igloos & snowblowers

David snowblowing our icerink again after another snowfall

igloo building

I shouldn't have said 'things should return to normal', when is family life ever normal?

The kids did go back to school last Tuesday, Harriet was sent home from school Wednesday with 'pink eye'!!!!! (conjunctivitis). We decided it was about time we got a doctor over here, I am told a lot of Canadians don't have doctors especially in the city so I went to Harvey Hospital and one of the local doctors put us on his books.

Tuesday night we had 2-4cm of snow forecast...we actually got 36cm!! so school was closed and the kids stayed home with dad building igloos. Rich has lent us his snow blower for the winter which makes the daily job of snow shovelling much more fun. Finding out about school closures is so easy at 6am the big boss of district 18 makes a decision and it's on the radio, a phone line and the website. Sometimes he'll shut all schools in the district, postpone the bus runs for an hour or close specific schools like Harvey last week when over a foot of snow fell but hardly any in the rest of the area. This does mean that the kids are very eager to be up at 6am checking the weather and websites. Yesterday was another snow day as there was a severe weather warning in place including freezing rain. It was awful the roads we lethal as snow tires are no good in sheer ice but the plows (ploughs) and deicers soon had the roads good. They spray them with some sort of deicer stuff. It is definitely much colder now -18 and colder is fun as your nostril hairs freeze when you go out which feels very strange.

Bess isn't keen on this weather she got stuck in a drift and had to be rescued, she whimpered and laid down refusing to move and had to be carried inside too.

Ice skating is part of the school curriculum! Harriet starts next week every Wednesday afternoon. I go with the class of 3 year olds I work with each Tuesday. When I was told I thought they were mad but it's all geared up for kids skating as soon as they can walk! They have these kiddy zimmer frames to start with or you just take a chair with you, they push them around the ice till they can stand unaided. The girl I work with has been with her family a couple of times and the first session left her chair and skated across the ice, we work well together as I'm at a similar level! The boys have snow shoeing and skiing on their curriculum instead. We have toured the charity shops for skates and found pairs for all of us except David all for about $5 a pair!

David has a fair amount of work on but a lot of it is in the St John area which is about 1 1/2 hours drive away, he forgot his wallet yesterday and didn't realise until he couldn't buy lunch or fuel for the pickup! I had to drive part way to rescue him as it was running on fumes!

The market was the worst yet last Saturday so when I got a call to say it was full this Saturday but I was top of the reserve list I was quite relieved. It was short lived she called back today with a 4' spot for me!!!