The ice skates

The children experienced ice skating for the first time on Monday and even Mick skated for the first time in about 20 years!  The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day!

This is what the lake looks like now - it is hard to believe it was just water a few weeks ago!

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe it is Christmas eve today!  I hope Santa remembers where we are living now as there are two very excited little girls hoping he comes to drop some gifts in here.  Merry Christmas everyone!

The children performed in the school concert and it was fantastic.  French and English Christmas songs were performed and it was lovely - well done everyone!

Mick has been clearing the snow off the lake ready for the ice skating - how exciting!  

An award

We were invited to the school assembly on Friday afternoon and it was well worth the trip.  Mya was presented with an award by the principal.  The certificate was to recognize outstanding character.  We are all very proud of you - well done Mya!

They have arrived!

There is great excitement here as all our belongings from England have arrived with us today.  There seem to be hundreds of boxes, although I am pretty sure there is only the seventy that we shipped.  So far I have only opened a handful to get some toys out for the children.  No doubt we will work our way through them in the coming weeks.  Most of it will remain boxed up ready for when we move again!

It is raining today but yesterday was gorgeous and the sunset was amazing. 

Video footage

I thought it would be good to add some of the video footage from the Santa Parade at Lyndhurst on Saturday so here it is...

The celebrations have begun

Well the Christmas celebrations have really started now.  We went to Cataraqui mall on Friday night and saw a show with Bob the Builder and then Santa landed on the roof of the mall and came in to see the children.  It was very exciting and there was even fake snow falling from above!

On Saturday we went to Lyndhurst Santa parade.  It was great and Gracie and Mya were on the Sweets Corners school float.  The amount of effort everyone put in was amazing and the community spirit is fantastic!

The weather was absolutely perfect.  We all had our coats on but we could easily have gone without them.  It is hard to believe it is late November BUT snow is on the way.  It looks like we will have our first snowfall on Thursday this week.  Mick is out there as I type putting our new snow tires on the cars!





Our new home in Seeleys Bay

Well we are in our new home and everyone is settling in very well.  The house is about two and a half times the size of our little cottage and the views are breathtaking.

                                  

                                    

                                    

                        

                                    

                                    

                               

                                     

                                     

                                     

The children has started at Sweets Corners Public school and they are really enjoying it.  The bus journey is not even 15 minutes and it fetches them both at the end of the road.   Mya is now only part time so she will go two days some weeks and three other weeks.  She is not so tired now and enjoys being at home a little bit more.  Graice is full time of course but is making loads of friends and seems very happy.

This is our project trike.  It is not road legal but will be great fun for us all on our own land.

Halloween is a really big thing here.  Some of the houses are very well decorated for the occasion and some were so scary the children wouldn't go to them!  Gracie and Mya came home with absolutely loads of candy and they are still working their way through it.  People are very generous and love seeing the children all dressed up.

Now that we are in a proper house we are starting to look forward to our first Christmas here and even planning where the all important tree will go in our new home.

The foot.....well I have had the fibreglass cast off but the break has not healed yet.  I am in a new cast that I can take off at shower time so that is great - no more plastic bags and cling film and feeling like leftovers!  It is still very swollen and I will be xrayed again in four weeks to see if it is any better.  I am still not allowed to weight bare on it so getting around is still tricky.

A pre move update

It is only a couple of days until we move to our rental house and we are all very excited and busy packing.  It is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated in such a short time.  We have also had a phone call to say that our goods have arrived in the country from England so hopefully we will receive them at our new home in the next week or two.  It will be great to have some familiar things and the girls will think Christmas has come early with all their toys arriving.

Today Gracie received the Respect award at school.  It is a very bid deal and I managed to drive there to see it being given to her.  We are very proud of her!

I thought it would be good to post some photos of the cottage we are in now.  It is called the Colonel Cottage and sits on Burridge Lake.

This is the view of the cottage looking up from the lake.

This is the view of the cottage from the front.

Yesterday evening Mya put some bread on the deck for the Blue Jays.  Unfortunately it got late and the birds had gone to bed but we had another visitor....

He was not frightened at all of us and sat right by the door eating the bread.  I know people say they can be nasty, but he was rather cute!  Apparently a black bear has been spotted around here so perhaps we won't be putting any more bread out!

We are all set up with cars now.  Nearly every Canadian has a Dodge Caravan so I had to get one too.

Mick's is a Ford Focus station wagon - yes I know he is showing his age.

We have started to slowly look at houses to buy and went to see one the other day.  It has over 70 acres of land with it - some farm land and some wooded.  It was fantastic but the house is in a terrible state and needs more than we can possibly do.  It was great to see something so fantastic but not sure we will end up with quite so much land - not sure I see myself driving a tractor...

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is Thanksgiving here today and we have just had a lovely Thanksgiving meal followed by pumpkin pie - delicious!

We are moving to a new house at Seeley's Bay on 30th October and we are all very excited.  It is bigger and the road is ploughed (cleared of snow) in the winter so we should be able to get off the drive way.  If we stay here we will have to plough the road ourselves!

It was two weeks yesterday since I broke my right foot and hopefully there are only three weeks left until I am cast free - I am counting the hours down!  Getting up and down the hill outside the cottage is proving to provide much entertainment for Mick watching me use the garden chair for support as it is impossible to even attempt on crutches.  I'm sure it looks funny but I can't really see the funny side at the moment.  I have called the insurance company, insurance broker, ministry of transport and finally the OPP (Police) and none of them can tell me whether I am actually allowed to drive.  I guess I will stick to being chauffeured about for the time being.

These are photos of the local area.  We have to drive past these beautiful views to go to the dump to get rid of our rubbish. The only things that empty the bins out around here where we live are the raccoons and they make rather a mess with it, so we take it to the dump once a week.

This is a woodpecker that was outside our cottage this morning.

This is the road to Westport and views of the town.  It is on the Rideau canal system and is one of our favourite places to visit.

And this is Burridge Lake where we live.