take the tour's elevator down below underground. What an awesome view and sensational feeling to be right beside the cascading water. Incredible. The next day we headed back home to West Lafayette, Indiana.

Summer Travels 2015: Visiting Prince Edward Island June 2015

During the first couple of weeks in June, we flew to Charlottetown so that Andrew could give a CMS (Canadian Mathematical Society) plenary talk at UPEI and to visit with the Toms' of Charlottetown. After the conference, we took in some beach time at the Island's national parks where the boys enjoyed catching and releasing local jellyfish providing loads of fun.

At a neighbouring park to Nana and Grandad Toms' Charlottetown condo, Edward enjoyed some good old tree climbing, with the setting sun's light shedding a lovely hue.

It was actually Valerie and Dave's 45th anniversary this past D Day. We were lucky the timing was just right so we could be there to celebrate with a family BBQ dinner at Ian and Jannah's home. This is all of us on their front steps.

We decided to take in the local sights by land and sea on the tourist vehicle called the Harbour Hippo which provided an animated announcer who informed us about all sorts of Charlottetown facts. It was somewhat choppy out there but the boys and girls were very brave (especially Julie), a great first for all of us, including Nana and Grandad and Andrew.

Saying goodbye at the airport. We're actually going to be seeing them again this summer due to a Toms family trip to Disney World at the end of July. See you all soon!

Our Background

Hi! I'm Katherine and I will be doing most of the posts on this blog. I'm from the Greater Toronto Area, primarily growing up in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. My husband Andrew, was born in Montreal, however grew up in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, also in Canada. Andrew and I met in Kingston in 1996 while both studying at Queen's University. During a trip the following year to the Greek Islands, we happily got engaged underneath a lovely full moon on Santorini. In Canada, Andrew continued his studies, finishing with a Ph.D. in pure math, upon which we got married in Toronto on Canada Day in 2001 at Vaughan Estate at Sunnybrook. We then travelled and spent a postdoctoral year in Copenhagen, Denmark, and immediately upon our return to Toronto, were happy to announce the arrival of our first son, Edward, in February of 2004. We then moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick for two years where Andrew was an assistant professor at the University of New Brunswick. Then we moved to Toronto for four years where Andrew later became an associate professor at York University. During this time, our second son, Aaron, was born in December of 2009 while we lived in Markham, Ontario. Finally, our family moved to West Lafayette, Indiana where we've now been for about eight years with Andrew as a full professor in the Purdue math department. Edward is thirteen years old attending ninth grade in the fall and Aaron is eight years old now in grade three.