• At the Outdoor Pleasure Rink

    He might not play hockey, but hockey hair?  He’s got that down. During holiday break from school my kidlets discovered the ice skating rink that has always been within walking distance.  Somehow we never paid attention to it before, but now the bigger kidlets can walk there themselves, and they’ve…

  • This Christmas

    This Christmas my grocery lists have been written bilingually. I hear carols hummed and sung in two different languages. We got to see two sisters over the moon excited about an enormous Christmas light display. I actually managed to take a picture of all the kids dressed up on Christmas…

  • Happy Christmas

    The oldest sister we are hosting is SO ridiculously excited about Christmas.  I may never have seen a living human so excited about the holiday in my whole life!  Wonderfully festive signs of all sizes like the one above are hanging from all sorts of surfaces in in the house.…

  • Checkers

    One of the girls we are hosting is a checkers expert.  She has won many checkers competitions, and believe me, I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of ever being able to beat her.  She’s 10 moves ahead of me at all times!  She plays international checkers, or international…

  • People Watching

    Do you like to people watch?  I highly recommend hanging out at the International Arrivals door at the airport.  Last week the two girls from Latvia arrived!  We had to be at the airport quite early, and it was a long, hard wait because we were ridiculously excited for them…

  • Stable Cat

    A few years ago my mom gifted me the nativity set that my Grandma Edna made her.  When I was growing up, the nativity set had a special place at Christmas time on a little cabinet in our kitchen that we called the dry sink.  We stood on tiptoe and…

  • Scenes from Thanksgiving Weekend: Part 2

    The Saturday after Thanksgiving the small cousins were napping and the big cousins went to the beach.  It was a terrific afternoon.   There’s never a lack of expression with this crew.   Selfies were in order.  Cousin Janzie went rock hopping and tried not to get wet.  She was…