Birthday + Snow

Ushering in 38 with a wish and some cake

Today I offer a brief glimpse into the past week, which was dominated (in my little world), by two main events: my birthday, and the much anticipated arrival of some honest-to-goodness proper winter snow. 

Birthday

My actual birthday (the 15th - ie, a week ago today), was a little strange and bittersweet, but pretty satisfying when all was said and done.  To begin with, the day was spent with Clark and Juniper -- Clark because he had taken the day off of work, and Juniper because she was home sick.  While this might otherwise have limited our activities, this sickness of Juniper's was the tail end of some odd bug that had resulted in headache, sore throat and fever. Though she mostly felt fine by the time Monday rolled around, the fever had still been present the night before, so we kept her home from school.  

Consequently, the day played out as follows:

1) we went (as a family of four) to a local coffee shop bright and early, to drink some drinks and play some charades.  

2) we dropped Linden off at school (nice and late, to his delight), and the three remaining adventurers spent a bit of time at IKEA, picking out a cheap but functional bookshelf that I had been wanting for ages, in order to take care of all the books that had been piling and multiplying on various surfaces around the house.

3) I got to open some very sweet, well-chosen gifts from the kids (who had been allowed to peruse the dollar store to their heart's content):  a plant-starting kit for our 2018 garden; a frame (in which Juniper plans to draw a picture of our family, which will include mystery baby); and a blank book from Linden, in which we are meant to write to each other, journal-style.  Juniper and I have had such a thing for awhile now, but Linden was SUPER excited to get in on it as well.  He is just thrilled every time there is a new entry, and is getting very good at reading all the words himself.  He also writes his replies completely on his own, by sounding out the words as he sees fit - a fact that makes it sometimes very difficult to decipher the message (especially because he sounds out the words the way he has been taught in French Immersion, and he also often mixes up "b" and "d".  For instance, if he is trying to write "a book", it might look something like "et deuc").  But I am learning, and so is he... it will be incredibly interesting to flip back through the entries as the year progresses. 

4) We got thai take-out and superstore cupcakes, and sang happy birthday:

Thai and cupcakes

The day ended, unfortunately, with Clark hopping a plane to Ottawa for a week of meetings (the main reason the day was bittersweet, rather than just sweet).  Everyone knows how I feel about solo parenting  (especially this time of year), but to leave ON my birthday, with one kid who had just been sick, while I'm pregnant and feeling crappy?  Bitter, indeed.

ANYWAY, after making it through the subsequent week (which involved me catching a variation of Juniper's sickness), Clark returned, and plans were made for the real birthday celebrations: a day of decadence for me and Zsofi (while the men entertained the kids), followed by dinner and cake with the two combined families.  Of course, this didn't exactly go according to plan, either - Linden came home from school Friday with this same strange head/throat/fever illness.  So in the end, I still got a super fun afternoon with Zsofi (which included lunch, pedicures, and shopping!), Will took the girls out for some adventure (sushi and the Discovery Centre), and Clark and Linden got to have a little father-son time. And I still got the delicious supper and cake, albeit a day later than planned, and with just the four of us:

The kids were in charge of strawberry preparation, which meant they BOTH got to use sharp knives. This was more exciting than you'd think

The finished product: a homemade chocolate-vanilla ice cream cake with cookie crumb crust and fresh (frozen) strawberries.  SUPER delicious.

Winter

Just as Clark's plane left Halifax on my birthday eve, the snow began to fall in Nova Scotia.  This may not seem significant, except that we have so far had a very, very snow-free winter around these parts.  When we woke the next morning, it was to an honest-to-goodness winter wonderland. The kids were beside themselves with excitement. I was awoken at 6:45am to Linden bellowing: "LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!!!! LOOK!"  I therefore offer a few pictures of the ways we have all been enjoying said snow (which is, may I add, still around, a whole week later - a small miracle for Halifax):

No one even bothered coming inside after school on Tuesday: Juniper, Linden, and Liam (from across the street)

Magical solo winter walk through Shubie park...

... with snowflakes that stayed on my nose and eyelashes!

Family woods walk

Quiz: how many people pay attention when I suggest that the lake may not be safe to walk on?
Answer: zero

And that about sums it up!  I'll leave you with a little magical-looking scene I stumbled across the other night: the kids nestled in Juniper's bed while Clark reads Fellowship of the Ring.  See you next week!

Magical light, magical night

Winter Scenes

Full moon, warm fire, Orion's Belt

Having survived an aptly-named "weather-bomb", and being forced to unearth and don all our warmest under-and-outerwear, it is safe to say that we are fully in the throes of winter.  Today I offer some of the first winter scenes of the season:  first from a New Year's trip to the farm, and second from a winter hike through Hemlock Ravine.

The Farm

As I alluded to in my last post, Clark and the kids spent a few glorious days at the Richards' family farm: a favourite spot no matter what the season. It was cold, of course, but boasted a good healthy layer of snow, which is something we have not yet been treated to in Halifax.  I was sad to miss out this time around, but luckily Clark took his photographing duties seriously, and captured some lovely moments.

Crisp walk to the river

Bundled and sun-blinded on the ice

Deep in conversation, mid-woods walk

Wood shop time with grandpa: Newly constructed mallet! 

Deep in concentration: designing a wooden airplane

Snuggles and reading with grandma

Moonlit hockey

Warming up by the firepit

The best group shot of the bunch:  at least Bill and Barb are looking at the camera!

Hemlock Ravine
Back home, we spent a nice bit of time this weekend exploring one of our favourite local hiking spots: Bedford's Hemlock Ravine.  It was actually colder than I had anticipated (Clark and I were a bit underdressed in the end), but the kids were properly bundled, and it was a necessary antidote to the cabin fever we all developed from the many storm days we spent cooped up inside the house. 

*(side note: the storm manifested itself here as extremely high winds and driving rain, and resulted in the kids being off school both Thursday and Friday.  It was far too miserable to do anything outside.  We were some of the very lucky ones that only lost power briefly, and only in in the middle of the night)*

Frolicking on the frozen heart pond 

Thoughtful hiking dinosaur

Another, smaller pond, post-twirl

Winter woods walks can be completely gorgeous, and rewarding - there are little frozen pools everywhere you turn

A couple of random extras:

Finally, I offer two random additions. The first is self-explanatory:

Yearly family Christmas Tree shot!

The second however,  is something pretty neat, and deserves some explanation.  Last Friday, we watched a movie called Kubo and the Two Strings.  It was one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in some time.  Part of the magic, I would argue, came from the style in which it was filmed: stop motion animation.  After watching the movie, we youtubed a little "making-of" documentary, which we all thought was super cool.  Linden, however, was particularly inspired: he has been talking for a long time about making movies when he grows up (in particular, he plans to write and produce a series centred around his trademarked super hero, "Dino-man"), but it had never occurred to him that he could start practicing now.  So, he quickly got to work doing some set construction, and came up with a little story line.  Then, with Clark's help, he made his very first stop-motion vignette.  He has big plans for future endeavours (where he will, for instance, add some audio over top), but he was pretty pleased with his first try:

That's all for now.  See you next week!