Hello Old Man Winter, you're early!

G'day!  So we're about 3 months late on this post, there's a whole lot to cover.  Pictures will have to do some good telling.

summer girls in Yarmouth

Dialogue from earlier this week:

Edie: Mom, when can I wear my ballet shoes outside again?
Mom: Oh Edie, when Spring comes again.
Edie: How long will that be?
Mom: Let's see. Well, we're in October, Spring usually happens in April. Let's count. October, November, December, January, February, March, April...7 months...At this point Laura in my head is crying.

So, I think that it's safe to say that most of our followers live in warmer places than us.  Winter has been here for a solid week, full on snow and temperatures hovering around between -5 and 5...too cold. Nothing compared to what we'll be getting, but the idea of 7 months of this is a bit maddening. Australia has made me soft. Tim never liked winter, I have always been on the other side of the fence, if not just for being obstinate, but ya. 7 months. Our kids will definitely be wearing snowpants under their Halloween costumes, which is something I remember having to do as a child in Nova Scotia, but it's been ages since it was ever that cold in October where I'm from.  Oh well. We look forward to sliding again and skating, and we still love it here in Saskatoon so the winter months will fly, we're sure!

So since the last post we have returned from the mountains in one piece, a whole lot smarter about how to manage kids and grad students in the mountains.  It's a trip we look forward to making annually hopefully.

In early August Tim left for Australia to revisit fieldwork that he's still involved with there, and the girls and I left Saskatoon for the east coast. I took the camera and I'm writing the recap blog, so I'm afraid there really won't be much Australian content.  The girls and I had an amazing trip, probably the easiest trip I've taken with the kids. They are such good travelers, they love their extended family and the beach, so Yarmouth was a real hit. I was able to reconnect with a few old friends and lots of family again, it is so nice to be back in Canada.

Edie, Uncle Christopher and the cousins

Midge and Celia

Dee and Cousin Maddie

Edie's 4th birthday party take 1, costume time in the Valley!

Cutest Red Sox cheerleader out there!

Princess, of course

Dee and Buppa and a very old tractor

Fun at PM beach 

Not so hard to get a smile out of this one on the beach

Dee and Buppa

Edie's 4th birthday take 2- Spider dogs in Saskatoon

Once we got back from that traveling, it was time for Edie to start pre-school and to get back into all of the things that we'd taken a break from for the summer.  Edie is LOVING pre-school. It's hard to believe that we ever had doubts about her thriving in a school setting. She's made friends, participates in everything, loves her teacher, I have to pry her away everytime we leave.  It's nice that she has that. Along with school she's also started swim lessons and sings in a children's choir, both are also going very well.  She's a little social butterfly.

First day

As for Ceeley-mac, she's exploding developmentally these days. Stringing words together, making demands and sticking to her guns, jumping, dancing, you name it...tetherball??? Yes! She's discovered tetherball at Edie's school and l-o-v-e-s it, demands it everytime we go there. She and I have been enjoying time together while Edie is in pre-school, especially reading together. That makes 4 bookworms in the Jardine household. It's really awesome to see her mimic Edie and what Edie is doing or saying, for example, if you ask Celia to count she can rip off 1 through 10 (though not necessarily in that order) no problem. We can only assume that this is because Edie does a lot of counting out loud too, as we haven't actually sat down and really worked on counting with Celia, her being 19 months and all.  Celia is fearless when it comes to swimming as well. We usually get the girls out to the pool a few times a week and now that Edie is swimming, Celia is trying it too.  It makes for interesting and sometimes very scary pool episodes. It is a really fun time to be parents to these girls.

Fall was nice for those 2 weeks it lasted...

As for Tim and I, we're both chipping away at our respective work. Tim is busy and working hard, but we still get lots of time with him on the home front which we are really enjoying. This will likely change dramatically when he starts teaching in January, but we'll take each season as it comes. My job is taking care of some pretty fantastic kids (my own), and I like it, so that's good. I've also had a great triathalon training and racing season this summer and have finally gotten my hands on a road bike. I'm pretty pumped. I'll admit though, this weather is taking its toll on my ambition. Partly because we've all been pretty sick over the last 6 weeks (at one point 3 out of 4 of us were on antibiotics), and because it's harder to make myself do anything outside when it's cold, and because I love to bake when the weather gets colder, and my training partner started full-time work again...well, you can probably imagine that I've hit a little slump. I've got races scheduled throughout the winter that will force me to keep up, I hope. The next is Nov 1st, a 10k trail run in the dark- it will be a great time I'm sure.

Last Fall race for Mom...

And Dee and Taz 

We'll be keeping up a bit more regularly now that we're not sick, and home for a stretch. Big congratulations go out to our friends Team Davis, who will be making the move to Canadian soil very shortly.  All a part of our elaborate plan to get them out to the prairies to join us. Toronto will be their home for now, an easy flight to Saskatoon. We can't wait to see you again!

Two peas in a pod

All for now, love to all.

Laura, on behalf of the team.