Fall musings

This one's for you L! (I never know if I should use real names on a public website, but you know who you are).

I have been incredibly busy this fall, and it has been wonderful. I love my job, I love learning during my masters classes and being inspired by so many great minds, I love coming home to my wonderful husband and dog, I love walks with my dog, I love seeing my family as often as possible and I love re-uniting with good friends. I have also begun to cook, thanks to www.soscuisine.com and I'm enjoying it!

Here are a few pictures from the Fall to make you appreciate the changing colours, the comfort food, the wind, the rain, the cold that's coming soon...

Chili and cornbread muffins

Taco playing at the dog park with the fallen leaves

Our best man, S, and his gf, came all the way from Germany to visit us!

Enjoying deserts at Juliette et Chocolat

Waiting in the line-up outside Schwartz

Schwarts = best smoked meat in Montreal

At a pumpkin-carving party

Decorated pumpkin expo at school (older students, teachers and administrators came to visit our class!)

My love affair with Celine

Most of you know that I love Celine Dion. I just watched a two-hour TV special and cried for about half of that time! The reason I think I love her so much is that all of her songs hit that spot deep down inside me that remind me of who I am. I think we are similar in many ways, especially in the fact that we harbour at least two languages and cultures. Honestly though, I can relate to so many of her songs, it's almost like she is singing about me! When I'm having a tough day with my students, I put on a few Celine songs on and it almost instantly makes me feel better. As I said before, it's almost like through the lyrics of her songs she reminds me of who I am. I can't say any other artist does that for me.

This is definitely not a promotional post in any way, but if you are a fan, her new French album came out a few days ago and is called Sans Attendre. I already love it! I'm going to try to wait until Christmas to get it (hint hint), but I may cave beforehand!

In Geneva, at the Taking Chances world tour

There she is!

Anecdotes from five-year-olds

The school year has begun (can you tell from my lack of blogging?) and I have been blessed with yet another group of ADORABLE five-year-olds. They are just the cutest! Here are a few anecdotes for you to agree with me:

A few weeks ago, we were doing a science experiment to discover what magnets stuck to. I teach in French to students of various linguistic backgrounds, and in French the word 'to stick' (coller) is the same as the word for a glue stick (bâton de colle). So as I let the children roam about the classroom in pairs with their magnets, one little boy sits down and proceeds to put glue all over his magnet! I saw this happen and was able to rectify the situation pretty quickly, explaining that we didn't need glue for magnets to stick and why didn't he come with me so I could show him, but it was a super cute mistake none-the-less. And linguistically speaking, I'm glad he actually understood the word 'colle'!

Yesterday, I read the students a little story from the book 'Les Petits Philosophes' (little philosophers) which led to the question "Where are babies before they are born?". I got a lot of really cute answers, ranging from 'in the sky' to 'with a big bird who brings them to their mommies' to 'in an egg in the mamma's stomach', but the absolute best answer was: They are in an airport waiting, and then they get into this special plane that cuts the mom's stomach open and then they go in and that's how babies get into mommies' stomachs. So cute!

Other than that, life is pretty great. I'm doing two Masters classes and enjoying learning while teaching and really combining theory and practice. Taco is doing well, although a cat scratched his eye about a month ago, he is fine now. And my husband has a new job and he is really liking it! I hope to update more often, but it hasn't been easy to make time for the blog!

This weekend some of our favourite people came to Montreal to visit. I've mentioned them in previous posts (Billy Elliott and Wonderful friends). We always have such a great time together and this time was no different.

They arrived on Friday night and we were able to enjoy some of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies together. I found them quite enjoyable, especially the Queen and James Bond part! Their 16-month-old girl LJ got acquainted with Taco. She was nervous and cautious at first, but they became good friends by the end of the visit.

On Saturday, we left the men in charge of the young toddler while we went out shopping. We got good teaching clothes and were able to catch up on much needed girl talk! In the afternoon, we went for a walk along the Lachine canal towards Atwater market. We then had veggie burritos for dinner and my sister came over, which made it special.

Oh I have to mention our weekend was interspersed with a LOT of Olympic watching. All four of us enjoy it tremendously, so it was always on in the background. We were able to watch Canada's first win live (synchronized diving)!

On Sunday, we took LJ to the park in front of our house and then to the wading pool. She loved both! In the afternoon, we went to the Old Port where my sister joined us once more. We walked around for a bit and then had drinks (delicious rose sangria and beer) on a terrace right on the Old Port quay. We then had dinner at Giorgio's and enjoyed the Italian food.

