Happy 12th Birthday, Nathalieland!

Happy birthday to my little blog! Welcome to Nathalieland has been around for 12 years now, documenting so many of our family's adventures.

A surprise encounter at Lemoine Point

The other day I was reading through old blog posts and stumbled upon my blog's 4th birthday post. It made me smile because I had written:

"I'd like to think that I'll continue blogging for many more years, but I can already see my post frequency/desire dwindling. Also, once both kids are in school full time and I start working (doing who knows what), I feel like I'll run out of things to blog about. I guess only time will tell. For now I'm still here!"

And here I am, 8 years later, still publishing 5-8 blog posts a month. I've now published 1,597 posts and continue to enjoy recording our family moments. Funny that I never did find that job and there is still plenty to blog about despite the girls being at school most days. The future is sometimes hard to predict.

At this point I just have to hope that Blogger doesn't one day disappear off the internet and I lose everything I've worked on for 12 years!

Backgrounds through the years

New background!

I also think about my girls getting older and whether they'll still want their pictures and experiences posted on the internet. If they asked me to, I would stop. But for now (Jessi says "It's fine" - Emily says "I don't care"), Nathalieland will continue to grow.

Ice & Snow

Thanks to a cold snap we had our first outdoor skating experience of the season! The public rink we normally go to was a bust: too busy, ice in terrible shape, and hockey players taking over the rink. But thankfully on our way home we spotted this retention pond which had none of the above issues. We had a blast skating until the sun went down.

The very next day we had a snow storm! The forecast was so bad that the schools remained closed on what was supposed to be the kids' first day back to in-person learning.

 

Snow Day!

The kids braving the elements to go play

It snowed for about 24 hours which necessitated two long shovelling sessions. We made the best of it though and had fun playing in the snow in the dark.

The kids are finally back to school today after four weeks away. Some normalcy returns!

Treadmill Update

It's been a little over 3 months since I got my treadmill and I'm so happy with my purchase! Much like the ukulele and scroll saw, I've gone from having zero experience/interest to finding a hobby that I truly enjoy.

I'm a fan of creating good habits, and after reading James Clear's Atomic Habits, I was able to use a few of his tips to make the treadmill part of my regular routine. I run every other morning, before I shower (habit stacking!), and always make sure to prepare my accessories the night before. I also wear running clothes for pyjamas, making everything as easy as possible.

Ready-to-go accessories

In October I started keeping track of my runs in a calendar. Each entry records the total time, top speed, lowest speed, and what program I did. It is motivating to see the progress and work I've put in!

I started off mostly walking and jogging, to slowly build up my endurance and speed. It was important for me not to push too hard -- I wanted to avoid injury and early burnout.

For weeks my main routine was doing intervals: 2 minutes of walking followed by 2 minutes of running, for a total of 30 minutes. Then in December I started exploring the other built-in programs with varying speeds and incline settings. I'm loving the challenges and alternating between all the programs.

Built-in programs

There are lots of perks to running on my treadmill over running outside (which I have to admit I haven't attempted): consistent temperature, softer surface, running in PJ's in the dark, privacy, and easy access to a water bottle, towel, and fan.

On days when I don't shower, I still often end up using the treadmill as a warm up or addition to my other workouts (kettlebells, yoga/pilates, calisthenics, stretching/foam rolling). I think I'm hooked!

At 38 I feel stronger and healthier than ever. I have less knee/foot pain, more endurance, and better sleep. Plus I get to catch up on plenty of audiobooks! This new hobby might be here to stay.

Holiday Break Schedule

We love a good plan in this house! Since the girls had 16 days off school over the holidays, we decided to make a schedule of daily family/Christmas activities. This ensured we had time to do everything we wanted, gave us things to look forward to, and best of all it promised lots of time together.

Schedule design by Emily, hanging in the kitchen

16 days of fun

I managed to get a picture every day of every activity, for record keeping, of course!

Day 1:

Catching Fire Movie

Day 2:

Gingerbread Cookies

Day 3:

Uke with Stephanie

Day 4:

Climbing

Day 5:

Waterfall Hike

Day 6:

Chloe & Serena (virtual) Christmas Party

Day 7:

Christmas Eve

Day 8:

Christmas Day

Day 9:

Clean Room & Shop for Laptops

Jessi's new (clean) room setup

Inevitably, due to Jessi's cold/isolation, we had to shift things around in our schedule to take into account all our missed gatherings. We also found out that school would start two days later than expected, so we added a couple more events (Day 17 and Day 18).

Day 10:

Hunger Games Movie

Day 11:

Climbing

Day 12:

Hike Somewhere (Lemoine Point)

Day 13:

Paul Family Gathering

Day 14:

Family Games

Day 15:

New Years Party

Day 16:

Nanny & Papa Gathering

Day 17:

Take Down Christmas Decorations

Day 18:

One More Day of Climbing

Sadly Emily and Jessi don't get to return to in-person learning this week. So on this 19th day, they are back to learning at home on their screens:

A wonderful holiday break nonetheless!