ARBRE GÉNÉALOGIQUE DES FORTIN - Shaena's family tree:

JULIEN FORTIN Notre Dame de Vair, France
Marié le 26 novembre 1618 Marie Lavye

JULIEN Notre-Dame de Québec
Marié le 11 novembre 1652 Geneviève Gamache

PIERRE Rivière Ouelle, Kamouraska
Marié le 4 juillet 1697 Gertrude Hudon

LOUIS JULIEN L’Islet, Comté de L’Islet
Marié 10 avril 1742 Marie Préjean
LOUIS HENRI Montmagny, P.Q.
Marié le 21 novembre 1780 Victoire Thibault

CHARLES L’Islet, P.Q.
Marié le 10 février 1823 Marguerite Ménard

LOUIS St-Arsène, Témiscouata
Marié le 21 août 1850 Flore Roy

LOUIS St-Arsène, Témiscouata
Marié le 10 janvier 1888 Cordélie Roy

LOUIS Nouvelle, Bonaventure
Marié le 22 mai 1929 Jane Pentland
Baptisé l’église St-Modeste le 17 mars 1893
1ère communion l’église St-Modeste le 4 juin 1904
confirmé l’église St-Modeste le 5 juin 1904
Décédé 1951 19 Avril (noyé)

6 enfants:
Jules né à Nouvelle le 16 juillet 1930: 8 enfants, 6 garçons, 2 filles
Jean-Nöel, né à Nouvelle le 25 décembre 1932: 3 filles
Françoise, née à Nouvelle le 24 février 1935: 3 garçons
Claude, né à Nouvelle le 6 août 1936: 2 garçons
Yvette, née à Nouvelle le 7 avril 1938: pas d’enfant
Janine, née à St-Arsène, un garçon, deux filles


JULES Marié à Mont-Joli
Catherine Ouellet

8 enfants:
Marcienne
Louis
Pierre
Johanne
Raymond
Jacques
Jeannot
Paul


JEAN-NOEL Marié à New Westminster, B.C.
Le 17 mai 1957 M. Elizabeth Winder

Trois filles:
Michelle, née à Edmonton, Alberta, le 4 septembre 1958
Jeannine, née à Edmonton, Alberta, le 24 janvier 1960
Jacqueline, née à Edmonton, Alberta, le 28 mai 1963

FRANÇOISE Mariée à Lauzon, P.Q.
12 juin 1954 Jean-Paul Boulay

Trois garçons:
Jacques, né à Lauzon le 4 décembre 1955
Daniel, né à Lauzon le 20 septembre l958
Sylvain, né à Lauzon le 25 juillet l962

JEAN-CLAUDE Marié àQuébec, P.Q.
Main 1963 Michelyne Hardy

Deux garçons:
Michel, né le 18 avril l964
Jean, né le 23 juillet l966

YVETTE Mariée à Edmonton, Alberta
15 juillet 1965 Vladimir S. Löffler
décédé le 9 sept. 1982


JANINE Mariée à Québec
10 juin 1964 John Darisse

Trois enfants:
Nancy, née le 5 avril 1964
Patrick, né le 3 juillet 1967
Sandra, né le 30 août 1971

Dear diary... that was an amazing couple of days!

We are back from Athens and I am off today. My boss thought we could use a day off before going back to work after being on the go from 7 o’clock in the morning till the morning after for the last couple of days. Thanks Ron!

First of all, he was right! I woke up at 1pm today and still feel tired. Athens was a whirlwind of conferencing, death by PowerPoint, fantastic food and lots of mingling. Unfortunately I didn’t actually see much of the hotel room, or my wife for that matter, but you know how it is. Duty calls.

The kick-off started off on Sunday evening with a cocktail party that was out of this world! 250 people from around the CB-world mingling in this absolutely fantastic hotel, all food and drink catered for, and the backdrop was the Mediterranean ocean. The hotel was located right by the water. The morning after, the kick-off was officially opened by Matt Ferguson, our CEO and Farhan Yasin, our President of International. As it should be, the opening was a bit of a pep-rally and definitely gave a good vibe and a sense of “we can do it!”

The rest of the day was filled with presentations, speeches and of course, the breakout-sessions for Customer Care that I have been working on for months. It went really well and we got our message across. Ron did a great job and as hard as it can be to capture the attention of hung-over sales reps, he did it. I was offered to do the presentation before we left, but I think I am more of a “behind the scenes operative” when it comes to things like this. Maybe next year. Most likely next year.