On Monday, we went to the Biodome, and LJ loved watching the penguins swim and waddle. We had a pretty relaxed afternoon and ordered Chinese for dinner.

Memories from this trip that we cannot forget:
- LJ getting into Taco's cage and finding it hilarious (my nephew really liked the cage too, I wonder what it is with toddlers and dog cages?)
- LJ's vocabulary: daddy = all adults she trusts, including (much to her dismay) her mom!; bus = almost any form of transportation from cars to trucks to bicycles to trains and even the metro (she experienced for the first time this weekend!)
- LJ greeting Taco with 'There he is!' in the morning = soooo cute!

Trip to Calgary

This is going to be a long post, since I jotted down everything that was noteworthy during my trip to Calgary and already have more than a page of point-form notes!

My friend Audrey was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and have us stay with her for a few days. She has two adorable Boxers that we were both very happy to meet. After a good night's sleep, we took the C-train downtown. We got off at the first station and started walking aimlessly, and soon stumbled upon the Stampede parade.

We continued our walk and had a coffee from the Good Earth Cafe, which used to be small and quaint in Eau Claire Market and is now super commercialized and everywhere. A bit of a bummer, but the coffee still tastes as good!  We then ended up on Stephen Avenue (8th Ave) and my husband pointed out a man who was eating breakfast on a terrace and said: "Isn't that guy that deputy or something?" I looked in the same direction and saw someone who looked a lot like Justin Trudeau but I said: "No, that doesn't look like his wife." As soon as I had said it, his wife started waving at us. I guess we had been staring more than we thought! They both waved and I think it was my first run-in with a celebrity (it's kind of weird that most of the 'celebrities' I know are politicians! haha).

At the end of the street was the Olympic Plaza and City Hall. We took touristy pictures in front of city hall:

As we continued meandering along the streets of downtown, we ran into a part of the Stampede parade that had Mexican cowboys (charros):

We went to the base of the Calgary Tower but decided not to go up, and continued towards what is now known as 'The Core' (thanx Tara!). The Core consists of downtown shopping centres such as TD Square, Scotia Center and Banker's Hall. Nothing much had changed other than the Devonian Gardens, which used to be a lush tropical rain forest type of area on the top floor of a shopping centre, and which is now just a walkway with a few trees here and there. Perhaps my childhood memories are skewed, but I remember it being so much nicer!

Another disappointment was Eau Claire Market, which used to be the only market in Calgary (that I knew of anyway), and housed all kinds of funky stores. Now it looks like a run-down, has-been mall. Not so nice.

We then walked around Prince's Island. We had dinner at Joey's with Audrey, which was very fun! All that in one day!

On Saturday, we drove to Banff with good friends and went to the wedding ceremony. The entire bridal party was stunning! As soon as Tara walked in, I got all choked up. She was more beautiful than ever, and her dress was just perfect! The priest was great and I enjoyed all of his anecdotes during the homily.

After the ceremony, a few friends and I went to Boston Pizza for a snack and a drink. We then changed for the reception and made our way to the beautiful Banff Springs Hotel (if you've never seen it, it's worth clicking on the link). The food was amazing, the speeches made me cry, the dancing and catching up with friends was awesome. All in all, I'd say it was a perfect wedding!

We weren't finished partying when the wedding finished, so we went out to Aurora's and played some pool. We then went for a late-night meal at McDonald's and found a secret VIP room, which made everyone laugh.

On Sunday, we woke up fairly early considering our late night and went for breakfast at Phil's with a bunch of friends. We also ran into an old high school friend, which made the whole trip feel even more like a high school reunion. It's so great to catch up with old friends.

We drove back to Calgary with good friends once again (really, who would want to be stuck in a car with bad people? we choose our friends wisely, haha!). Though we were tired, we met up with Paul's cousin and drove down 17th avenue and then went for coffee in Kensington.

That night we went to my friend's new boyfriend's house near Okotoks (South of Calgary). He has 4 acres of land with an amazing view of the mountains, on which he has built the coolest loft! We enjoyed ourselves and ate some of the best burgers I've ever had!

Monday started with breakfast at a cute little cafe on MacLeod trail called London Fog. I really can't recommend it enough, if you are in Calgary, you should go check it out. The owners are just too sweet! We then walked over to Heritage Park and enjoyed the historical aspects as well as the cute animals:

We then had a late lunch at Rush, where Paul's cousin works. Oh my goodness, the food was delicious! A lot of you know I have a soft spot for carbonara, and this one was so yummy! Later that evening, we had pizza and beer with friends. It was once again, so nice to catch up with old friends. They are all so awesome and loving and I'm sad we don't live closer to each other. Thank goodness for technology!

