Chinese New Year and Ice Rink

 Here are some photos of the festivities at Chinese school yesterday. Parties and dragons and fancy clothes, oh my!

Then we went to Lunarfest at Harbourfront with the Toronto cousins. After watching a shadow puppet show, the kids went up on stage to cast their own shadows. Here, in order, are Zoë, Molly, Jacob and Maeve.

This winter hasn't been conducive to rink building thus far. But Kate is giving it a go today.  We'll see if the weather this week cooperates.

More Boy-Girl Twins

With Zoë out of diapers (Yes!! Since Christmas!), our lives were beginning to seem a little simple. A little dull. Somewhat prosaic. So we've added two 8 week-old kittens into the mix. The boy is Paddington and the girl is Rochester, or Rosey. And they're painfully shy (who wouldn't be when surrounded by three loud, boister-monsters). Right now they're sleeping under a bookshelf and they've spent most of their 24 hours here behind the couch. I do pledge that the blog will not become inundated with cutesy videos of kittens batting balls of wool. But look at these little furballs!

We head down to Toronto tomorrow for Molly's pre-operative doctor visits. Her surgery is booked for next Wednesday. Although it's a routine and low risk procedure, I have a knot in my stomach that's not particularly pleasant. She seems pretty okay about it - more concerned about her post-operative casts and mobility than about the surgery itself.

Some St. Lucia Videos

Don helping Molly to swim across the pool by herself for the first time.





Jacob exploding out of the waterslide

Molly ziplining

St. Lucia

We spent the first week of the year in St. Lucia at the Coconut Bay resort with the whole family plus Beth, Don and the big twin cousins (Sean and Erin, who are now almost 10). It was pretty much a perfect trip.

The weather was warm, the food was good, we had two adjoining rooms and the kids all slept well in their own room, the lazy river was lazy, the waterslides were fun, Jacob's new favourite thing in the world is ziplining (there was a mini-course for little ones), Jacob's pirate obsession deepened with readings of Peter Pan and Swallows and Amazons plus a deep-sea fishing expedition, and all 3 kids improved their swimming with the help of the Swimming Family. The big cousins were spectacular - our guys followed them around from dawn to dusk and they never tired of the attention. Which left lots of adult time for us and Beth and Don.

Jacob thinks we should move to St. Lucia and if all the weeks would be like the last, it's hard to argue.

The whole gang at the restaurant.

Kate getting ready to go for a run. We arrived home at midnight on Saturday and the next morning she set a 20 second PB in a 5k race, in the cold. She's making it harder to mock her switch to a paleo lifestyle.

Cuddling with Aunt Beth

Happy twins. I asked if they mind being called "the twins". They rolled their eyes and said, "No not at all. We are twins."

Nothing like a cold beer on a hot day.

Lots of swimming.

Deep conversation between Zoë and Uncle Don

The kids really took to the whole concept of free drinks.

Don, Sean, Jacob and Kate on their deep-sea fishing trip. Jacob's captainish, far-away look-in-his-eye

And the zip-lining excursion.

New Year's Resolutions

I believe I made 3 resolutions last year:

1) Run a sub-4 hour marathon for my 40th birthday
In May, Kate and I did the Mississauga marathon, completing it in 3:52 in the miserable, rainy cold. I also set PBs for the 5k and half marathon. I ran over 1300km in 2011, which is like running from Orillia to Thunder Bay. Which sounds good unless you compare it to what Terry Fox did, on one leg.

2) Focus on more Chinese stuff as Zoë gets old enough to need/appreciate it
We have been heading to Toronto every weekend since September for Chinese language lessons for the whole family.And we had a resplendent celebration of Zoë's dragon day. Now I just need to teach myself mah-jong!

3) Blog at least once a week.
And I blogged a few more times than in 2010, but there were still some empty patches, like the past 3 weeks!

And for 2012? How about...

1) Make a significant improvement in my marathon PB at the Ottawa marathon in May (training program begins in earnest in a couple of weeks). Do my first Olympic distance duathlon in Gravenhurst. And learn to swim, at least well enough to not embarrass myself quite so much at the triathlon this summer.

2) Finally complete Zoë's "memory book" of our trip to China

3) Try to improve on the ratio of joyous to disciplinary moments with the kids.

4) More blogging than last year.

Christmas Season

Christmas season is over. We're home from St. Lucia. School has begun again. So it's time to catch up on the blog.

For starters, here are a couple of shots of Kate celebrating her birthday, just before Christmas. 37 years old and getting more beautiful (and faster) every year.

Christmas was a blast, with little brother Ben and my parents joining us for the festivities. It was a rare green Christmas and the lake was unfrozen (Ben even went in for a crazed dip in the lake). Jacob's "bemote atoll zamboni" was the biggest hit of the day. "Remote control" is unpronounceable apparently. A major painting project is still underway, as part of the construction of castles/forts/pirate lairs. And lots of books, games, etc.

Here are the kids getting ready to attack the presents...

All 5 of us got snowshoes. Restricted to indoors on Christmas day but we've all been out on them since. The twins can run at full speed in them. We're planning a trek across the lake, but it's still not frozen solid all the way across yet.

A couple of wildlife shots.
Here's the bloody big beaver that took away all our saplings.




And a pair of bald eagles spent Boxing Day fishing off the edge of the ice. You'll have to take my word for it as my zoom isn't strong enough.

And then we celebrated the twins' half birthday (4 1/2) on Boxing Day, complete with a pirate ship cake.

And here's Zoë stealing centre stage as usual...