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Last week we spent the day at a local lake with some friends.  After splashing, boating, snacking and having fun it was time to pack up for home.  While taking a load of stuff to her car, my friend noticed people diggin in the woods behind an orange fence and went for a closer look.  Turns out they were archeologists.  While starting construction on new houses in the area, evidence of a Huron village was found and they were in the woods searching for artifacts.  Unfortunately by the time we managed to corral all of the children and get to the woods, the experts had gone for lunch.  The older kids were disappointed that we wouldn’t just let them go snooping around to see what they could find while the younger ones were simply done.

Although I can’t share any particulars about the process (perhaps one of you can offer some insight), I have never seen a real live dig only mock ups in books, museums and my classroom sandtable whenever we study dinosaurs. I thought it might be a nice change of pace to post this and share the photos with you.  I was suppose to do it last week but life got away with me.  Enjoy.

Can you believe it? We met our darling 4 years ago yesterday. Today is our 4th Forever Family Day. Usually we celebrate with Chinese food and lots of family activities but this year we are all a bit under the weather and are cuddling on the couch watching curling. It is precious nonetheless.

Okay, we are finally back. Glenn has been working hard on the basement so it has taken him a while to get the video of Katrine skating adjusted so that I could log in again. The basement you ask? Well, it is actually looking quite nice. There is a lot of new insulation put up and the skeleton of a wall dividing the laundry room from the rest of the space. I know that he has done alot more but this is what most excites me. A wamer, more functional basement…which wife wouldn’t be excited.

Katrine got her first two CanSkate badges in January. She continues to enjoy skating and has her first club competition at the end of February. There are 5 in her group(The Grasshoppers) and everyone wins something but we are pretty proud nonetheless. Supposedly she goes out and does about 4 moves and that is it but if she is happy then so are we. She is equally excited about her pink skating outfit (actually just a skirted body suit with heart printed tights that was on sale at Zellers).

She continues to dance and is making some progress in learning the fling but it is not her passion. We are planning to dance in Callander in the summer but after that we will have to wait and see how it goes. She did however enjoy dancing at the Robbie Burns dinner in Victoria Harbour.

Glenn and I? Well, not a heck of a lot. I turned 35 in January and celebrated with a delicious dinner out gluten-free cake. I got some lovely gifts including getting to sleep in!! I made the most delicious Chinese New Year dinner but the dumplings gave Katrine hives…oh well, all the more for my lunches! I think that we have been most excited about our new sheets. This Christmas, my parents gave us a silk duvet because they are suppose to be dust mite resistant. However, they could only get a King sized one so we did not have a duvet cover for it. Well, off we go shopping. We came home with a complete bamboo bedding set. My goodness it is super soft. I LOVE it.

Here is our pre-Christmas update.
Katrine did well on her report card. Great academics and too much fidgeting during circle time. Not bad.
She was scouted for pre-competitive figure skating but we have yet to decide what we are going to do with that one. Honestly though, I never expected to hear the words “natural talent as a skater” in reference to my sub-tropical born daughter. Just goes to show that life is full of surprises.
Our tree is up. The lights are up outside. Christmas cards are being written. The wrapping has begun. Katrine is my official tape riper because that is her newest skill. Maybe by next year she will actually do some of the wrapping…hehe…child labour makes less work for mom during holiday season. We are having a skating party in two weeks just for the fun of it so my next holiday project is to start baking cookies. Yes, gluten-free all around.
Now for this posts photo. During my parent teacher interviews I was talking to one set of parents about helping to develop fine motor skills when the parents mention trainer chopsticks. At the end of the interview I just had to ask them what they were and where to find them because Katrine has no skill with chopsticks yet desperately wants to use them when we go out for Chinese. Well, got some at our local Korean grocer. They work. Katrine loves them. So, here they are!

September saw Katrine beginning Junior Kindergarten. Glenn walked her to school on her first day and she went in without tears!! And so began her love affair with school. Her favourite game is school and of course I have to be her teacher(not Mrs Attwood Kindergarten teacher but the carbon copy of her “real” teacher! “That’s not the way Ms. V…does it”)

Fall also brings with it the traditional Attwood family apple picking trip. Although, this year Katrine has asked that we go back because we went when there were only Macs out and she is more of a sweet apple girl. She has really been getting into baking; even pretending to read recipes when she is cooking in her kitchen. We have already made pie, applesauce and two apple cakes together. I think that apple muffins with butterscotch chippits will be our next endevour.

She has also got immense pleasure out of our garden harvest. She still won’t eat tomatoes; of which we got a bumper crop this year, but she has enjoyed our pink potatoes (yes, if you are imagining pink mashed potatoes that would be the correct image), multicoloured carrots and cucumbers – with the seeds cut out. I think that we will do less tomatoes next year and maybe some bush beans to see if we can get her to give beans a try. Katrine has really enjoyed fishing this summer so we often looked for worms and bugs in our garden to use as bait. Never could seem to find any of a reasonable size…until harvest time. Then we dug up long juicy worms and fat slugs. Oh well!