On Monday, Ashley picked us up and we went to meet Tara and Rich's dog. He is a huge Mastiff and is just like the friendly giant. He has the cutest face and is so sweet. I joked that with our three dogs I could easily teach my Kindergarten students the words big (Mastiff - Tara's Feo), medium (Golden Lab - our Taco) and small (Chihuahua - Ashley's Louie). We then went to visit my old house - the one I grew up in. The trees have grown so much! I was hoping to go in, but no one was there to open the door. It was still nice to see it and think of all of the memories that were made there.

We then went to the Stampede. If you haven't heard about it, it's a big deal (in Calgary). Seriously though, it's a ton of fun! We went to the BMO centre where you can buy all kinds of different things (we actually bough the magic mesh which sucks - don't buy it! ours fell off 15 minutes after we installed it). We ate corn dogs, walked around the grounds, ate mini donuts, watched the hypnotist, went to the Big 4 where I worked when I was 15 years old and had some pizza, walked around the midway, went to the Agriculture tent and ran into another high school friend, went to a random horse event and then went to the Casino to rest our legs (and get some cool air). We had tickets to the Chuckwagon races and to the Grandstand show but standing room only, partly because we bought them at the last minute and partly because we are cheap. The Chuckwagon races were cool, I was glad Paul got to see some 'real' Stampede action! The show was awesome. I really loved the involvement of many Native American dances throughout the show. The dancing and singing by the Young Canadians was good, as per usual. Paul Brandt was really good, though I didn't really know many of his songs. The one song that really got to me was Alberta Bound.



This whole trip made me realize that no matter what happens in my life, a part of me will always be Calgarian/Albertan/cowgirl. My husband really enjoyed the motorcycles, there were many incredible acrobats (some were even from Cirque du Soleil) and of course, the fireworks at the end of the show were impressive.

The flight home was an adventure as an unruly passenger got kicked off the plane! We were sitting fairly close so we saw and heard how it all went down. Basically, after the safety instructions he refused to put his seat up and was sitting with his feet all over the place (in the aisle and in the other passenger's space), so the flight attendant asked him oh-so-nicely three times to sit properly for safety reasons and he was putting up such a fuss that the plane turned around and went back to the airport. The 'sheriff' came to kick him off (I call him the sheriff because during Stampede week basically all of Calgary dresses up in cowboy gear, so this security officer was wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a cowboy hat).

Taco was so happy to see us again it was really cute! Nothing like a dog to make you feel loved! He is so tired from playing with his friends all week, and is super cuddly.

There you have it! That concludes the story of our trip to Calgary. As I said, I loved reminiscing and renewing with old friends, and nurturing that side of me that needs the wide open spaces and mountain air. Calgary continues to grow, there is construction everywhere and I did feel like there was a lot more diversity than ten years ago when I lived there, which to me is a good thing!

I keep wondering: Who would I be if I still lived there?

last minute disorganization

Compared to many people, I am very organized. Compared to my colleagues, I am not. The whole school year, they teased me for having a messy desk. Today, all of their classrooms are packed and clean for the summer. Mine is a mess. I've emptied out my closet to try to re-organize everything and am in the process of washing the toys. Oh boy. Along these lines, during the last few weeks of school, I kept being surprised about the various projects we were working on, as if I had never been around when they were planned. So to keep within this theme, I am letting you know about a great give-away over at Mrs. Bremer's Kindergarten, but you only have one day to sign up for the draw! This is last-minute, but better late than never right??? Now please send strong organizational vibes for tomorrow's clean-up day, hopefully I can get it all done and be ready for summer vacation!

Awesome giveaway!

Condo updates

We finished the curtains!!! We also started working on the guest room, on the patio, and on my reading corner... but unfortunately, my SanDisk card isn't working on my computer, so if anyone has a solution, it would be appreciated! That way I could show you the pictures of what I'm talking about.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures to tide you over:

OK, this is before the curtains were finished, but there were a few novelties, such as the cushions, table runner and plant.

The stools and light fixture are new.

Taco's cage is new! haha

May long

For May long weekend, we went to my uncle's cabin. It was a great time. Eight adults and three dogs made it interesting! We canoed, spend time in the hot tub, went for walks, read, went for a boat ride, ate great food and chatted about life.

