Gerard & Kathy's tree, Dartmouth, NS

Hi there:

Below are pictures of Gerard and Kathy's tree which is 9 ft but you don't get an
appreciation for the size unless you are standing near it.

It is a fake(not real Lamaline) tree that came with the lights attached, unfortunately the replacement piece for the top did not arrive in time for Christmas.

From our home to yours, we wish you a wonderful Christmas and a very great
New Year!!

Gerard & Kathy

Marystown Christmas Trees

Hi
Below are photos of trees from Marystown, NL. The first is of Joan's, the second of Bernadette, Boyd and Therese's while the third one is of our tree. As you can see that is a typical Lamaline tree which was cut in the area of Piercey's Brook.

Enjoy!
Barry

Janice's Tree in Red Lake, ON

Hey all:

Below are photos of Janice's tree in Red Lake, ON. Also included in the photos is Millie, her cat who likes to climb the tree..

I'd like to send along Merry Christmas greetings from Gladys, Cheryl and I from Marystown and we hope you all have a great holiday season as well as a prosperous new year in 2011.

As well just a little reminder to those of you that check this out, please take out your camera and send me a shot of your tree. Please feel free to send me photos of you, your family and others. Pretty Please!!!!

HO!HO!HO!

Cheers,
Barry

Stacey Christmas Trees

Hey again:

The following is a list of places of people on my address list for this little blog. Let's see how many Christmas tree photos we can get from this list.

1. Marystown, NL
2. St. John's, NL
3. Upper Gullies, NL
4. Dartmouth, NS
5. Moncton, NB
6. Bolton, ON
7. Brampton, ON
8. Bradford, ON
9. Etobicoke, ON
10. Mississauga, ON
11. Red Lake, ON
12. Orangeville, ON
13. Toronto, ON
14. Medicine Hat, AB
15. Victoria, BC

If I have left out anyone, please let me know as you know I am getting a little older and a little forgetful too.

Enjoy.
Barry

Merry Christmas from Marystown, NL

Hello everyone:

I do hope everyone is in the Christmas spirit and have things pretty much in control for the Holiday season. Times flies by fairly quickly these days and it seems like only a blink since Christmas 2009.

There is not much news to report on this area of the Rock. We are still up to our normal things - work and more work it seems. Well for Gladys at least as she is working all the time. I didn't get called back this fall as there isn't much winter and business is slow. We'll see what happens after Christmas. So I go for a walk for an hour or so each day to try to stay in shape. So far the fall the weather has been great with temperatures a lot warmer than normal. We haven't had any snow here yet - knock on wood - and there isn't any in the forecast for the next couple of weeks. So it's looking like a green Christmas in Marystown this year.

Cheryl is coming home for Christmas on December 23 and flies back to Toronto on January 3. She has never missed a Christmas at home so we always look forward to her coming. As well her boyfriend Greg is coming for a few days on December 28. He is from the Toronto area (Ottawa originally, I believe) and since this is his first trip to Newfoundlad there is a screech-in planned for sometime during his visit. He may be a bit overwhelmed with all the Staceys and Brennans, eh!

Mom is doing fairly well, I suppose. She was diagnosed with diabetes a little while ago as her sugar levels were up a fair bit. Dr. Roberts put her on a pill to help control it and in about three weeks her sugars have gone from the 12's and 13's to the 7's. Hopefully those pills will keep it under control. Diet would probably control it but it's hard to get her to eat the right things. Add to that her not being willing to do what has been asked of her sure has made the last while very difficult for those around her. She doesn't appreciate how good she has it. And she doesn't have much good to say about Joan and Bernadette - the two people who are always there for her. If you are talking to her please make mention of that and hopefully we can make her see that. Everybody has a life of their own and she can be very demanding and unappreciative of the efforts being made on her behalf.

On a more positive note let's see if we can make Christmas for the Stacey clan a little closer. I would like to do an entry on Christmas trees we have up this year and include those from everyone on my list from Marystown, NL to Victoria, BC and all points in between. So I am asking you all to take out your cell phones or digital cameras and send me a photo of your Christmas tree to post here. Let's see how many we can get there! I will check out a list of places on my list and see if we can fill them all in.

