Nathalieland Update - School/Archery/House/Hair

It's been a quiet start to the month of March! Just a few tidbits to share:

Character Dress Up. It's Spirit Week at school with a different dress-up theme every day. The only one the girls were interested in was today: dress up as your favourite book/movie character. So they were Clove and Katniss from Hunger Games!

Kingston Archery Club. Given the girls' interest in the Hunger Games, we thought it would be fun to sign up for archery lessons with the Kingston Archery Club. All four of us will be taking beginner lessons together on Saturday afternoons for 6 weeks (first lesson is this weekend!). We'll see how that goes.

Construction Next Door. Remember the empty lot/hole next door? It's finally turning into a home! A concrete retaining wall was put in place a few weeks ago and now they are filling and compacting the hole, getting it ready to put a foundation. About time!

A Healthy Trim. I'm having fun growing out my hair to see if I can rock long locks with gray streaks. But after six months of no cuts, the ends were looking scraggly! It was time for a healthy trim.

Other than that we are gearing up for the main events of the month: my birthday and March Break!

New Fleece & New Hair

It was out with the old and in with the new at the Paul house: after two years of use, the guinea pigs' fleece bedding needed to be replaced. We would have loved to find the same fleece as before, but alas, some blue/green stripes will do for the next couple of years. The boys seem happy about the update and fortunately their cage/room is not as smelly anymore!

Their previous bedding, in rough shape:

 And the new: much better!

The next update in our house was new haircuts. It was the girls' first appointment since their COVID-haircut by me in March. Now they have nice, straight hair for the new school year. For me, I felt like going shorter than ever to cut out as much colour as possible. This Saturday marks one year since I last coloured my hair!

Before:

After:

Here is a fun comparison to commemorate my 1-year-no-dye anniversary:

October 2019 vs. August 2020

Last but not least, this morning we said good bye to Fi! It was an easy release: right back into our backyard.

Chillin' with Fi one last time

COVID-19 - Week 15 (Haircut, Strawberries, and More!)

We had a very full and fun week! It started off with our third (snake) catch of the season: meet Nagini, another small Northern Water Snake.

Weighing in at 91 grams

It took us a while to catch our third snake, so in the meantime we caught two tadpoles (named Kllr and Pllr). They were originally going to be snake food, but Emily and Jessi have grown quite fond of them! So instead we will take care of them and hope to see them turn into frogs.

The next main event of the week is that I finally got to see my hairdresser for an overdue cut. Feels and looks great!

Before and After:

Then on Thursday we met up with my parents at Fruition Berry Farm for some strawberry picking. The only virus-related restrictions were a hand-washing station at the start, no playground for the girls, and no tractor ride either. All fine!

It had actually been a long time since our last strawberry picking adventure (in 2016). I was surprised at how much more patient and hardworking the girls were in the fields! Older and wiser, I guess!

We froze some of our berries and made jam, but my favourite (and Jessi's too!) was having them with melted chocolate for dessert.

Last but not least, the girls had their last day of school on Friday! Here is the traditional last-day picture in front of the garage, but sans backpacks since it was all at home.

All done grade 5 and grade 3

Speaking of traditions, Jessi and I were very happy that the Costco food court has reopened so that we could celebrate the last day of school with our favourite ice cream treat. Hello summer break!

Blogging From My Tablet - A Test

It's official: Jessi and I are going to Germany this spring! We will be travelling alongside my parents and my sister's family to celebrate my Oma's 85th birthday, just like we did five years ago to celebrate her 80th. We are all excited and looking forward to seeing our faraway family.

I have started to plan a few things out about our trip, one of which is how I will be blogging. Since I don't have a working laptop anymore (and don't own a fancy smartphone), I'm thinking of using my tablet for internet/blogging purposes. This means that I will also be leaving my DSLR camera at home, since I can't transfer photos from the camera to my tablet. This blog post is a test to see how well it works to do it all with my tablet!

I took a few random pictures today. I'm disappointed with the photo quality, but maybe it's like comparing apples to oranges. I'll definitely look up some tutorials for photo settings/editing on the Galaxy Tab A to see if there's room for improvement.

I did a lot of volunteering today; first a Bingo shift, then Hot Lunch hot dogs at the girls' school. I kept my Holsgrove shirt on all day!

Gray hairs coming in nicely 

(This is if I tuck the hairs behind my ear)

Once the girls got home from school, it was all about snacking, piano lessons, homework, supper, and guinea pigs!

Helping Daddy make Haystacks

Piano lessons at home ❤

Writing study notes

Love that face

My Tablet Test was a success -- it was easy to figure things out and write an entire post this way. I will mourn the loss of photo quality, but will hopefully appreciate the convenience of an all-in-one in exchange. 

Now on to the many more travel items to prepare!