Ah - fall. It's funny, but initially I rebelled against the term 'fall'. Come on people, it's autumn - right? But now I find myself speaking about 'fall'. The name makes so much more sense here then back in Australia. For one, the leaves 'fall' from the trees at quite a rate. If it's windy, you look at the window to see raining leaves. The other good reason for the name: the temperature fairly plummets over the course of a few weeks. We counted 6 weeks between using our air conditioning and using our heating. I sit here now (in a cosy house) as rain 'falls' outside on a 5 degree day. We even had a brief flurry of snow 'fall' during the week. So....fall it is.
One of the most exciting thing about fall for our 3 year old is school. Nursery school here has lots of options - children can do anything from 2 half days to 5 full days. We chose 2 full days. (Mostly because I don't want to be walking up and back every few hours :) It's about me too - right?) Miss 3 talks about her teachers all the time. She comes home with lots of artwork (fridge space is tight), new songs and stories of her exciting days. She is not the kid that hangs on to mum or dad not wanting to start the school day. Quite the contrary - I have to remind her to say goodbye sometimes! I must confess that it is exciting for me to have some quieter time with just the twins too. She is also taking a dance class one afternoon - and I'm actually teaching it! It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had actually forgotten though, how difficult it can be for 3, 4 and 5 year olds to concentrate - especially at the end of a long school day. Felt a little shell-shocked after the first lesson, but week 2 was better. Hoping for a steady improvement!
With the start of the school year, comes the start of playgroups and other activities. It would be quite easy to book myself up every day, but I just go to one playgroup with all the kids, and one with just the twins. The theory was, that by taking just the twins to a playgroup I'd be able to relax a bit and chat with the other mums. That is not what's happened. The fact is, that Miss 3 is so happy to be at playgroup and play with other kids that she is no trouble at all. The twins are actually harder work at the playgroup without her (a familar face) to watch running around. I must confess that I'm looking forward to the separation anxiety passing.
A big community event here (all the neighbourhoods do one at some time during the year) is the community garage sale. Literally the whole neighbourhood gets involved - loads of houses have stalls, community groups have stalls, bake sales, or sell coffee and hot dog vans turn up to join in the fun. We wandered around for an hour or so. We managed to pick up some great kids stuff, and I found a couple of good books too. The bonus was that most things we bought were a dollar or less. A great community event - if only they did stuff like that at home.
We miss free TV. In the beginning we were paying the minimum for cable TV here as we couldn't see the point in having hundreds of channels. However - when we lost the only good sports channel we had, hubby took action and we ended up with a lot more channels - most pointless, but some good. One massive bonus was that we now had the channel that screens AFL football. They show the games live, which is normally about 2 in the morning, so we'd tape games, avoid facebook and watch them later in the day. We decided that it was our duty to indoctrinate Canadians into the game so we had a grand final lunch. An added point of interest for the Canadians, is that there was actually a Canadian playing; Mike Pyke an ex-rugby player. I'm pleased to report that they were all very impressed with the game and couldn't believe how fit and skilled the players are. I think we'll be able to convince them to watch more games next season.
But, one of the most exciting things about fall so far, is that it brought a visitor from Australia. It was great to have one of my oldest friends here for a few days, and she paid for the guest room with a large jar of vegemite :) We drove down to Brockville (south of here, on the St Lawrence river which forms a border with the US) and did a cruise. The region is famous for the 1000 Islands (there are actually more) and it's a nice day out, seeing some of the islands and the holiday cabins people build on them. (Yes, you can buy an island.) I also took the opportunity to have a night out; we had a great dinner in a restaurant with nice ambience, yummy food and a cute and flirty waiter. Good times.
Well I think it's time to sign off for now. We are currently bracing ourselves for Halloween, so I'l report on how that goes. But with the cold, rainy weather today, I might take myself to the couch with a good book :)
Au revoir!
