Palmer's World

* If you don’t want to hear about pensions and stuff, just go to another post where I talk about what I did with my kids.*

Who doesn’t think about retirement?

I know I didn’t really think about it for a long time…I was so early in my career that whenever Dad would ask me specifics about my pension or my plans I would have to admit that I didn’t know a whole lot.  Why would I need to?  It was so far away in the future to think about it!

But Etienne and I were comparing notes today and we both realized we can retire the same year.  What a milestone for two buds working together for such a long time.  Heck, maybe we will even walk out of work the last day and hit the pub!  Sounds like a typical Friday back in the day for us.

2034 is coming fast, especially with a young family.  2034 is the year I can retire but it’s also another milestone…Sierra will be finished high school!  Aye aye aye!  What a thought.  Would I really want to retire while my kids are still/just finishing high school?  It’s too early to tell really.  Who knows what I will want my life to be in ten years.

What I do know is Vero will still be aways from retiring so it will be fun to sleep in while she has to go to work.  Mwahaha.

 

Winter fun time is finally here after waiting through a green Christmas.

This year Vero asked that I snowblow some snow into the typical hill that we make but also have a spot where the kids can try out their snowboards.  They seem to work out better on a spot where’s not a lot of snow.  It worked out quite well as I just blew the snow from area onto the snowhill for the other!

Contrary to popular belief, I was the one who followed Ezra’s lead with his hand in his pocket while having his drink.  I thought it would make for a fun picture.

Snowblowing on this particular weekend was tricky.  When I started snowblowing the 20cm of snow it was really sticky.  Ideal snow for making snowmen.  But it was really compacted on the left hand side of the driveway after starting from the right side.  Next time I think I will need to start from the left side, blow as much as I can and either do another pass at the end or blow some of it to the right.

The kids built a pretend house in the snow and I started building a snowman.  I’ve never seen snow that sticky since we moved to Vars so I took advantage of it.  Here’s a hilarious video of Sierra trying to scale the bottom part of the snowman!

The snowman was so high I had to hoist Ezra up to work on it!

The snowman originally had a bucket fez but we traded it in.

A little out of focus but at least we captured the snowman in its glory.

Best buds.

The best part of this weekend was the temperature.  Hovering around -2 makes for great days to spend outside.  The kids and I had sore muscles that night though!  I couldn’t sleep well with my sore arm from snowblowing and building that snowman!

On Sunday we ventured out to Ski Hill Park with Vero and Melody.  She wasn’t a happy camper…I suspected she may be teething.

Vero and Sierra ripping down the hill on the GT

I laughed at how Ezra steered back up the hill instead of heading down

I thought I was a welcome addition to this photo until Vero immediately asked me to leave so she could take a nice photo of the kids.

Nice spot for a snack.

Great winter weekend with some good memories made.  I really don’t mind winter with the kids if we can have some fun with it.

https://www.talkhouse.com/wtf-are-merch-cuts-and-why-are-musicians-so-pissed/

This was a really good read about how the life of a musician generally works while touring. It was an eye opening read.

They were calling for quite the storm but other than the snow blowing in the kids faces, we made it through quite well.

The key to this storm was to snowblow the driveway late at night before the rain came overnight otherwise I would have been blowing slush which is ridiculous.

But as long as the rain doesn’t take all the snow away, that’s all I care about this winter!

For the past few years I’ve been borrowing photos albums from Mom and Dad and using Google Photoscan to scan the photos.

I thought I was on the right path.  It was quick to use and it created a backup of a memory in case something happens to those photos.

But the other day I was perusing Google Photos (where I store all my digital photos) and noticed duplicate photos where one looked really great and one…not so much.

It make me realize that I should really put more effort into scanning these things in the future.

The photo that triggered this line of thinking

This is the other copy I have.  It sure looks clearer.  I still have to track down where I got this copy from in the first place…I believe Uncle Gary had done some digitizing of our photos years ago.

Scanning on a flatbed scanner is a slow process but I’ve set my sights on two different items:

• a scanner that scans actual negatives from 35mm cameras.  I kept a box full of negatives from my own photos and research shows that scanning the negatives is the best method.  Something like this Magnasonic scanner.
• A scanner that can work faster than a flatbed scanner.  If I had a spare $600 I might be enticed to buy one that scans a stack of 30 photos at 2 seconds a photo but I might be better suited with a $200 scanner that lets me feed in photos from the top like this one.

 

The entire Christmas vacation went by without a drop of snow but somehow on the last day there was enough snow to go have some fun and try out some new snowboards that Ezra and Sierra got for Christmas.

Véro showing us how good she is on any board

We tried out different sleds and had a great time on a beautiful day.  After awhile we noticed Ezra’s cheeks were turning white on top of red so we decided to go home.  But not before I got to act as a snow monster chasing after the kids.

We were excited to get a phone call from Matante Chantal letting us know that Countryside Adventures was open for business.  There is no snow in our front yard but they managed to make a great tubing hill.

It was really icy so the first time I went down I had to drag my hip to slow me down near the end.  I thought I was going to go over the bank!

Ezra is pretty good at pulling the tube up the hill by himself but he did hop in a few times on the way up.  Véro was saying she was quite sore after a day of snowboarding the day before AND doing this tubing!

Pro tip for next time we go: Era qualifies as a small child (under 6) so his admission is cheaper than a regular child over 6 years of age.  No one caught that and we paid a bit ($4) more to enter tubing.

Yesterday Max and Uncle Mike came over for an afternoon of fun.  We had run out of cinnamon rolls that Grandma had made and Sierra had written down a recipe so she suggested we make some more.

This was the first time I was doing it completely on my own and I am not the greatest in the kitchen.  After double checking a few things with Grandma we went on this adventure together!

They came out great!  Max is great in the kitchen and we were all taking turns doing the steps.

After one batch the kids were bored so Mike and I decided to do a second batch.  He commented that the recipe was very simple and they would probably do it in the future at their own house.  Sierra even scribed out a recipe for them.

 

The first concert of the year ended up being something that the kids could have fun at.  Sharon and her daughter Randi singing Sharon Lois and Bram tunes at the Red Bird Live lounge?  Cafe?  I’m not sure what to call the venue but it’s a nice place with seats for 80 people.

It was a great hour of fun.  Sharon is a master of her craft after forty years in the business.  It’s really interesting to see how a simple song can get engrained in our heads even if we have never heard it before.  Days later I still am hearing the kids sing “Fish and chips and vinegar, vinegar, vinegar!”

Sierra and Maman danced a bit and participated a lot.  Ezra is an interesting fellow to watch at this age when he gets into situations where he has to focus.  He does try to follow along but he doesn’t seem all that happy during the event.  However afterwards he will tell you that he gives it two thumbs up and he talks about it a lot.  Perhaps I’m misinterpreting his serious face and it’s more of a ‘I’m focusing on what is going on so please leave me alone.”

I got to hear Hey Dum Diddly Dum so my life is complete.

Clarice isn’t even in this this photo!

This Christmas season Ezra is fond of the Christmas stuffed animals that come out and they now reside in Ezra’s bed.  He has really grown attached to Rudolf and Clarice.

At this point in Ezra’s life, he seems to be a happy child but when he’s not happy he’s REALLY NOT HAPPY.  He will stomp away and say things like “What you are saying is NOT NICE!”.  It’s hard to please him when he is upset.

One thing that does seem to help him immensely is when we take his stuffed toy Clarice and speak to him as if Clarice is talking to him.  He generally calms down and listens to what she says and hugs her.  I might decide to keep Clarice around for the rest of the year if she has this effect!