Just for you Dustin!

Tonight was family night again, so some special things were planned to include Dustin from afar!

First, Elisa roasted a carrot over a candle for Dustin
(he would have done it first, fire is his fav)



Then we thought about you Dustin, as we ate ice-cream & chocolate!
Boy, he would have enjoyed this!



Then the best part of all, a trip down memory book lane!
Are you ready Dustin?

It all started with Elisa finding a family favorite picture book
while she was at the library.
(hey, what was she doing in the picture book section,
I thought she was researching an essay!)
Elisa thought that we could read it together on our planned family night,
mom loved the idea!
So, Dan using his literary voice to capture the essence of this tongue twisting tale, spun us back down memory book lane once more.

Dustin, I'm sure you remember this rhythmical name,
"Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo" which according to the book is a Chinese name which means "the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world!"

The book title is "Tikki Tikki Tembo" by Arlene Mosel

Cheese Please!

What images come to mind when you think about cheese's like; Brie, Camembert, Old aged Cheddar, Edam, Feta, Gorgonzola, Gouda, Gruyere, Havarti, Limburger, Monterey Jack, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Provolone, Ricotta, Romano, Roquefort, or Swiss?

Perhaps, melted mozza on pizza, brie on bagette., swiss on rye,
parmesan on ceaser salad!

We have discovered a cheese not listed here that has an amazing entertaining quality.

A cheese that is not particularly famous or well known, it's not really much to look at, in fact it's not particularly appetizing in appearance, it's very pale in colour, and unattractively irregular in shape, but loads of fun hidden in every bite.

The secret key factor is to have company whilst eating this coagulated cheese.

I researched this cheese on Wikipedia and found this quote,

"The New York times in 1911 reported on an ancient Celtic song, dating from the 12th century, that mentioned cheese ----, perhaps the first musical reference to the most musical of cheeses^[2]:"

So what's the big deal!
This cheese actually "squeaks" when you eat it.

It's especially fun when you have guests dining with you, who have never experienced squeaky cheese before.
We ask our guests if they have ever eaten "squeaky cheese"?
They usually have quite a questioning look on their face, followed with an "are you serious" look!
Then we go to the fridge and bring out the
cheese curds.

Note: if the curds have lost their squeak, microwave them for a short time (sec's) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese_curds



Sephia & Cheese Curds from Birchwood Dairy

Jasmine In The Air

Dustin this blog is for you!
Just so you feel connected to family night at Jasmine Gardens.
Dad even got you a Chinese cookie with a message.

David calling from Thailand!

Project Purple

Rene the master builder.

The master builder incognito!



Unfinished birdhouses incognito!



Interesting scrap or not?



Treasure trove ala birdhouse.

In Search of Eagles

Last Saturday, Rene, Linda, Elisa and the dogs, Raphael & Jordan River ventured out in search of eagles. Rene was eager to try out his new closeup camera lense. We heard that you could find lots of eagles at Harrison Mills, near Hemlock Mt. It soon became obvious that the eagles were finished feeding on the salmon run because they weren't there. We tried Kilby beach, but all we found was a lot of decaying salmon on the beach. The biggest challenge was to keep the dogs way from the salmon, they found great delight in rolling on the carcasses
(guess who had to have a bath when we got home!).
All said and done, we saw a few eagles here and there but we didn't capture any on camera, but we had fun and that's what counted!



Rene's oil patch that he was photographing in above pic.

Elisa found a vertical salmon head to photograph!




These last 3 pic's are Rene's, tree burl, swamp, Sumas prairie

More Dyke Artistry

Zuparsis, Zedupancic, Zuplancic, Zupansic,

Since Dan recently blogged about "Fun with Family ", I thought it would be appropriate to talk about "Family Heritage".

I will start with the Zupancic side of the family
It goes way back to my teen years, I (Linda) always thought that if would be fun to marry someone with an exotic, unusual surname........well it happened!
Not that I married Rene Zupancic for his last name, but it helped! lol

Over the years we have discovered some advantages of an unusual name...
1. If the phone rings and they can't pronounce your name, it's a telemarketer for sure.
2. A conversation starter...What nationality is your name?
3. Being last on most lists: voting lists, telephone lists, school lists, graduation
commencement lists, just head for the back page, the back row, the back stage.
4. Being last is great when you are running late
5. We can be found easily, everyone in the phone is related.

