After the most amazingly mild winter, spring is here with vengeance. There are cherry blossoms are out as are all the daffodils. The days are so warm and sunny and we have forgotten what rain is like – the locals are talking about bush fires water restrictions over the summer.

We are officially on Spring Break as of today and yesterday we celebrated the passing of the first of 3 terms. The kids report cards came in – graded and everything (definitely not an “everyone is awesome and deserves a certificate culture” here!) We celebrated my birthday yesterday and the end of term with 3 other families on campus. The kids ran riot in the now empty boarding house while we continued to make the most of the amazing craft beer culture here.

For my birthday – in the spirit of accumulating nothing this year – I was given an envelope full of certificates

– From Dibs:

• A back massage
• 5 Min a day discussing Skulduggery pleasant – the 9 volume book series we are both reading!
• 1 full day of directing all questions to Dad instead of me!

– From Jemima

• To eat chocolate together
• Make my bed
• play soccer together

– From Chloe

• Free Cuddles
• Make a necklace together
• No complaining for a day

From Shem – Whale watching in Victoria.

We did that one today and it could not have been more amazing. The weather was beyond beautiful and in a Zodiac inflatable boat we zoomed out into the waters between Vancouver Island and Washington State USA. We were lucky enough to see a hump back whale which is really rare in these waters, especially at this time of the year. There were dozens of bald eagles that were so beautiful, lots of seals and the scenery was just stunning. It was a perfect day.

One of the best benefits of this exchange so far has been rather unexpected. Because the kids finish school at 2.15, the weather has been so good (thank goodness!) and we are not FLAT OUT with commitments, the kids have been spending hours and hours outside playing with their campus friends.

They have developed a series of club houses around the school, the one by the pond (complete with medical center and jail!) is next to the gym and the one on the viewing platform is outside our house. The time to just imagine,play, create and get dirty is so good. All that is required is that food is occasionally thrown out the door. The kids have worked out how to ‘work the system’ and get stashes of food of each parent without them knowing about previous contributions!! I am still thinking of ways to ensure the kids have more of this time when we get home, but I’m just not sure what you would get rid of to make it happen – such a challenge.

We have developed a great friendship with Simon and Ashley Beaty, who remind us so much of the Haighs – especially when getting together on a Friday night for a quick and innocent drink! Their daughter Lauren has captured the girls hearts and they constantly fight over who Lauren likes best (driving me insane).

Even more bizarre is that Liam, the Head of House for our boarding house is quite seriously a Canadian version of David Roberts – so have we gone far out of our comfort zone in meeting new people – maybe not!

We are off to the ‘interior’ as it is called here – which means anywhere not coastal in Canada. We have 7 days skiing at a mountain called SilverStar which is reportedly one of the best family mountain in Canada. Your lift tickets do include the tube park and ice-skating and we are staying right in the heart of the village. There is currently a 2.5mt base of snow and we are completely pumped and completely over our now useless seasons passes to the local mountain (well not quite over it, but moving on!)

Anyway the year is flying by and we are having a ball, but also each missing home in many ways and looking forward to upcoming visits from family and friends. The kids have loved skyping home and their generational understanding of the way communication works was very evident yesterday when the Dunell’s skyped us and we could hear them but not see them. The kids said “Mum its no use, we cant see them”  and I said “yes, but you can just talk to them..” they looked at me as if I had two heads and said  “don’t be silly mum, we need to see them!!”

Finally, quote of the day…

Jemima runs down the school steps at the end of the last day of schools and yells..

“Dad Dad its spring break, this is going to be the best summer ever…” Love it!!!!

Well sadly the snow has gone and the ski slopes are closed as we experience a record warm winter for the region.

Some say the snow may return (fingers crossed), but today being Sunday when we would be up skiing we looked to explore our back yard. We planned a leisurely 3km flat stroll to one of the worlds tallest wooden trestle bridges, but at brunch, an offer from Josie the outdoor ed teacher and her family we opted for more of a bolder/ rock climbing adventure up to the top of Baldie Mountain (spelling may be wrong on this one).

However, first I should tell you about brunch here at Brentwood – now I have done a fair few brunches in my time – Ormond College at Melbourne University, Trinity College, Sheridan and other hotels as well as Geelong Grammar so I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert. Well each of these institutions has been blown out of the water by what is on offer at Brentwood.  It has the most amazing variety of foods on offer and all beautifully presented and of restaurant quality. It is almost,and I do say almost worth no snow to be here on Sunday!