Here are a few pictures:

We tied the dogs together since we wanted them to have some freedom, but knew that the older dog would come back if called. It worked really well! Taco is stubborn, but they played well together and didn't run away!

My parents enjoying the view.

Taco enjoying the view.

He has grown so much!

MIA

I have a blog? Did you forget about it too? This end-of-the-school-year has been crazier than most. I will update you on a few things that happened during the past months.

First of all, on April 25th, 2012, I took pictures all day to represent a day in my life. I did this for my friends who do not live in Montreal and wanted to know what my walk to school was like, what the library looked like, etc. Here are a few of the pictures:

6am: Take Taco out 

Breakfast = maple syrup in coffee always!

Where Taco sits as I eat breakfast

Going down the stairs in the Metro

Hospital by my school

School - very urban setting, as you can tell

Classroom

End of the day - back up the metro stairs (isn't the lighting beautiful?)

I love the knot in this tree. This is in the park on my walk home from the metro.

The library right by my house (I'm in love with it!).

Outside view of the library.

Park across from my house

Graffiti wall by my house - the paintings change almost daily and some are truly breath-taking!

The church I go to and sing in every Sunday.

The canal along which I take Taco for walks after school.

Stay tuned! I'll be updating more today to catch up for lost time!

Semana Santa 2012

I won't be able to remember everything, so I will just jot down what I remember:

Friday = day of travelling, nothing too exciting to report, but the trip is so long. Bus to the airport, flight to Houston, then to Mexico then bus to Puebla. On the bus a little boy was throwing trash on the floor and Paul and I told him not to and helped him clean up. I can't remember if we did anything cool that night. I think we were just really happy to see Paul's family and hang out with everyone.

Saturday = went to parque ecologico, and to the aviary, which was really cool. It's nice to see such green spaces in Mexico and it was nice to be out in the hot sun! In the afternoon we went to Angelopolis to walk around and see the new Luxury hall they had built (which has stores like Burberry). We ran into one of Paul's high school friends and had coffee with him and his wife. That evening was one of Paul's friend's birthday so we went to Cholula and had some beers. I felt really hip to be going out on a Saturday night!

Sunday = We went to Easter mass and I ran into an old colleague of mine! Afterwards, we all went to eat at a restaurant in Angelopolis which serves many different cuts of beef. Luckily for me, they had tuna. It was good, but the portions were HUGE!

Monday = Paul and his family went to Africam, which is a great big zoo/safari here. I had plans with friends, so I didn't go. First, I went to Triangulo to have sushi with Kristen and Rachel, and then we got our nails done (a simple French manicure on hands and feet for me). Afterwards, we went to Starbucks to see Lenya and Camille. It was so great to catch up with old friends and to meet her daughter. She is absolutely beautiful and so lively and fun!

Tuesday = My friends and I had organized a 'day of fun'. First, Paul dropped me off at Nicky's. Caitlin had come up from Mexico city for the day (thank you Cait!!!) and Cynthia was also there. Then we met Shannon, her daughter AV and her mom Gigi at Casa Reyna, a great restaurant downtown. We had breakfast there (I had the chilaquiles I'd been dying for!!!). Afterwards, we went shopping in the centro (downtown) because there was a store there where I had found the best pair of jeans. I found the store and got a new pair of jeans, and we also went to Woolworths (Nicky's favourite store) and I got a colourful T-shirt there. After that, we headed to Cholula to go to Tiki, which has always been one of my favourite places. It has a really cool beachy atmosphere and is really cheap. We stayed there all afternoon, ate some food, drank some beers, and shared lots of gossip! Then Caitlin had to catch her bus back to mexico city and we drove really quickly to drop her off at the capu. Nicky, Cynthia and I decided to continue our day of fun and we went to Starbucks and stayed until late talking about life and all sorts of things. All in all, we were together for 12 hours and had not run out of things to say!

Wednesday = In the evening, we went to Paul's grandma's house to talk and it turned into a little family reunion! Paul's uncle stopped by, all of his sisters and parents came up (Paul's grandma lives one floor above them), and we all thoroughly enjoyed watching my nephew walking around a round table.

