2015: Vovó and Gaga in One Place

Our 2015 end-of-the-year blog is also available in Portuguese. Click on any picture to see a larger version. Previous editions are found here.

I started 2015 landing in Germany and making my way to Kevelaer, a small village close to Dortmund, where I visited with my friend Matthias Gall, his wife Anja, and their daughter Svea. Matthias and mine is a very unique relationship. We met in a flight from Houston to Amsterdam in December 2009. I was on my way to Cairo and Matthias and Anja were returning from a vacation in Cancun. Since then we have developed a prolific pen-pal relationship via email and chats and have been following each other's trajectory through life. This was only my second visit to them and the first time I saw Svea. To Daniel's delight I got to visit the Dortmund soccer stadium where his favourite soccer team and Marcus Reus, his favourite soccer player in the world, play. I also got to meet Torsten, one of Matthias best friends, while there. I find it fascinating to visit a small place in a foreign country when you have a relationship with locals and can really learn about how some of the people in the country live. This relationship with Matthias gave me more depth of understanding of Germany than any touristic visit to the major cities and sites could ever give me. In this January trip to Germany my destination was Dagstuhl where I had a week-long meeting with several colleagues.

Daniel was clearly not well during our Christmas-after-Christmas celebration a bit later in January. But he was so keen on having the celebration with his friends that he put a strong face and tried to appear normal. At 7 AM the next morning I drove him to the hospital where he was immediately put into oxygen. By the afternoon he had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and throughout that night the medical staff were fully on his case trying to stabilize him. He was on the highest-volume of oxygen that they could give him, receiving continuous nebulization for twelve hours to try to open up his lungs while they tried to compensate his blood pressure that was falling dangerously low because of the treatment. Daniel was conscious but often delirious. The Stollery hospital has a policy that a parent or grandparent has access to a patient any time. Thus I spent the night holding his hand. The next day he started turning around as quickly as he had gone down. As soon as they managed to open up his lungs and restore his oxygen level he started to look and act "normal" and three days later he was released directly from the ICU to go home. We found out that he had the flu and double pneumonia, which got very complicated because of his asthma. Daniel was one of the many cases in 2015 of patients that contracted the flu in spite of having received the flu shot. This was, by far, the scariest experience of our lives.

A good outcome of this episode is that Daniel earned the right to be treated by the Stollery Hospital Asthma Clinic, where he receives a quality of medical treatment and attention that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. PS: to our friends in countries with less-advanced health care systems, we have not spent a penny out of pocket for all the care that Daniel receives. The asthma clinic determined that Daniel has very strong allergic reaction to cats and thus we had to find a new home to Pickles, our most recent cat. From now on we will have to be a pet-less house --- Daniel is also allergic to dogs, horses, etc.

For Easter we took a family trip to Washington, DC. This was Daniel's first time there. Some of the high-points of the trip were for him to see the Hope diamond in the Museum of Natural History and the original Ruby Sleepers worn by Judy Garland for the filming of the Wizard of Oz --- one of Daniel's favourite movies --- in the Museum of American History. We visited the monuments, saw the White House, and had an indoor tour of the Capitol. After the visit to Washington we headed to Delaware where I participated in a surprise workshop to celebrate Guang R. Gao's 70th birthday. Gao was my pos-doc supervisor when we lived in Delaware and he is a great friend and mentor. We were very happy to celebrate with Gao and Peggy and to learn so much more about their history and trajectory, which is very fascinating.

Spring community-league soccer was lots of fun. Daniel was goalie and the Windsor Park team once again did very well. We have lots of fun with the group of families that have been in the same team for many years and we are very glad for the enthusiasm and organization of our coach Timur. With a German/Turkish/American background, Timur really gets soccer.

We had the nice surprise visit of Mak, Daniel's oldest sister, and her boyfriend Luke. They brought Leo, Daniel's nephew, to visit us for the first time. Then, in June, we made our way to Calgary where Daniel visited with both sisters and nephew at one place. In October, the middle-sister, Emily, made her way to our home in Edmonton with her family for their now traditional Fall visit where Daniel and Emily had a good time together.

In May I went to Hyderabad in India for a conference. The region was in the middle of one of the worst heat waves on record with many daily casualities. We stayed most of the time inside a five-star resort. But one day I ventured out with a new friend from Germany, Stephan Schlagkamp, who is also from Dortmund. Wandering by ourselves through the downtown of Hyderabad was an eye-opening experience. Later, in September, Stephan made his way to Edmonton for a visit with us. On that occasion we had a much more relaxed time and a very beautiful bike tour of the Edmonton river Valley with the Autumn colours in a full, magnificient, display.

From India I went directly to Brazil to work on my cooperation with colleagues at Unicamp and to visit the UFMG in Belo Horizonte where I saw Fernando Quintao and had a lovely dinner with Antonio Braga, Wanda, and "the boys". I took a side-trip during a holiday to Brasilia to visit my brother's family. My Mom and my sister also came from Porto Alegre and we had a rare family reunion. Marco and Fernanda have adopted two girls, Giovanna and Sofia. Also my nephew, Tiago, and Tatiana, have two little boys, Gael and Theo. Thus there were several children for me to meet for the first time.

