What a winter!

I live in Canada. Winter is part of life in Canada. I should be used to it by now, seeing that I have lived here my entire life. At some point though, every winter, with very few exceptions, winter gets to me. Oh I love the look of snow, especially the first real snow of winter. Snow is lovely when it is falling and white and fluffy...as long as I'm not driving while that is happening. Yesterday for example, it was snowing and I needed to get home to meet the bus that was bringing my younger son home from school. I was driving carefully, but I nearly went off the road once, and had no choice but to drive so slowly that I only barely made it home in time. Phew! I don't want to find out the hard way what happens if I am not there when the bus stops to drop him off. Even more than that, I do not want my son to find out the hard way what happens if I'm not there to meet him. He's only four.
Today was snowy, yesterday was snowier...looks as though this will be yet another snowy weekend. Tonight I went to the grocery store and the piles of snow in the parking lot dwarfed my car. They have entire sections of the parking lot filled with enormous piles of snow. It's only January. We have a couple of months to go. Arrrrgh! There are limits to how much of this beauty one can appreciate.
Oh well, must make the best of it, I guess. There will be no vacations to warm places this year. One good thing - the snow blower is still working...Yeah! And as I mentioned, when it's white and fluffy, it's pretty and even fun. I still enjoy taking photos and this year I don't have to go far to find subject matter.

It has been a good long while

A few things have changed since 2006. The biggest thing is Alex is no longer doing construction. In August 2007 he developed an infection (lumbar vertebral myelitis, caused by MRSA) that went into his spine. He was paralyzed, thankfully only temporarily, but it required emergency surgery, seven or so weeks of IV antibiotics, and a long road back for recovery. Some residual nerve damage occurred and he lost quite a bit of his strength. The physically demands of construction meant that was no longer a possibility for his career from that point, so he has instead entered into the world of real estate sales. With things in this economic slowdown, this career is certainly not taking off like a shot. That said, the future certainly looks more promising than it did with construction.
Financial chaos remains, has probably gotten worse by quite a bit. I think the writing is on the wall that I am going to have to figure out a way to generate some income to add to the pot, or the pot which is really more of a black hole at this point, will probably consume us.
Peter is still quite a bit smaller at his age (now four) than Justin was, but he is growing. His personality is drastically different from Justin. He and Justin are still both happy and healthy and get along famously. Justin is now nine, loves hockey - plays goalie - and all kinds of stuff. He has started trumpet lessons, and guitar. Both boys really love to swim.
Our family still enjoys our Disney vacations. Our surprise trip for the boys was a fabulous success and we have been back twice since that trip - once in March 2007 and again in October 2008. It was fun both trips. We did the Pirates and Princess party in March and the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in October. Both were fun, with spectacular fireworks, special treats and characters in costumes. Unfortunately the end of our October trip the weather was pretty chilly, so we didn't get the swimming time in we usually enjoy.
It is late January 2009, and it has been a cold snowy winter so far. A vacation would be so nice to someplace warm, but it's just not in the cards now. Oh well. Alex is working on a skating rink on our creek by the house. Hopefully that will work out. Justin is a great skater now, Peter is just learning. It would help to have fun stuff to do right here at home.
So I'm in brainstorming mode for generating income, and looking forward to warmer weather.