Thursday = I woke up feeling sick so I immediately took Imodium. We went to the UDLAP to get a letter stating that I won't be finishing my Masters there because I want to transfer the credits I did there and use them towards my Masters at Mcgill. My goodness it is easier said than done. Because they don't have a pre-formated letter, they had no idea what to do. Finally, one guy was nice enough to help us and drafted a letter that looks like it will work. While the letter was being prepared we went for breakfast at Conchita's and I had chilaquiles again (very bad idea on a bad stomach). At lunchtime, I was really ill so I just slept all afternoon and drank ginger ale. I guess it wouldn't be a trip to Mexico without a bit of stomach sickness! At night we went to see American Reunion in the VIP theatre that I LOVE! They have reclining leather seats, you can reserve your seats, and you can order food from inside the theatre. Cynthia and Nicky and their husbands came too. The movie was good, it was exactly what I expected! Afterwards, we all went for dinner at Chilis and Kristen came too! Once again, it was awesome to catch up and hang out with everyone.

Friday = Mostly hung out at home enjoying time with our nephew. Had lunch and then went to the UDLAP to pick up the letter. Tonight Paul's aunts and uncles are coming over and we are having tacos. I'm very excited and super thrilled about our wonderful trip! We still have one day left, but I'm guessing we're just going to hang out and not do a whole lot.

Adventures in Taco land

I'd say for being new puppy parents we are doing pretty well. It has been 4 days since the last accident (and before that it had been 7), Taco now knows his name, can sit and stay and come pretty well (sometimes he just looks at us stubbornly though, like what do you want to make me do?) and generally, everyone is very happy!

There are a few problems or 'issues' as Cesar Millan would call them.

First of all, The Walk. The oh-so-important walk is oh-so-difficult! I understand about the calm assertive energy and I actually tend to use it in the classroom with my students. I find it's important not to get upset or frustrated and to remember they probably just didn't understand what you wanted. I think the same goes for the dog, but the dog is a dog. He sees the world through his nose and is a puppy with a very very short attention span. Also, the whole dominant/submissive thing is tricky. As I mentioned above, in the house he does well. We have clear rules for no going on the furniture and no going into different rooms unless he's invited to do so. He has to earn his toys and food by sitting and staying. He can't jump on us or bite, and these are things that he's assimilated well. So I feel like in the house, we're in control. Go outside and it's a whole different ball game. Well the world is just so stimulating, I can imagine it'd be hard not to be distracted. Then again, if he were in the wild as a submissive pack member, he'd just follow us. Right now he tends to follow for about half a block or maybe a block on a good day, and then just start sniffing and pulling. He does his business before we start walking, so I know it's not that. And then trying to stay calm is difficult because I get frustrated about him pulling on the leash. URG! This brings me to my second point:

At times, he goes totally crazy with the leash. He bites at it, jumps and tugs and sometimes even growls. My hypothesis is this is his way of saying 'I've had enough, take me home now', but I'm not 100% sure. We usually correct him when this happens and wait until he is sitting calmly before we start walking again. It's really hard to tell what sets him off though, if it's that the leash was in his way or what.

Anyway, other than that having a puppy is really fun! He is just the cutest thing ever and I love snuggling up to him when he's all tired out at the end of the day. Hopefully these 'issues' will be resolved quickly and soon we will have the best behaved dog ever!!!

I hadn't realized...

I hadn't realized putting curtains up would take so much TIME! We started in January and thought we could put all of the curtains up in one day. We have five windows, so it seemed totally do-able. BUT, we also had our dishwasher delivered on the same day. My husband and dad spend almost all day installing the dishwasher, and we only worked on the curtains for about an hour. We got the rod above our bed up. The next day, we continued in our curtain venture and put up the actual curtains (ironing curtains takes forever!). The following week, we put up another rod and curtains, and now the bedroom curtains are done (hurray!). The weekend after that, we went to Canadian Tire to get a saw because some of the rods had to be cut in order to fit our window width. We spend all day putting up two rods. One day I decided to iron curtains and we put those up on one of the living room windows. And that is where the story ends. We ran out of steam (figuratively) and of the clips that hold up our curtains (literally). This was more than a month ago. We still have so much work to do around the house (condo), but it takes so much time and energy! Last time we went to Ikea to look for more clips, they had run out and told us they wouldn't get more until April! So I guess our curtains will be looking like this for a while now:

Notice the right-hand window lacking curtains...

We still have other home improvement projects that will most likely take forever. I'd like to put some pictures up (I still haven't put my wedding pictures into frames and it's been a year and a half!), I would also like to create a reading corner in the bedroom. And I'm guessing once we know we have some visitors coming, we'll get our act together and make the guest room an actual guest room rather than a 'lets just put everything here' room. So hint hint friends, please visit so we can continue making our house more home-y!