Anyway back to our bush bashing, rock scrambling adventure with Josie, her husband Ryan and kids Chohan (4yrs on Thursday -same day as Chloe!) and Ivar -2yrs. It took us about 1.5hrs to get to the top and an hour back down again. Super impressive efforts from Ryan who had an extra 20Kgs on his back and Chohan at age – almost 4.

Anyway I think the photos below speak for themselves. On one side of the hill – Shawnigan Lake, and on the other the ocean with Washington State, USA in the background. Oh and speaking of Shawnigan Lake (which is 5km from our house) and Washington State –  look who Shem bumped into while rowing on the lake yesterday!!! Small world

It was steep!

Shawnigan Lake Side….

Ocean Side..

We have made it to the five week point and have been rewarded with a 6 day mid-term break. Well Shem has, the kids and I have managed 4 days and of course we headed up the mountain. But more of that later.

What has the first 5 weeks on Vancouver Island been like you ask? It is a good question and it is so hard to answer – so much has happened, but also it has been a little bit of heads down bums up while we just get into the rhythm of life here.

Brentwood would have to be one of the most beautiful places on earth and as the students and staff returned after Christmas that only improved.

We have met some absolutely cracking people, the head of our boarding house Liam and his wife Marilou, children Brendon and Abby are gold and have made each and everyone of us feel so settled – Abby is in Grade 6 at the kids school and is a gem – we will be working very hard to get her to do a gap year at GGS – her brother too. I’m positive Liam has been softening the blow for Shem, and for that we are very thankful – we have had a tip off on his favourite beer – Fat Tug- and hope to keep him well stocked. Shem has swapped his drinking and sparring partner Simon H with Simon B. One may think it is so that he doesn’t need to learn new name, but after some solid drinking I can say with confidence that Simon B is made for Shem. Simon is outshone by wife Ashley and daughter Lauren who is 14 months and just begging to be Australianized! – and we are working on that – the other day jemima and I worked really hard to teach her to say ‘Blimey!’ Jemima has already got to their dog Summit – I said “jemima what is the dogs name?” And she said “it’s Steve mum” and it has been Steve since!

Brentwood is similar to GGS in so many ways but then also so very different. Overall it is a good deal more laid back, students are given a great deal of freedom and the rules governing the boarding house are so much less defined. Students stay up a lot later and they are afforded many more freedoms. However they do not abuse this and there is a consiquence for everything if they do. Could Australian kids be managed the same way – we are not sure they could.

Duty for Shem is a completely different ball game to our beloved Barwon – the boys are largely self sufficient and the prefects manage all aspects of the day to day running of the house. Shem is on duty on Tuesday and Thursday nights – but does not start until 10pm each night and the students are not required to be asleep until 11ish. We live attached to the boarding house and there is only the head of house (house parent- Shem is assistant house parent) who is required to do weekend duty so Shem either does Friday night and Sunday (sun up till lights out) or sat. That means every weekend. It is not so bad because the school also has classes on Saturday till 1pm. Although it Sounds like a lot, it is much more relaxed and Shem can come and go from our place and is taking full advantage of the Wismer’s Netflix subscription while on duty.

The kids school has been really good thus far. It is about the same size as St Roberts in number of students but it is a refurbished middle school(4-8) campus that two years ago was converted to k-7. Thus there is heaps of room and loads of facilities not normally found in an elementary school (science labs, music centre, two gyms..)

Dibs came home one afternoon and said auditions were to be held for the school musical – susical – open to years 4-7. Dibs said he was auditioning for Cat in the Hat and we did our best to point out that A: he can’t sing and B: he is in grade 4 so he would be lucky to even get a minor roll. He was very upset and we back tracked slightly to say that he needed to practice and try as hard as he could and it would be good practice for next time. Of course he came home and said he had a lead role – the mayor of whoville – and we ate our words. He then went on to win school improve drama comp with Jack his campus buddy and two others and go on to represent the school against 15 other schools in the districts and came third – the crocodile Dundee type performance definitely helped me thinks!

Jemima has been accepted into this program at the local library where she goes weekly to read to a ‘helper dog’ in training – she is so excited about it and practiced her book all week (happy parents!!) she is also doing singing lessons which means she is reading and learning lyrics as well as practicing elocution and learning volume control all without realising it and loving it.

Chloe – what to say about Chloe !! She has developed a suit of little friends on campus, has the boarding house boys taking her out to play soccer or playing hide and seek, has had or has been asked to have more play dates that we can cope with and – sit down for this one – has taken to skiing better that anyone else. When we ski as a family she just rockets on in front of us all – we can’t keep up!!

