Joey and Ella - 2011

Kate in the musical - A Christmas Carol

During the week of Dec 3rd Kate was Emily ( Scrooges finance) in A Christmas Carol. The sets were very elaborate (I helped build) and the production was very good with a star studded cast. There were 5 shows with many people helping with the production. The musical does the story proud and is definitely a must see for theatre buffs.

Christmas 2011 and Happy New Year 2012

            It's time again for that painfully long Christmas letter where we regale you with the brilliance of our children, and endlessly recount last years adventures with hilarity, sprinkled with wit, puppy dogs and rainbows.

            We travelled to a number of places this year. You can link to pictures and read more about the trips on the attached links.

• Family March Ski Trip – Sun Peaks and Revelstoke - MarchSkiTrip2011
• Sons and Dads’ Hiking Trip May – Lake Placid
• Ladies Adventure Trip May – Portland Oregon
• Guys Canoe Trip June  – Algonquin, Ralph Brice Loop
• Parents 50^th Anniversary Trip July – Mediterranean Cruise – Italy, Greece, Turkey
• Guys Hiking Trip Sept – Manjirón, Spain (North of Madrid) - Spain2011
• Carol and Jaime Visit Carol’s Mother Nov – England2011  

            Of note- was our Mediterranean cruise with my parents for their 50th anniversary. The boat left the port of Rome and headed to Messina, Athens, Kusadasi (Turkey), Rhodes, Santorini, Mykanos and Naples. We rounded the trip off with a few days in Rome and lots of wine and pasta.
            Our oldest Cameron has finished grade 12 at Royal St. Georges College and decided to take a gap year. He is in Banff  at Yamnuska for 3 months of hiking and climbing.  He will be teaching skiing at Mansfield and plans to be a camp counsellor before he head off to Lakehead or Thompson River Universities for an outdoor business and guiding program.

            Kate is at St. Clements School for grade 10 and doing well. She again spent her summer at Wanakita in Haliburton and continues with her love of musical theatre. She has been a few in shows this year including the Drowsy Chaperone, Grease and A Christmas Carol. She plans to snowboard at Mansfield as the cold weather nears.

            Carol continues with her busy practice and has left the chief job behind. She continues to ski race, bike and had a ladies trip to Portland Oregon. Carol’s mother has moved from South Africa to Cambridge England. We visited her mother and step-father for a week. Carols stepfather was diagnosed with bone cancer which is now in remission. We are also planning to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer in June; 200 km all for a great cause. Thank goodness we all have your emails so we can hound you for contributions.

            I turned the big 50 in November 2012 and am still fending off the grim reaper. I’m taking some university courses, still ski racing and playing something resembling hockey. I’m back on the job hunt and have luckily had the chance to get a regular golf game.
            We look forward to the coming year with a few momentous dates.  Carol turns 50, and it will be our 25th anniversary, 25 years of wedding bliss!

Hope all your families are happy and health. All the Best!

Oh right – Puppy Dogs and rainbows (Joey and Ella)

Christmas Letter 2006

January 2007

We find ourselves post Christmas and are feeling warm, relaxed and very well fed-the perfect time to sit down and write you our news!

It was again a busy ski year. Since joining Mansfield ski club in December of 2006 we made the weekly trip up to Alliston. The kids took skiing and snowboard lessons, Jaime joined the ski race program and Carol enjoyed getting rid of everyone.

We again did a ski week at March break this year in Sutton, Quebec. We got a large dump on the first day, which gave us lots of snow to play with.. Because of all of that snow there were moguls everywhere, which everyone enjoyed EXCEPT Carol (she claims her knees are too old!). The kids are now better skiers than their parents and were usually waiting for us at the bottom asking us “what’s wrong?”.

And if the moguls were not enough at Sutton, Carol and Jaime and friends Janet and Stephen, headed off to Denver, Colorado to catch the last week of skiing in April. We had a 2-foot dump of snow at Breckenridge and Vale. There were moguls everywhere reluctantly curing Carol of her moguls phobia. A must do for any avid skier. This has everything: a great “real” ski village, amazing restaurants, a chairlift taking you 13000 ft to the top and amazing scenery, and all within a 3 hour flight from Toronto. After Jaime’s knee surgery he was concerned whether he could ski again. He annoyingly boasts, “ I’m back baby, I’m back!”

In the summer we made our Tri-annual pilgrimage to Espana.  This time aside from visiting relatives near Madrid, we enjoyed visiting the Basque country in the north, one of the many Spanish wine regions (Rioja), Alicante on the Mediterranean, and Majorca. The last week was spent in Manjiron, a mountain village outside of Madrid where Jaime’s father and cousins were raised. Carol got to experience her first fiesta (the kids had been to one with Jaime a few years ago) and the music kept things going until sun-up!

  

After our return to Canada, we had a few weeks of work and then we took some days to go on a canoe trip to the Massassaga River. We had perfect weather and a wonderful time. Katie and Cam are seasoned campers and even Carol had to admit she enjoyed it (now that she is armed with her cushy camping mattress and pillow!). Jaime created some gourmet-worthy camping meals, such as Spanish Paella (which the snapping turtles enjoyed too, I might add).

Back to school, and Cameron is in his final year at Junior Academy. Being a Grade 8 upperclassman there are certain rights and privileges, such as being able to eat lunch off campus. He has been saving his allowance diligently for these outings, and looking for other babysitting jobs. Cam is playing hockey at Leaside, and is getting more involved with his drums, and enjoys escaping on his mountain bike.

Katie is in Grade 5 at Claude Watson School, and is enjoying the challenges that the school and the arts curriculum is bringing her. She is also into a variety of things after school: hockey, synchronized swimming, singing and piano. She is very keen to get started on the snowboard lessons, and we have a feeling she will give up skis for good soon.

Carol is still making the trek to Credit Valley hospital, but is still enjoying the challenges there despite the commute. She has been tailoring her education this year to courses and conferences to help her with the administrative role she has signed up for (she is committed to doing the chief position for 3 and a half more years). It has been a learning process to be sure! Fortunately, therapy sessions with Jaime are pretty reasonably priced and she enjoys her ‘getaways” with the family and her girlfriends as therapy as well!

Jaime is on the job hunt this year, and has been enthusiastically exploring lots of options. Nothing official yet, but several prospects-we will keep you posted! The only problem with working full time is it will cut into his camping and hiking outings with the guys! This year he and the “Coeur de bois” travelled to the Massassaga River and to the Adirondacks.

We have enjoyed reading many of your letters and cards and hearing your news. We hope this letter finds you all well, and we wish you a very Happy New Year!

With Love,

Carol, Jaime, Cameron and Kate