Taco

We are now dog owners! We adopted this adorable Golden retriever labrador mix from the SPCA last Saturday. It was meant to be, as first we went to see the main building and didn't really click with any of the dogs we saw. We were a bit disheartened, but learned there was an emergency shelter on the other side of the street for puppies and more difficult dogs, so we decided to go check it out. Just as we were walking in, a young volunteer had a dog on a leash and asked us if she could help us. My husband looked at her and said, "Yes, we came to adopt that dog.", pointing to the dog she had on a leash. She said he had just came in about 20 minutes earlier from a family that just wasn't ready to raise a puppy. We stayed with him for a long time, went for a walk, fell in love, and got all of the papers organized. His operation (to be neutered) was scheduled for Monday, so we left him (broke my heart) there for the weekend.

On Sunday, we went to a pet store to buy all of the necessary accessories: dog bowls, toys, bed, food and cage. We also spend most of the day trying to decide on a name. We went through so many options, but we wanted something that worked in French, English and Spanish, and something that meant something to us. We finally decided on Taco Anyong Titan. We call him Taco (which reminds us of Mexico and suits him well), but we just love the name Anyong from Arrested Development and Titan from a  Dane Cook sketch.

 On Monday, my husband and I were so excited we kept talking about our dog all day. We had a few pictures on our phones that we would show whoever was willing to look! After work, I rented a Nissan Leaf from Communauto (a car-sharing community I'll have to post about another time). It is the coolest car! It is 100% electric and runs great. It was a great experience. Taco was super excited to see us and the car ride home went really well.

He has been doing so well this first week. He has already learned to sit and stay before we open the door, he heels pretty well (still tugs quite a bit though) and hasn't had too many accidents in the house.

Today, went for a super long four-hour walk to the Old Port in the snow and wind (we finally got a good snow storm!). Taco is now super tired and relaxed, but was really cold at the half-way point and I felt so bad that he was shivering! We almost looked homeless as we ate outside (Tim Hortons wouldn't let us in with the dog), Taco in my jacket to warm him up!

Here are a few pictures and a super cute video I took of Taco playing in the snow. Enjoy!

Wouldn't you have fallen in love with him too?

First day home!

We think he's going to be long!

Cute things heard at work this week

This week being Valentine's Day, we had many talks about love and friendship. Here are a few tidbits I thought I'd share to make you smile:

One of my students told me he was in love with a girl from another class and that when he saw her, his heart dropped to his feet because she was just so beautiful (aw!), but that she was annoyed because he always wanted to talk to her and play with her.

Another student told me he was in love with his parents and that he would marry them one day. I'll let him figure that one out in time, but am making a mental note to tell his parents that they are ever-so-loved!

What to wear if you are a Canadian teacher

Today was the 100th day of school for my students and I. We celebrated by counting to 100 many times throughout the day and by having an outdoor carnival. My colleagues and I had set up different stations that the students could play at and they had a blast. We were outside for about an hour.

We are lucky at our school because we (teachers) are only on recess duty once a week, but our recess lasts 45 minutes, so when it's cold you need to be dressed really warm. This is the whole point of my post. Knowing that we have to be outside for long stretches of time once a week, we all decided to buy the very best winter clothing we could get our hands on. For us this means a North Face Arctic Parka (black or grey (or brown - not pictured here)) and Sorel boots. Obviously, all other 'normal' rules of winter dressing still apply - layers are a must! So underneath our matching jackets, we all had two or three shirts, and we also had several layers of pants (including snow pants). Tuques (that's a warm hat for non-Canadians), mittens and scarves are accessories, but choose them wisely because when you play in the snow with five-year-olds, things get wet pretty fast!

Notice the matching jackets and boots!

2012 Resolutions

I looked back and did not find a single post about my 2011 New Year's Resolutions, and quite honestly, I have no idea what they were! This year I am super-motivated and have a long list of resolutions.

1. Go to church every Sunday and become involved in the choir/ Sunday school/ something like that... As you may or may not recall, I've embraced my faith again this year and enjoy bettering my spiritual self.

2. Go swimming and/or exercise twice a week. There is a swimming pool literally two minutes away from my house. I have no excuse.

3. Get out of the city and enjoy nature once a month. I love hiking, skiing, spending time in cabins, and I'd love to be able to accomplish this one.

4. Volunteer. I'm hoping the public library across the street from me will call, because I told them I was looking to volunteer. If they don't, I might apply to be a Big Sister.

5. Finish my masters. I've already begun filling out applications and I definitely don't want to overwhelm myself like I did last time, so I'm thinking part-time, taking it slowly, but finishing it eventually (not in 2012) is a very reasonable goal.

What are your New Year's resolutions???