I have been working at a lovely little private School about 20 minutes away called Queen Margaret school – it is a girls boarding school that runs its equestrian program as part of the curriculum – tell Marina and Julie they need to get on to this! I am also now on the relief list for the state sector which is much better paid. It is pretty boring but at least it’s not house work!!

We have had a record warm winter to coincide with Victoria’s record cold summer and we are now crossing our fingers for a cold snap otherwise our skiing is over as this weekend we have been enduring – wait for it.. – a sub tropical storm – blowing straight up from the equator to our island and meaning on the snow we have had over 100mls of rain and aprox 9degree temps – who ever heard of sub tropical storm in the ski fields?

The best part of the weekend has been getting to know two other brentwood families who are staying in the condo over the road up on the mountain. The Normans and the Ganley families. We went for dinner tonight and the kids went night sledding in the pouring rain and had the best time of their lives while we ate Turkey and drank a Canadian drink which is whiskey and maple syrup – so good. The Ganley’s were all set to exchange with the Leach family 5.5 years ago when they found out their 6mth old have a unique brain disorder. It must be terribly bitter sweet for them to get to know us.

What have we learnt so far? That this has been the best experience ever – the amount Shem and I have had to learnt over the last two months is insane…..drive on the other side of the road, use a different computer system, teach Canadian history ( I love that one!) get bank accounts, work out how to use phones, faxes, printers, get kids to school, how to upload, download, video, project, create, translate share…. It is more than we could have hoped for – challenging- yes, rewarding -yes, exhausting – yes.

Enjoying waffles for the first time…

View from top of Mt Washington right down to the ocean..

It is Saturday morning in our second week of term and we are slowly settling into a bit of a routine. Shem is dressed for work as they have classes on Saturday too! Our house is attached to the boarding houses in a similar fashion to GGS heads of houses – a door via Shem’s study. The house is a hive of activity this morning with room inspections being carried out. Shem is feeling very superfluous as the student house leaders run all aspects of the house and do it very well. He has just said that if he left the Barwon Boys to their own devices like this they would eat each other!! – Mark you might be in for a shock!

Shem has started rowing – and yes it is the middle of winter! and yes it is pretty cold out there. Shem gets to hop into a arctic like dry suit to hit he water, it goes right over the top of his work clothes – handy. He is coaching a novice crew (phew!) and really enjoying it.

It is cold, but not crazy cold – and obviously Dibs is not feeling it at all!

Temps have been 0-10 degrees range since we arrived and the kids can play outside most days.

The kids are doing really well. They have settled into school really well. They are loving casual clothes – particularly Chloe and I am learning to say nothing!

The school is a similar size to St Roberts but includes year 7. The premises was converted from a Middle School (4-8) to its current K-7 format two years ago. The biggest benefit of this is the large spaces and fully equipped music, science and gym facilities. The kids do music three times a week and are currently learning the Ukulele. What is quite unusual is that they finish for the day at 2.15 – before they started catching the bus we were home by 2.30 with long afternoons stretching ahead of us – especially if the weather is bad. Now at least they don’t get back till 3. They absolutely love catching the bus, there is a group of campus kids who catch it from the front gate – its great and more importantly it is YELLOW like in the movies!

There are lots of children the same ages as ours. We had a boy called Jack and his dad Mark knock on our door last week and introduce themselves. Apparently Jack came home from school and said we had a new boy start in my class today – he is Australian! Scott thus bought him over to meet dibs! Dibs also has another friend Dylan who catches the bus with him, but goes to the french emersion school up the road. Dylan and Dibs are doing dance and basketball classes together.

On campus the Girls have Julia, Kyala and Riley in grades Prep, 1, 2 & 4 at school with them and Zoe (grade1) and Kiara (grade 2) at different schools.

Very lucky children (ours that is!) I think.

We have discovered there is a big craft beer culture here – you can buy bottles individually (long neck size) for around $5.50 and there is so many to choose from – Shem and I are diligently working through the range!

Dibs had a great birthday on Thursday and was very excited to spend is first and only birthday at school – he has always been sad that his birthday is in the holidays. I even baked cupcakes for him to share with his class. He received a skateboard from Grandparents (which he got to build himself) he chose a completely gold deck!

He also received a GoPro and has taken a video tour of the campus for your enjoyment.
Go Pro Photos

GoPro Skateboard tour – you get a really good look at the concrete around the school!!:

We have officially baptised the kids into the world of snow sports this weekend. We headed off on an impromptu trip to our local Mountain- Mt Washington. 2.5 hrs easy driving away. Our trip up involved a couple of stops for snow chains and ski goggles and ski gloves then we were on our way.

