I have been home for nearly 10 days from a conference I attended in Toronto. Life at home didn’t slow down through my absence and it has been full steam ahead on the home front. The boys are thoroughly enjoying the warmer weather and Dominic basically lives outside. Julian is also motivated to get out and go for walks but with the singular purpose of getting to the ice cream store. We were able, on the weekend, to get together with good friends and Jules spent some more time on his new bike. We all enjoyed smokies and chili on Maggie’s farm. Dom’s bike got a seat upgrade and he is striding around like a champ. Back to the conference…it was a very worthwhile early literacy conference and I came away inspired and armed with some new tools and lots of good learning. The other great thing was that I was able to do a solo tour around southern Ontario visiting as much of my family as I could. This odyssey took me from Toronto to Bracebridge to Ottawa, Wakefield and then to Kingston, Burlington and back to Toronto. The highlight was my visit with Grandma. She is well on her way to 91 and still makes the best fruit salad you can find. In fact, my affinity for fruit salad was born in her dining room thirty odd years ago! So comfortable to relax and tell stories in her unchanged living room of my youth in the company of my Aunt Susan and Uncle Chris. I then squeezed in a couple great sleeps at the family homestead in the Gatineau Hills. This was complimented by a couple of hikes through the still snow covered forest and fields with mom and dad in what would have been a lovely couple days mid-January! I can’t wait to introduce Blizzard to Rio and let them run each other ragged. Rio is a great dog who will sit in your lap if you’re in his spot #notalapdog. I managed to quickly check in with my brother in K-town, stayed during the conference at my sister and brother in-law’s place in Burlington and even got a visit in with the legendary Uncle Guy in Toronto one evening. Being on the other side of the country makes this type of tour all the more difficult and I hope next time I’ll be able to connect with my whole family in tow. It took a lot of driving (including through two blizzards in TO) but the selfie tour was well worth it!