One of the highlights of the kick-off for me was our guest speaker Chris Moon (http://www.chrismoon.co.uk/). This guy has been through it all and is definitely an inspirational guy to listen to. He has been blown up, kidnapped, threatened with execution multiple times and after losing an arm and a leg when clearing out minefields in Mozambique he ran across the Sahara desert in an ultra-Marathon and actually finished amongst the best of them. He was talking about seeing the positive in life and blocking out the negative and about his experiences in Africa. He was also talking about when pain and difficulty is so overwhelming and how to overcome this instead of taking the easy way out. A few quotes from him that really stuck with me, and I think you had to be there to understand why, were:

“The problem with common sense is that it is not very common”
“Difficulty flows like water, if you let it, it will fill you up”
“Never be crushed. Persist. Never give up.”
"Talk to the hook cause the face don't wanna hear it anymore!"

In the evening we were taken by bus to downtown Athens to a restaurant called “Dionyssos“ where we enjoyed a 4-course dinner made up by various Greek specialities and Greek wine. The name of the restaurant was very fitting as the backdrop was the Acropolis rock, the Parthenon temple and Dionyssos’ theatre, the first amphitheatre in the world. I have been to the Acropolis rock and the theatre a few years back, and it is a fantastic place and very well preserved considering its age. Unfortunately I did not have time for sightseeing this time around, but Shaena had some time on the Monday to go out on the town with the other “footballers wives” that had tagged along to Athens with their respective husbands.

When we came back from the restaurant we sat down in the hotel lobby for a quick drink and I phoned Shaena, who were asleep up in the hotel room. Shaena came down to join us in her pyjamas and socks, not bothered at all that we were in a 5 star diamond hotel. That is one of the many, many reasons why I love my wife!

Anyhow, this made for a very long blog entry, so good for you if you made it this far! :)

Next on the list: Mexico. Can't wait!

Travel season has begun!

The winter doom and gloom seems to be over in Edinburgh and we get more and more sun hours every day, which is of course nice and blissful! At the same time we can tell that friends and family are coming out of hibernation as we are experiencing more and more activity in our booking system.

Ha, we don’t have a booking system of course, but you have to admit; that sounded quite fancy!

We are really happy that so many people are showing an interest in coming to visit us here in Edinburgh and of course to see the baby after its arrival. Thank you for that!

We also have a few trips planned ourselves already, as you’ve probably already seen below. Mexico is definitely the big tamale right now, but we are also heading to Athens, Greece tomorrow for my company’s kick-off and Shaena is going to tag along and just chill out in the hotel, do some SPA-ing and go see the sights in downtown Athens. I am fairly certain SPA-ing is not a verb, but you get the drift.

From what I understand from my Greek colleagues at work, the hotel we are staying at is one of the nicest and most expensive in Greece and that that is where the famous people stay, so we’ll be sure to keep our eyes open for that. Celebrity-spotting is so much fun, don’t you agree?

My work schedule for the few days we are there is packed so I won’t be able to go sightseeing at all but I have already been to Athens a few years back so I am not too bummed about working the whole time and I know that Shaena will have a jolly good time strolling around taking pictures of all the old landmarks.

It really is a cool city for that reason, but it’s also a pretty congested and dirty city, but as long as you stick to the old parts of the city, you’re fine.

What else? Well, we are talking about going up north in Sweden as well after Baby H is born and are trying to figure out the best time for this as well. The autumn in Norrbotten, the county where I am from, is beautiful so if we could hit up Haparanda in August sometime, that would be ideal, and if not we could do Christmas on Ekorrstigen. That is where I grew up for the first half-decade of my life. Would be awesome to see my dad dress up as Santa and give our little baby its first snowy Christmas experience. I am getting ahead of myself as we just wrapped up this Christmas but as a parent, you’ll have to learn how to plan ahead, right?

We’ll be sure to give ya’ll an update once we are back.

Opa! and Efharisto!

"Baby, pack your bags! We are going to flippin’ Mexico!"

Today has been a great day for good news! When I walked in to the office this morning and opened my Outlook as I usually do, I found an email that I could not resist to open before anything else. In that email was a congratulatory message, pictures and motivations for the people that one this year’s incentive trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for one person and his or her better half or friend… and I was one of the lucky ones!

Basically, the trip is the grand (and only) prize for a year-long incentive for best performers in each department of the company and I won it for Customer Care International – that is where I work. :)

Last year was an all-sales trip but the buzz words from last year’s trip to Puerto Rico were:

”no expenses spared”, “private concert with the Goo Goo Dolls”, “Lobster buffé”, “catamaran trips”, “All inclusive AND WE MEAN ALL INCLUSIVE” “Gifts” “Over the top” “5 star resort”


This all goes down between the 1st - 5th of March, so we'll be all rested and tanned in time for the arrival of the little one!