The first sightings of snow blew the kids minds, and ours too as the pine trees made it seem like out of a book.

Seasons passes were purchased, the kids have what is called Rookie Passes which means they get lessons every afternoon we are on the mountain all season, as well as ski hire all for $550. We can not believe our luck, especially given that after 1hr of teaching the children ourselves there were at least 4 of us in tears and declaring we want to go home! God bless ski lessons – 2.5hrs of free time for Shem and I while the kids ski, drink hot chocolate and eat Oreos!

Here are the products of some very fine instructors…. Oh and some pretty clever kids too!!
Chloe:

Dibs:

Jemima:

Day three saw 20cm of snow fall, an amazing experience in itself, great skiing, snow angels and on cracking snowball fight.

Home now, Shem and I very sore and very motivated to get fit.
All in all we all loved it and again fell very fortunate to be experiencing all these cool things.

We were invited to a bonfire very carefully prepared by Josie the outdoor ed teacher who used lint from clothes dryer mixed with Vaseline as a fire starter – awesome! A bonfire as it turns out to be just a fire in Canada – a bit awkward when the kids say “why is the fire so small” …..”that’s not a bonfire where is the bon fire!)….despite the fire miss-understanding and the sub zero temp we had a fantastic night in an amazingly beautiful location (our new home by the way!!) and met some lovely people and had a great time. The setting is so unbelievably beautiful … So unbelievably lucky to be here

5 days have flown by, compared to last time we were here (just after sept. 11) the city is in Christmas spirit overdrive and packed to the gills with people, it is hard to walk anywhere and keep the family together – we were certain we would lose Chloe and almost resorted to one of those child leash thine because she sept running off.

We have stays in Harlem which has been fantastic and a completely different side of New York- we have become masters of the subway – again another experience in its self.

The kids have been amazing in their approach to travel and their interest it the places we have been to see. This was definitely helped by the fact that the new Annie movie which we saw while here features all key New York land marks – thus they are of interest because they have been endorsed by Annie!!! Oh and ghost busters – being a favourite movie of Chloe’s thus the New York library and any building that remotely resembled the building in the final scenes of the film were very cool!

However, what will the kids remember about New York?

F.A.O. SWARZ and toys r us – which were visited on several occasions prior to each child making their purchase with money from Great Aunt Sue and Uncle Leigh and the Chaineys – thanks guys!

Today we went to the 9/11 memorial site which was breathtaking and a very fitting tribute as are the new buildings they are constructing on sight. We also went ice skating which was another thing the kids won’t forget in a hurry – the kids did really well and there were no broken bones – just a mercy dash to the nearest Gap clothing store for some dry pants.

Off to Washington tomorrow where as dibs says “the important stuff is” and Christmas Day. A severe weather warning has been issued so we may well have a white Christmas after all.

Merry Christmas to everyone – we miss you terribly and will do especially on Christmas Day (your Boxing Day)

Well it’s been quite a contrast from sunny Hawaii where the kids got sun burnt for the first time in their lives to the frigid air of New York.

Hawaii couldn’t have been better, we did the mandatory touristy things like Pearl Harbour and a tour around the island. Shem and I wanted to kill ourselves for most of the tour it was so painful, but the kids absolutely loved it. A highlight was watching chloe go snorkelling after some serious encouragement. Such a big girl thing to do at age 6 and we saw some great fish and it was a good work out for me as we were not given flippers and chloe insisted on holding my hand the whole time.

We also met up with our exchange family the Wismers and spent the day with them – we would say we are very similar families in many ways and we had a great time together, it was such a bonus meeting them.

The hotel – embassy suits was fantastic – allowed us to check in at 7am and out at 12.30, buffet breakfast and free full spirits bar for two hours by he pool each night – dangerous!

The trip to New York was a tough one – 9 hrs over night arriving at 7am NY time Which was 3am Hawaaiian time and midnight Aust time. It took us 2.5 hours to get from airport to hotel with all our backpacks and the we could not get into our room until 2.30 – so we walked around town, to the Rockefeller centre and F.A.O Swarz toy store – kids highlight.

It is now 5.30pm NY time and we are all trying desperately to stay awake till 6.30 in our tiny but very cool apartment in Harlem (we are definitely not in Geelong anymore!!)

We are packed, the house is cleaner than it has ever been, we now own 60% less (very therapeutic!). We made it through customs and we are on our way. Can’t believe it is here and that we are getting to do this – thanks so much to the Wisemer family who agreed to do this.

12 months at Brentwood School in Canada