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Up the Road

Much has happened in our household over the past year, so time to bring you up to date with our news!

The biggest change is undoubtedly that we have been able to move into our own house.  In July 2015, we found a rental a few minutes’ walk from Edelweiss’ Mom’s place.  We have a guest room, so come and visit us!

          

The apple tree out back produced an abundance of fruit in the Fall.  We did apple bobbing for Jesse’s fourth birthday in October.  Craig made apple pies for all the neighbours, and we have only just finished using up all the fruit that we collected.  (They were in a bucket in the garage, and froze over the winter!)

The other major change is that Edelweiss is now working full-time for an advisory firm.  She travels about half the time to clients throughout the USA, and works from home the remainder of the time.

Jesse is now reading very well (he’s been doing Ethan’s Grade 2 reading lessons,) and is desperate to start formal schooling.  We’ll probably start him on Grade 1 after the summer (mid-2016.)  Even though I’ve tried to discourage him from starting too soon, he has found the Grade 1 Mathematics workbook and has already worked through 10% of the lessons.  He and Ethan have been enjoying the Geography Songs CD, colouring books, Lego and play dough.  And after working through Roman times in our history lessons, they have recently discovered Asterix books which they love.  After a summer on the balance bike, Jesse started riding a pedal bike.  So now when we go out for a family walk, Ethan and Jesse can ride their bikes which means Edelweiss and I need to hustle to keep up!

          

Ethan is continuing to work through his lessons, moving rapidly through Grade 2 (and doing additional Grade 3 mathematics because he was getting bored.)  He still reads voraciously, including from his full Bible which is introducing him to some interesting concepts.  Tonight, he chose to read 1 Cor 7:9 to us “But if they do not have self-control, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with desire.”  For Christmas, he got his own workbench and tools so that he could do wood work in the garage with Dad.

After trying for a year, Ethan managed to beat Edelweiss at chess and so is now entitled to play on her special chess set.  He and Jesse enjoy going to chess club.

Some other highlights:

          

  • In April, Paul Windsor was speaking in South Dakota so we drove a few hours south and enjoyed time with him
  • In the summer we again visited the McRosties in Illinois.  They visited us at Thanksgiving and our place is so spacious that everyone had a bed!
  • Opa visited over the summer and we went fishing and canoeing
  • We had a weekend in Brainerd with the Thornbergs, and enjoyed a relaxed day boating on the lakes
  • Our friends from Marsh Park, Mr. Pres and Mrs. Anderson, joined us to present certificates to Ethan as we celebrated his completion of First Grade.  And not long after, there was the excitement of “Box Day” as the box of books arrived for Grade 2.  Ethan said that he had read half of the books by time we started lessons
  • Craig found plenty of projects to do around the house, including building a workshop and firewood racks.  And splitting up lots of firewood for the winter.  Edelweiss enjoyed setting up the Upper Room (our upstairs lounge,) and Craig is pleased that we found a free piano in good condition for our Music Room
  • We haven’t had much of a winter this year, with only a couple of good snowfalls.  But the last one left about a metre of snow on our deck!

 

Well, that’s about it for our year.  How are you going?

Love, Craig & Edelweiss, Ethan + Jesse