In the Summer I went to a SPEC working meeting in Berlin --- I am in their board of directors. In the way back I met my mom, Dioraci, in Toronto. Scott and Daniel also made their way to Toronto and we started, from there, a tour of Quebec. In Toronto the highlight for my Mom was a visit to Chinatown, and for Daniel it was to visit the Hockey Hall of Fame. For Daniel, my Mom is "Vovó", the way you say Grandma in Portuguese. From there we went to Quebec City where we enjoyed visiting traditional shops and Vovó had fun watching street performers. We rented apartments in each place. In Quebec City we had a penthouse and could seat on the rooftop drinking Chimarrao, a traditional South-American green tea, and chatting for hours. In Montreal we had a traditional Montreal walk-up apartment and were delighted that my cousin Alessandra and her husband, Felipe, could join us for Chimarrão on the sidewalk as well as some dinners and sightseeing. The last stop in our tour of Quebec was Ottawa. We got an indoor tour of the Canadian parlament, visited museums, and saw the spetacular show of lights in front of the Canadian Parliament building. In grade six Daniel starts studying political systems in school. Thus with the visit to Washington DC and Ottawa this year, along with a visit to Brasília a couple of years ago, we wanted to give him a sense for the building structures where political debates take place.

We used trains and public transportation for this entire trip through Quebec. At the age of 76 Vovó became a frequent user of Facebook, which she uses to stay in contact with family and with her hidrogynastic and travel friends. It was very interesting to be on a train with her while she was on her laptop connected through Wi-Fi.

Scott's parents arrived in Edmonton on the same day that we returned from our tour of Quebec and we had only a few days to get everything ready for our big Summer celebration, which was very special this year with the presence of both Daniel's grandmothers. Scott's Mom is "Gaga" for Daniel --- that is the way he was able to say "Grandma" when he was little. Gaga was in charge of the decoration for the party and Vovó made a great cake. Daniel was so surprised and happy to discover that Vovó was a "profissional baker". After a week together at home in Edmonton, everybody departed. Vovó went back to Brazil, and Daniel went to spend two weeks with Gaga and Grandpa in Oklahoma, where he indulged in all the pleasures of life with grandparents: fishing, shooting guns, driving tractors, etc.

As soon as Scott and I were alone at home we started disassembling the house for a major remodeling. Contractors took the kitchen apart. What had started with the idea that I wanted some new wall ovens ended up, after several consultations with our designer, becoming a project that included re-painting all the walls, refinishing all the floors, replacing all the cabinets and some appliances, and even re-constructing the roof of the house! When we left for our Christmas break the project was "almost" done. And I even did get my new wall ovens!!

In October I went to Florianópolis for a conference. This trip gave me an oportunity for a rapid visit to UFRGS in Porto Alegre, and for me to see my Mom for the third time this year. Florianópolis is one of my favourite places to visit in the entire world. But usually I go there during the Summer beach season with family. Being there by myself and off season gave me an opportunity to discover other aspects of "Floripa" and even to make new friends. I managed to catch up with my great friend Horacio and with his daughter Tamara. It was one of the best visits that I had to the "Magic Island" even though I did not get to go to the beach once! I also had time to visit with my cousin Adriane and her family. They had the fantastic idea of organizing a picnic at a public square close to the conference hotel so that I could skip out of the conference at lunch time and visit with them while the kids played in the playground. The next day, under lost of rain, I met my aunt Lucia and uncle Aloisio, at a nearby shopping mall.

In the Fall Daniel decided to play indoor soccer instead of hockey. His main motivation was that most of his friends from school do play soccer and he wanted to be with them. He never developed lasting relationships in hockey because the composition of the teams change every year. I became a frequent driver for the "gang of six" to soccer practices and physical training. Sometimes I would invite them all over to the house a little earlier for a supper together and then we would drive to the practice on our minivan. It is amazing how much you learn about 11-year-old boys when you seat quietly driving a minivan. The jokes, the making up of language, the issues within school, etc. I have had lots of fun being one of the drivers for the gang and Daniel loves when it is me to drive them.

For Halloween, Daniel started showing his pre-teen dark side on his decoration of the pumpkin. Notice the use of power tools and the very dramatic design for the pumpkin.

Professionally, we are doing well. I was thrilled this year to be selected to receive the Faculty of Science Teaching Award at the University of Alberta. I continue working on boards and committees in an advisory capacity and continue to work with bright students. On the second half o the year I was on a sabbatical from my position at the university and am working as a consultant for IBM on the CORAL project that aims to deliver the two future fastest computers in the world to national laboratories in the USA. It has been great working with colleagues at IBM, some of them are former students. Scott continues to be more intensively involved with the Seven Degrees, his Wine and Liquour store. This year they have intensified their work supplying restaurants and fundraising functions and also started their own teaching on Wine and Beer tasting. They even got a visit from my Mom this year!

We are now in Oklahoma getting ready for another Christmas. Surprisingly, Daniel still insists on baking cookies for Santa, and thus we proceed with all the traditional Christmas magic. We hope that there is also some magic in your holiday season and also lots of fun and peaceful times.

Merry Christmas and a happy 2016!