....and some challenges of an unusual name!
1. When you are spelling our last name Americans have no idea what you are talking about. When you say "z" they write down "zed" because "z" to them is "Zee".
resulting in Zedupancic, now that's more exotic than we need!
2. Some people are intimidated by the name, they hesitate in pronouncing it,
for fear of being wrong.
3. You get used to spelling your name for people.
4. You learn to laugh at the misspellings of your name.
(we are collecting those misspellings, as you can see from the title of this blog)

Where did this name come from anyways?
Well for those of you not interested in history, just skip this part of the blog.


6th century AD-
Pagan Slavic tribes invaded the Western Balkan Peninsula of modern day Bulgaria, (Yugoslavia) Serbia and much of Bosnia. They were not just raiders, but colonists and agriculturalists. They established settlements all the way down to the southern tip of Greece.
This conquered territory of the Baltic was very mountainous with a terrain ranging from dense forest and fertile lowlands to a dry and arid landscape.
As pagans they worshiped a variety of gods. To this day in Yugoslavia, some of the gods names are honoured as place names; the god of horned animals, Veles, or the thundergod, Pirun or Pir. Later, they converted to Christianity through the Roman Emperor Constantine.

The local Slav population was organized on a tribal basis: starting with the family unit "zadruga";
families were united as clans, and clans as tribes "plemena"; and the territory of a tribe, called a "zupa", which was ruled by a territorial chief called a "zupan".
So when you add the "cic" which means "son of" onto "zupan", you get "zupancic", the "son of the territorial chief".
By the middle of the 9th century, the Slav (Serb) ruled territories that had been established, gathered together into a kind of Serb princedom under a Grand Zupan.
Towards the end of the middle ages, the old Slav title for a regional chief, Zupan had survived, but it was no longer a princedom. It was somewhere in between the upper levels of state and the lower levels of office. Today, the name of "Zupancic" is more commonly referred to as "son of the mayor".

Okay, you made it through some history about the Zup's.
This next section is a more detailed look at the history of the Western Baltic territory that was to become Zup land.(Yugoslavia)

Let's go back a bit, who was there before the Slav's invaded?
In the 1st century AD, the earliest inhabitants of the Western Baltic lands were a collection of tribes known as the "Illyrians". They were mainly stockbreeders of sheep, pigs and goats.
Where did the Illyrians come from? One theory suggests that during the fall of the city of Troy (the demise of the Hittite Kingdom), there was a large scale movement of peoples from the Eastern Mediterranean, coinciding around the same time that the Illyrians arrived in the Balkins.
The Illyrian lands came under Roman rule and Roman establishments were gradually settled.
The Illyrians themselves were heavily recruited into the Roman legions, their lands were the military powerbase for governors and generals, who later became Roman Emperors.
By the 9th century all their land was firmly settled by the Romans.
*The Apostle Paul preached in the Roman province of Illyricum

The Germanic tribes of Goth began invading the Roman Balkans in the 3rd century; inflicting massive defeats on Roman armies in the late 4th century. But in the late 5th century they mainly withdrew to the kingdom which they established in Italy. They were finally driven out in the 6th century and that Balkan land became part of the Byzantine Empire.

During the 6th century 2 new populations entered the Balkans: the Avars (a Turkish tribe from the north) and the Slavs.
At first their histories were intertwined: the Avars, though less numerous seemed to have had the upper hand because of their superior military skills. The Avars were eventually driven out of the Balkans in early 7th century by Byzantine, Croat and Bulgarian armies, so the Slavs were the ones who predominated in the end.

By 620 AD a Slav population was well established in Modern Bulgaria, Serbia and much of Bosnia (Yugoslavia). The Slavs had absorbed the Illyrians, Celts, Romans, Goths, Alans, Huns and Avars. This Slav invasion established a linguistic identity which eventually replaced all other languages.

A few years later, 2 new Slav tribes arrived on the scene: the Croats and the Serbs. The Croats were invited into the Balkans by the Byzantine Emperor to drive out the troublesome Avars.
The Serbs were not engaged to fight the Avars but were connected to the Croats and entered in the same period.
In 1019 AD a new powerful Byzantine Empire forced the Serb and Croat rulers to acknowledge Byzantine sovereignty.
In 1080 AD all these lands were consolidated into a single Serbian Kingdom (including Bosnia).
By the 13th & 14th century the Serbian Kingdom had grown into a militarily powerful state.
Throughout the middle ages they enjoyed some peace in the midst of civil wars, shifting allegiances, conquests and invasions by the Turkish and Hungarian armies.
Power shifted back and forth with the Turks and Hungarians. For example, modern day Sarajevo was developed from a fortress and a village by the Turks in 1448.

That's it for now,
I haven't studied the modern history of the Western Baltic lands yet.

Our heritage, where we have come from is very important!
Do you know your family history?
Let's take a poll, tell me where?