The weekend

Here is what we generally spent our time doing:



Off camera are Tamara and Elias on the couch, me in the lounge chair, and Emily generally getting into everything kept between the four walls of Tamara and Greg's house. It snowed beautifully all day Friday and I saw it as a sign that I shouldn't really move from in front of the fire. Instead, I sat and read to Emily and took some pictures of Tamara and Elias.



We had an amazing weekend - it was so great to spend time back in Kitchener. We lived there a few years ago and really miss it. I want to go back. I think John does, too. Now we just have to figure out how to do that.

We have really close friends there, the kind you could call at 3:00 a.m. in an emergency and that are absolutely so easy to hang out with. We spent a lot of time during our year there at Greg and Tamara's house and when we're there now, it feels like we never left.

I went to university in Waterloo (Kitchener-Waterloo are two cities joined at the hip) and then John and I spent one year there just after he finished his PhD. He taught at Guelph and I worked two jobs. Things were very lean but we were really happy - the best social life we've had for sure. Not that we're not happy now - we are - but we really miss our friends there and we really like the city. K-W is also MUCH closer to family, which would be great and would mean we would have help when we need it too.

During the weekend, we also took Emily to the St. Jacob's Farmers Market - a place we shopped a lot when we lived there. We took her to our favourite vendors - vanilla pancakes, summer sausage, and the Stone Crock for Dutch Apple Squares. The Market has lots of Old Order Mennonite vendors - thus the best summer sausage you'll find. You better believe I had a big ole sandwich of that today.

We spent Sunday with John's sister, Sue, and her family. John's mom came up to join us all, too. It was great. Emily played really well with her cousins, Kennedy (4 1/2) and Claire (almost 3). Claire and Emily played particularly well together, even spontaneously starting a game of roll-the-ball together.



We had a good dump of snow while we were there so everyone (except Hope and I) went out tobogganing. Hope slept like a champ most of the day so I also got some rest. Emily, on the other hand, didn't nap ALL WEEKEND. Yikes. She had a melt down at the end of the day on Sunday but I was fully expecting it.

I won't give you a play-by-play of the whole weekend, but two extremely funny things happened that I have to share.

(1) we made the obligatory Canadian stop at Tim Horton's on the way down (okay, several stops). When John ran in for the coffee, Emily said: "Emmy coffee?" Me: "No, coffee is just for grown-ups." Emmy: "Yeah, kids tea." Clearly, I'm doing something right.

(2) John washed his hair with dog shampoo. Enough said.