The great meltdown!

Spring has arrived and the temperatures have shot up. Here is our proof at 8 in the morning.... I walk to school without a hat and gloves, enjoying the plus temperatures....
Yesterday and today it wasn't too bad, as there are a lot of patches of sand to walk on, but Monday and Tuesday was quite the feat, or should I say feet challenge? The ground was like a skating rink, as the snow had melted over the weekend but froze again at night. I kept thinking where are my cleats when I need them? or my skates? Stuck in some box back in our storage in St. Catharines.
The fun part is to watch the kids come to school, splashing through the puddles..... Here you can see a couple of munchkins just behind the gymnasium, quite willing to pose for the picture. They are quite used to it obviously, as we don't have any kids coming in soaking wet. Rubber boots and a good sense of humour will get them in dry and ready for classes. People still zip by in their snowmobiles, taking advantage of the little snow left. It's quite the picture of creativity to see them forking through the trees....
The ice on the lakes doesn't break for another couple of weeks though. Right now, there is still three feet of ice and the winter road is still in use.
This last picture is a frozen puddle at our front entrance. As you can see it makes for a great ice-skating rink. I've yet to get a night shot of the kids playing hockey on the outdoor rink beside the school. I'll try tonight....

Finally, I clued into the fact that the pictures needed to be reduced....Anyways, here are the readers in full swing....

Rats, this is the only one I've been able to post today...the others don't appear. It looks that this is an installment blog!

All went mostly as planned. Interviews were done, the conference went well and best of all: lots of time spent with the family. The grandson is the best! Picking up on new things on a daily basis. He is now sixteen months old, but really looks and acts like a two year old (ga ga grandma...). Today I'm not able to post pictures, so for now I'll just update the text and try the pictures again tomorrow. Thomas loves reading! Ha, I wonder where he gets this from....He sits on your lap and points to the pictures he knows, and says ball, star and the very powerful word of our language: NO. The funniest is when he says this to the dog while pointing his finger.

Ricardo and I finally got to go to the movies! We went with Alex (our oldes son) to see the Pink Panther, played by Steve Martin. It was hilarious, and reminded me of the first version which I saw with my mom and dad in Martinez, at the Bristol cinema. Of course we still managed to run around doing a slew of things, taxes amongst them.
We brought back a set of paddles for Ricardo's canoe which will be in great demand when the ice on the lake breaks. We noticed quite a bit more of snow, and found out that there had been a blizzard last week...darn we missed it! In St. Catharines it was a balmy 14 Celcius in the plus....

On the road again.....This evening I'm in Thunder Bay, Ontario on business. A group of us will be running some interviews for teaching positions opening up next September, for the northern communities. Lakehead University (above picture), has a teacher program and is reasonably close to the First Nations (two hours flight). We have a hefty agenda for Monday and Tuesday, and then the following two days I'll be able to attend an important conference on the issue of suicides up here in the aboriginal communities. By Friday, I'll be heading to Toronto and on to St. Catharines to spend the March Break with the family.
The weather is a lot milder here, and this week's supposed to hit the pluses! I'm pulling out my suntan and bathing suit....well to wear in the hotel pool anyway. Quite the contrast to the quantities of snow up in Wunnumin, as you can see in this picture of Ricardo. Yes, he's in it up to his knees. But I must say that I certainly was not expecting the amount of sunny days we've had. And no big snowstorms either....it just keeps snowing a little bit every night and it surely piles up!
Ricardo bought a canoe to be prepared for the springtime fishing. We've heard stories about the amount of fish during this season. Anybody can just pull out loads of fish....I'm sure I'll have to post pictures of the catch of the day, and not be exposed to the usual 'fish stories'.