Below is the motivation as to why I won:

Throughout 2008, Peter has played a major part in the development of Customer Care for International. Despite receiving little training or guidance himself, Peter took on the role of trainer, sourcing information and tools to develop our training programme needs. He also delivered a training programme to the Italy office, despite the language issues (with the help of Giuseppe), showing that he can adapt to any situation and deliver.

Peter has been instrumental in setting up the Account Management function for us. Not only has he improved processes, changed documents, suggested ideas to improve this area for Sweden but also ran many sessions delivering training to the new Account Managers. He worked in the background on projects relating to Account Management, requiring a lot of additional work from him to improve systems and processes at the front-end.

Peter acted as the ‘coach’ and ‘subject matter expert’ single-handedly, whilst maintaining his other role as trainer to assist the team with any questions, guidance that was required.

Throughout the year, Peter has often been requested to deliver other things for us. Peter has always shown his total willingness to take on extra work and commitment as and when required for Customer Care International to achieve their goals.

The above is just a flavour of the work that Peter has been engaged in throughout the year and coupled with the high volume of positive feedback or thanks we have received for the work Peter has been involved with, these are the reasons as to why Peter has been selected and won
this fantastic award.

Peter – many congratulations, you are a very deserving recipient of this award! Enjoy Mexico!

LEGGO MY EGGO please

So we're getting all these waffles and its not really helping my subjective pregnancy cravings. You can't even get EGGO's in the UK! Can anyone send me some please?! Anyway, the point is that since we're getting all these hits on our site, I am hoping more people will leave a quick note on the chat room just to say hi or who they are so we can have an idea of whom may be visiting. Maybe we'll become famous on the internet!? Maybe this will become my career when Baby H is born so I never have to return to an office again!? Then we can travel and work anywhere in the world and Baby H can become a world traveler like us but start so much earlier! Hmmm...the mind wanders to all the possibilities. So Its almost 11 p.m. here and I am restless. Peter is reading "Tommyland" about Tommy Lee which I got him for xmas and I am most likely going to play some text twist soon since I am bored/restless.

Thanks again for those people checking out our site. I hope you like...and not just necessarily amused by my "cheeky asking for things" :)

Love to you all!

Baby names galore

As you can imagine, these days we are talking about baby names quite a lot at home. We want to be ready with a first name and a middle name for a boy and for a girl to make sure that our bundle of joy has a name as soon as he or she opens his or her eyes to the world.

We are well on our way, but for some reason it is easier to find a name for a girl than for a boy. Not sure why, but it seems that way. In Swedish culture the first name and the middle name is something important and is often tied to heritage and relatives. The first name can sometimes be a relative’s first name as well, but I think it is mostly with the middle name. If you look at one of the previous blog entries, the one with my family tree, you will see that the name Henrik is a very common name in my family ever since 1490, and it is also one of my middle names. Yes, I have two. Fancy that!

We are pretty much decided on the girls name already, believe it or not, and it is a first name we love and a very nice middle name from someone who is very important to us.

What is it then, you ask? Well, it wouldn’t be any fun if we told you, would it? It has been, or is just about to get, leaked to the immediate family but that will be it. The rest of you will just have to wait until next summer to find out.

About the boys name: We are open to suggestions, well not really, but it would definitely be fun to hear your suggestions and what you think we should name our baby boy, if it would turn out to be a boy.

Spoiled before birth

Baby H is raking it in already! So far he/she has received his/her first toy, a lovely teddy bear sent to us by my sister Isabel in Sweden, and yesterday we received a nice parcel from Matt & Naomi who had been to Camden Market in London and bought us our first bib and a nice one-piece. Thank you very much guys, we really appreciate it!

We really are lucky, we are in a good place in life and we have great people around us. Who could ever ask for more?

Now, keep those gifts coming people! :)

Dad's painting

My dad is so talented! He has taken up painting again. This is a painting of his late dog Lady and the originial photograph.

A visit to the midwife’s office

So, today was the day of the first scheduled visit to the midwife’s office. Our midwife is a lovely Dutch lady, can not remember her name at this present moment, but she sat us down in her office and we got to answer a whole array of different questions about illness in the family, allergies, religion, but the most interesting of all was when she asked us if we had a history of glue-sniffing and/or street drugs.

It was obvious that she was uncomfortable with asking these questions, but I guess it is just protocol. She also asked us if we felt safe around each other or if there was any domestic abuse involved. Me and Shaena just laughed it off, but sadly there are probably people who are not so lucky and in a similar situation as us that say ‘yes’ to these questions. Imagine a glue-sniffing young mother to be who’s suffering from spousal abuse. Scary!