Thanks for doing this and I look forward to getting some photos of family and pets to post here as well. You know I will be posting some photos.

So to one and all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year 2011.

Cheers
Barry

Hurricane Igor Pounds Marystown

Hi all:

Just a little note to update you on the effects of Hurricane Igor who pounded the Burin Peninsula and Eastern Newfoundland on Monday and Tuesday past. It was probably the worst ever storm to hit our area. There are reports of 239 mm of rain in St. Lawrence, 197 mm in Bonavista and 120 mm in St. John's as well as wind gusts to 137 in St. John's and 130+ in Grand Bank. We didn't seem to have high wind gusts here in Marystown but we had lots of rain. You have to remember that all this rain came in less than a 24 hour period so the town's infrastructure just wasn't able to keep up with the amount of water that fell. From some of the photos of Marystown below you can see how much water we had to deal with.

We had a little water in one end of our basement - in the laundry room. I think it may have come in through a window there as the window is sent in a little window well and it filled with water. There was not water there at 4:00am but by 8:00am we did have some. I had it cleaned up in a couple of hours. We got off very lightly as you may have seen from some of the video on national tv news shows.

Even though there was a state of emergency here in town on Tuesday, we fared much better than other towns especially those in the Clarenville area. There was a lot more destruction of trees, roads, bridges in those areas. However, a lot of people had up to 5 feet of water in their homes. I talked to one lady last night whose basement flooded as the storm sewer backed up and she had 21 inches of water come in. She had just done her basement last year and it looks like everything was spoiled.

On the Burin Peninsula, the road is washed out between St. Lawrence and Lawn, as well as bewteen Grand Bank and Marystown, the road to Petite Forte, the road to Terrenceville and the bridge on the BP highway at Rattle Brook collapsed so we are cut off from the rest of the island. These other places are isolated. On Thursday, gas stations are out of gas and there isn't a lot of fresh food to go around. Apparently there is a "bailey bridge" on the way and should be in place tomorrow afternoon to allow trucks through with food, gas, etc. This is a portable prefabricated bridge used by the military to temporarily put in place without any special tools or equipment but allows fairly heavy equipment to pass over it. Right now the target to get that in place is Friday afternoon.

However right now reports are that it will take over $100 million dollars to makes repairs to roads, homes, etc. over the next few weeks and months.

Below are some photos taken by other people of the Marystown area as well as a few from our golf course which received no structural damage but did have a lot of flooding. It should be open again by Friday or Saturday.

Hope this gives you all some idea of what we faced. I have included on the photo the area shown there.

Take care.
Regards.
Barry

Nicole's Screech-in Party

Me again:
We had a great time the last night that Cheryl and Nicole were here in Marystown as we decided that since Nicole had done the "best kind" in taking part in all of our Newife related activities she deserved to be "Screeched In". She tried foods such as trout, cod cheeks and tongues, toutons, jiggs dinner, salt fish, fresh fish, caribou and practised her Newfoundland sayings all week.
In a traditional Newfoundland "Screech In" you have to talk, sing, eat and drink like a Newfoundlander and kiss the almighty "Cod" on the lips. Complete all these tasks successfully and you will be dubbed an "Honarary Newfoundlander". I am happy to report that Nicole did complete all those tasks with flying colors and "by the power invested in me", with the tap of an oar I officially dubbed her an "Honarary Newfoundlander".
Below I have included some photos of each step of the ceremony as well as a couple of other photos taken a little while after. Included in some of the photos are Boyd, Therese, Gladys's brother Gerard and his son Evan on the guitar who provided the music for "Ise da Bye" which Nicole had to sing on her own.

1. Talk - say in good old Newfoundland English, "Fine, bye long may your big jib draw!"

2. Sing - sing the first verse of the traditional Newfoundland song, "Ise da Bye"

3. Eat - down a chunk of Newfoundland steak - bologna

4. Drink - down an ounce of Newfoundland Screech

5. Kiss the cod on the lips. Long enough to get a good photo.

6. Tap on the shoulders with an oar to complete ceremony.

7. Present the Official Certificate

Enjoy.
Barry