Happy Hallowe'en

David was super excited about his costume this year. He started making it in August, took a 2 month break in order to keep the tradition of finishing the night before needing it! Our family has been big fans of the Nickelodeon show Avatar the Last Airbender. David is a 10 tonne air bison named Appa (that for some reason has a platypus tail).

One of the family favourite games is Guillotine, a card game about the French Revolution. Michael went out as a French noble, post-guillotine.

Our jack-o-lantern was from a pumpkin grown in my first vegetable garden this year. I was very pleased with this fruit of our backyard!

Michael had the honours of carving the pumpkin.

Our house was in one of the neighbourhood scavenger hunts for the "bush with a scary face". Not sure who designed the hunt, but I saw several dozen groups of parents and costumed kids stopping by!

Since trick-or-treating was discouraged, I divided up some of the candy I had already purchased amongst the family for snacking during our first family scary movie.

Michael and David participated in a neighbourhood street parade. All the families contributed some candy so that the kids could get a variety of loot at the end without having to go door to door. It was a nice way to still get some of the flavour of Hallowe'en (pun intended).

Speaking of flavour, we still had our traditional hotdog mummies for dinner. We also had our annual porch wine and candy with friends Sandy and Molly virtually through Zoom. Not as good as the real thing, but it was important to still be able to see them!

And then we watched The Sixth Sense! It was so great to watch the kids faces at the end! 

So that was our Hallowe'en. A mixture of old traditions and some new. David was a little morose about his lack of a pillowcase full of sugar, but I think he enjoyed the holiday in spite of that loss. I will enjoy not having quite so many candy wrappers floating around the house!

Happy Thanksgiving

I am very blessed with a delightful family even if we can't see each other as often as we would like, wonderful friends who bring me joy, the fortunate position that our jobs are relatively secure, that we live in a country that is doing pretty well with respect to keeping our people safe, and that we have become more aware of those segments of society that are NOT kept safe and we are trying to rectify that. I am hopeful that the awakening that has accelerated during these times of forced introspection continues and is a lasting legacy to the younger generation. 

We had a great Covid-Thanksgiving. Although we were unable to visit with our family, we had a delicious outdoor Thanksgiving dinner with our Toronto bubble on Saturday afternoon. Lots of food, conversation, and music. 

David was super excited for outdoor Thanksgiving. No pants or shoes but he did have his mask!

On Sunday we enjoyed a socially distant visit in the backyard. We opted to order in dinner from a local restaurant as a show of support for small businesses that must shut down with very little notice and full freezers! Cumin Kitchen provided a feast that the whole family enjoyed.

On the holiday Monday we arrived just before 9am at Rouge National Park for an 8.5km family hike.

 

Chris was dressed for adventure!

I was very thankful that we got to the park before 9am. By the time we left, the trails were crowded enough that masks were a good idea and there was a traffic jam looking for parking!

Cottage conviviality

We are very lucky to have many wonderful friends. One of our newest friends deemed us worthy of a SECOND! invite to their family's gorgeous Georgian Bay retreat. Unfortunately, Chris was already committed to a work retreat, so the four remaining Taylors joined our friends for a weekend of water, nature, and friendly competition ;)

David enjoyed an early morning read out at the beach.

We geared up for a lovely hike around Kettle Lake at Awenda Provincial Park.

Vi's eagle eyes spotted a few amphibious friends.

David thought the tree in the middle looked like it was dancing, or praying. Either way, it was joyful!

The water was actually not that bad, once you were in and had gotten through the numbing process.

The kids really enjoy water sports.

A rousing game of "Secret Hitler" meant this is the closest photo I got to a sunset! lol

After playing several rousing games of Hide and Seek in the dark (which Brett definitely won) we played another few rounds of Secret Hitler. Here the kids are going over video evidence of accusations and betrayals. The smiles indicate it was all in good fun.

David was channeling his Titanic cameo moment as he sang Celine Dion in to the wind.

We are so fortunate to have such great kids who have great taste in friends. Happy end of September everyone 💖

Lucas gets a hair cut

It has been a while since Lucas has had anything more than a trim.

A month ago, he said he was ready to cut his hair. It took me a month to call a salon that accepts donations and another week to get an appointment.

Lucas was able to provide well over 10" of hair and still have shoulder length left over.

The cutting.

The donation, to a children's wig charity. Not sure when the donation will actually happen. Manzer hair studio will store donations until the charity is accepting gifts again.

The new look.

First in person day of school

Here they are! Grades 6, 10, and 11! David had the first 2 days off, will be in school today and tomorrow with half of his class. Then another week of 2 days off and 2 days in school with cohort B before the full class starts next Friday. Lucas and Michael had their first 2 days online with half their class at the school. This will continue for now: Monday, Tuesday, every other Wednesday online followed by every other Wednesday, Thursday, Friday at school. They will have 2 classes per day on a 2 day rotation. Assuming they figure out how to give Michael his 4th class (right now he and several friends only have 3 out of 4 courses...)

Lucas's first day of grade 11 was online!

Michael's first day of grade 10 was online.

David was relaxing in his pajamas for the first 2 days of school.