Anyway, everything went really well and Shaena is healthy as a horse and we also found out that we will be eligible for a second scan. Yay! From what I hear that is the really cool scan when the baby is more developed and you can see both facial movements and thumb-sucking. I am very much looking forward to that!

What else is new? Well, after the midwife appointment we walked over to the yarn shop and Shaena got her yarn and needles so that she can learn how to knit. Now she is sitting in the couch, learning how to knit with a video tutorial on repeat: ”Again, take the yarn, wrap it around, turn it around… get in to it, practice”.

I, on the other hand, have started my new book that Santa gave me. “Heroin Diaries” by Nikki Sixx. It is basically a collection of his diary notes and comments by relatives and friends and band members of Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, Another tragic sad but true autobiography about a rockstar at his very worst, totally strung out on coke and heroin for a whole year.

Double-scary!

43 Waffles

You probably noticed. On the bottom of our bombastic fantastic blog we have a hit-counter. It is a pretty new thing, actually only 2 days old, and it displays how many unique visitors we have had. For those of you who are not overly internet savvy; a unique visitor count is a count of how many different website visitors have visited our blog, and they are only counted once per computer. So, in the last 2 days we have had 43 different people reading our blog which is pretty darn cool! I wonder who you all are.

I’m gonna take a stab at making a list and see how far I get:

1. Myself
2. Shaena
3. My dad from home
4. My dad from work (my dad is a very devoted fan of ours) :)
5. My sister Isabel
6. Shaena’s mom
7. Shaena’s grandpa
8. My brother John
9. Aunty Nini
10. Cousin Emily
11. Cousin Julia
12. Jessika
13. Bain (possibly on the same computer as Jessika though)
14. Linda Ekström
15. Trainer-Bruce
16. Orlaith & Gary
17. Hameed

I think that is how far I can get right now. Would be cool if the rest of you could leave a quick note in the chat so we know who you are.

Unique visitors, or waffles, is a crucial part of our master plan so keep 'em coming.

Attached below is the master plan:

Reach out to the broad masses, charm and entice them all, and ultimately become internet celebrities like Lily Allen or “Numa” the chubby guy dancing to "Dragostea Din Tei".

A few photos from New Year's Eve... Enjoy!

Shaena & Peter

Maeghan & Reg

Tara, Ali, Marian & Steven

Gemma & Hot Dave

Tara

Reg & Maeghan

Orlaith & Gary

Peter

Shaena

Matt & Naomi

Joanne & Peter

Baby Gifts

So I was saying to Peter that we should register for our baby since we won't be able to have a baby shower with all our friends and family...Anyway, since Jess and Bain have had Dani, I have totally fallen in love with their portraits and have come across a photographer in Edinburgh who has a great portfolio! http://www.elementalportraits.co.uk Check it out! If anyone wanted to possibly bestow a gift for the baby...this would be a great one!!!

We have also registered at BabiesRus - ToysRUs http://www.toysrus.co.uk/publiclist/12216049029934336/view.jsf for baby things that we will need! Do check both links out and if you are feeling generous...we won't stop ya!

love from Shaena, Peter and Baby H

We always said that we would name our first born Optimus Prime!

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
Its the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Nows the time for us to say...

Happy new year
Happy new year

No, not that dramatic and tragic but our Aussie guests have now left for London and the house is empty and quiet all of the sudden. It feels kind of good to get back to normal life again. After this week of fun, laughter and excessive eating it is going to be nice to just kick back for a bit, get back to work and start planning for what is about to come.

What about your kick-ass New Years party, you ask? It was awesome! We had a great turnout, about 20 people, loads of food and drink, we had redecorated our living room to incorporate both a buffé-table and a dance floor/Guitar Hero stage for those who dared. Thanks to Gary for bringing us about 1,000,000 sandwiches from his shop! Most of us stayed in for the whole night and only went out for the fireworks at midnight and a few brave souls went out to other parties or to take a closer look at the street party, and for once they did not cancel the fireworks. Nice show, I must say!

It is definitely clear to us that we have a fab group of friends here in Scotland and all around the world and always a place to crash should we ever go to the southern hemisphere for instance. We have an idea in the back of our minds to do a joint anniversary trip with Jess & Bain in a few years when both our babies are old enough to travel a bit better and who knows, maybe we’ll go see all our friends in Brisbane?

Anyway, my wife has decided to learn how to knit for the baby so we are going to go supply-shopping now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR Everyone! Hope you all have a great 2009!