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Saturday fun at the Met ;)

And in the frozen north (but FINALLY with some heat to the sunshine!), Saturday fun on the Rideau Canal.  It's been open for the most consecutive days in a row ever, one perk of such an extremely cold winter this year:-)

7/52

Determined to carve out moments of self-care here and there.......some weeks I'm more successful than others:-)

No explanation really.... just wanted to start playing more ;)

6/52

Jamie and I had just returned from a cross-country ski, and I convinced the kids to come out and have sledding races with me.  There's a bump at the bottom of the steep drop, letting us fly through the air and letting us drop on the driveway.  Super fun:-)  So glad to have all this snow I was wishing for, just wish it would get a wee bit warmer - today it is -44 degrees Celcius with the wind chill, brrrrrrrrrrr.

As for Anja's portrait for this week, she says: "This photo is entitled "f**k winter very much"!  Enough said.  

And it goes with this one entitled "my coat is too short for this insanity!"
;)  She hasn't seemed to have embraced the winter sports with quite the same joy as me:-) 

Sunny Winter Mornings.....

I woke up this morning at 7:45.  Everyone in the house was in a deep sleep.  We needed to get out the door by 8:05 in order to catch the bus.  Oops:-)  But I'm happy to say, we did it - lunches made, kids breakfasted, dressed, teeth brushed, outdoor gear on and out the door - with enough time to play in the gorgeous deep snow to boot!!!!  And, of course, when the sun is streaming through the windows, there's ALWAYS time to pause and take a photo or two during the mad chaos.  LOVE that my kids are willing to play every once in a while!

We had 3 minutes to spare at the bus stop, I watched them clamour on with all their gear and heavy backpacks. waved as they drove off and then turned around with a deep breath in and a deep breath out and started my much slower, calmer walk home - towards my cup of coffee and quiet:-)

Winter definitely makes the world around us look so beautiful - especially when it covers all the projects we never did get around to outside last fall!!!  A chance to just ignore it all, and pour one more cup of coffee and stare outside the windows:-)

Pakenham Ski Hill

Every Tuesday for the month of January, I've been taking Tiegan and Ry out of school for lessons on our local ski hill, and an excuse to get out skiing.  Of course, it seems like every single Tuesday it's about -26 to -30 degrees with the wind, so we've had to bundle up VERY warm and try to not expose even one bit of skin.  It's been a COLD winter here this year......

Tiegan has her snowboard lessons at 10, and then Ry has his ski lessons at 11.  Ry and I were riding up the chairlift, taking selfies, when I saw Tiegan boarding down the hill - so I quickly tried to snap a photo or two (and dropped my pole in the process, oops!).  It's amazing to see how far she's come in her snowboarding, and thrilling to see her booting it down the hill:-)

I think Jamie's going to rent a snowboard one of these days and ride down with her - it's been years since he sold his snowboard.....

This guy is getting more and more comfortable on his skis, and I just work hard on keeping up with him:-)

Or he slips into the forest hills, and I find myself waiting at the bottom of the trail, waiting for him to pop out of the trees!

It's so fun to ski with this guy, I wish we could be up here every day....

Of course, shortly after this we headed in for lunch, and when I went back out MY SKIS WERE GONE.  Along with my (evidently trending) neon yellow 1970's ski poles.  So frustrating - I've been skiing for years and always just leave my skis on the rack when I slip inside for lunch, and now I'm going to have to start locking everything up (once I replace them, that is) - such a hassle.  I've mentioned it to others, and they say they've been hearing more and more about thefts at Mount Pakenham, so that sucks............I'd much rather trust in the goodness of people, and it makes it so much more challenging when people steal my stuff:-(  Oh well.......first world problem, for sure.  Just a bummer of a way to have to cut a great day skiing short.

Happy Imbolc (or St. Brigid's Day)

We brought in February with a little feast and gathering of friends to celebrate the fact that the sun is getting stronger and deep below the snow and frozen earth, seeds are starting to come to life - spring is on its way, as hard as that might be to believe looking out our window!!!!!  

To celebrate, we feasted on golden yellow soup, spring greens salad, pasties with lots of yellow and orange peppers, herbed oats, and finished it all off with a waking earth cake - molasses cake with treasures (quarters) hidden inside to represent the growing seeds, covered with vanilla ice cream for the snow:-)  We dipped candles, and dreamed of creative endeavors we'd like to bring forth in the coming year.  And we pledged to have many more such gatherings this year - we miss feasting with friends!

The kids REALLY enjoyed dipping candles, and the next day insisted on re-melting the wax.  Ry in particular has the patience of a saint for this, dipping and drying, dipping and drying.

We now have a bunch of candles to see us through the rest of the winter - and he was also excited to dip eight of his own candles for his birthday cake later this month:-)

January Days.......part two

Our 70 year old neighbour up the road runs skijoring clinics, and needed Jamie to come up the day before to make sure his horse wouldn't get freaked by the chains and noises behind him.  It wasn't hard to twist Jamie's arm to head up there for an hour - hopefully we can fit in another session before winter is over:-)

We got even more snow - and Tiegan joined us on a cross-country ski down the road.  I can't believe this was the first time that I actually made it out on my skis, it's been such an odd winter so far with so little snow.......

And our sledding runs are becoming deeper and deeper grooves as we hold races, and build up ramps on the bottom to go flying.  It's not a huge hill, but it's steep and fun - and not so far to walk back up!!!!!

Making the most out of this winter while it's here......though wishing for slightly warmer weather.  It's been a COLD one this year:-)