In two days, it will be March 1st. That will leave 4 months of our 10 month adventure with our kids. Only 4 months?! Phew, Still 4 months though. Unbelievably, the winter is coming to an end (though it’s felt like it was coming to an end all winter). I’m currently sitting at my father-in-law and step-mother-in-law’s kitchen table enjoying a cup of lemon zinger tea and looking out at a +14degC day outside. Tonight it is supposed to drop hard in temperature again.

For the most part, wherever we are, we have settled into a pretty regular routine of some time outside first thing in the morning (sometimes this is only Jeremy and I and the kids sleep in), then school work 10-12ish, then whatever we get up to for the afternoon.

I don’t think I’ve really written much about the details of what we are doing with the kids for school work - so maybe now is a good time for some thoughts on this.

School Work

We decided that we wanted to make school work a process that could be pretty short in the day, and still cover the needed topics for being away for the year. We felt that science, social studies and geography would all get covered pretty well with no planning. So - the focus is math, french reading (they always read a lot in english), and english and french writing. We’ve also recently included playing the piano because we started using an app called Simply Piano on an iPad with our piano at home or wherever we can find one. I was sceptical, but it has been really great. They play for about 10 - 20 mins a day and have lots of fun and learn a lot. The app teaches posture, fingering, reading notes, enough theory for whatever level they are at, and doesn’t require me to hound them to do it.

So the learning looks like this:

Write in English or French (alternating days). Write anything. Minimum 2 sentences for Gavin right now (going to 3 in March, 4 in April…..). No limit for Robin, she just writes a bunch and I don’t ask.
Read in French (sometimes out loud to one of us, often to themselves). They usually use a levelled reading web site for this (Je lis, je lis), or books from the library or ereader.
Complete 2 pages in their math book (we got these ones from Staples. They cover the Ontario curriculum for their grade level. They are big fat books, so we just cut out chunks of them enough to cover which trip we are going on and put them in a little zip up binder they can fit in their back pack along with their writing book.
Play the piano for 10 minutes - this has only been the last couple months.

Now, as many of you who have hung out with us during this year know, the school work process is not always punctual, and not always pleasant. Paige and Scott, in Scotland, probably saw some of the more painful times of this process when we were all learning. But as the year has gone by, we’ve been getting the work done and it has been fun and great MORE of the time every week. We have also ended up skipping a week here and there when we have a super fun part of the trip happening (biking with Tom, hanging out with family in Sweden and Norway). So, we skip some days, some days they do 4 pages of math instead of 2 when it’s easy to catch up, some days we still get mad, and all in all they have learned a ton both doing and not doing school work. We have also learned a lot more about each other in the process and continue to learn to let go of outcomes a lot more.

NOW - the activities!

Below are some highlights of our activities over the last couple of months. We’ve enjoyed seeing so many people that we missed in the fall and will miss again in the coming 4 months.

Port Carling Lions Club and Hanna Park

This little park is just great (we’re obviously biased). We spend a lot of time there and this winter was no different. We had two main missions this winter at the park, both volunteer activities through the Port Carling Lions Club. One was a skating rink, and the other was some activities for Port Carling Winterfest. Here are a few pics building the rink with the kids and putting together an obstacle course and disc golf course at the park. We were part of a great team and had a great time!

Visiting with Friends

Just after Christmas we spent New Years at with our friends at their place near Sir Sams Ski area. We usually try to take a pic of the kids and the adults, and this year was no different. Always fun to look back at past years of the same pose.

We did not do a great job of getting pics of everyone, but we got some! Our friends Jürgen and Hudson came to ski at Arrowhead one day. We had family from Toronto visiting for a ski at Arrowhead and an overnight. Winterfest snow snake throwing and face painting while my brother and family were visiting. Great Wolf Lodge - first time visit. Visiting with Shari in Thornbury. A skating and arcade birthday party (belated) for Gavin. Some Skiing and adventuring to Stubb’s Falls with Lindsay and Greer. Skiing with friends at Kawartha Nordic. More skiing with friends at Arrowhead. For those we missed with pictures - we must have been too busy having fun:)

More Skiing and Skating!

We all know this winter was warmer and less snowy than past winters leading up to it. But somehow, Arrowhead has kept some pretty amazing conditions, as have other nordic centres in the area. We were able to ski at Arrowhead Provincial Park, Bracebridge Resource Management Centre, Parry Sound Nordic, Highlands Nordic, Kawartha Nordic as well as some back country skiing near my parents cottage in Bancroft and on our own Silver Lake in Port Carling. We’re pushing for 200km of skiing at this point (it’s going to be a squeaker) and the kids have raced at 3 races - with one more to go. What an incredible sport this is, and the program quality at Arrowhead as well as consistency with clubs across Canada is amazing. Below are a few fun pictures from the season.

With all the warm temps, we were able to take advantage of some INCREDIBLE lake skating this year. Below are some pictures skating on Silver Lake in Port Carling. We had a stretch of 4 days of just amazing skating on the lake and we skated for a good long stretch at least once every day. Thanks to those who gave us the intel winterfest weekend that it was good for skating, and for everyone who joined us in those next few days! A few pictures are included below here too.

Family Day Weekend

Since this whole Family day thing started, we’ve been heading to my parents cottage near Bancroft and spending some great time outside and inside with my brothers and their families, my parents and my cousins across the lake. Every year is packed full of great winter fun and this year was no different. We had the usual rotating ice circle we cut in the ice. A skating rink of course, but upgraded a bit. My brother has been working at his property up there a lot and he has not only built a sauna with my Dad, but has a big tractor he purchased which did quite a great job of making a huge skating rink, skating loop and trail across the lake to skate back and forth between our cottage and my cousins cottage. We do one dinner at our cottage, one dinner at theirs, and get the mandatory kids picture on the stairs. This year’s weather was sunny and beautiful, and though the wind kept trying to fill in the skating surfaces, my brother on his tractor kept up quite well.

To Come

Up next for us is a sailing trip in Florida for March and April, and then a van trip up the west coast of the US and Canada in May and June. Thank you for reading along with us, and please keep us in the loop of what you are up to also! If you made it this far - I’m impressed! I’m not sure I would have!