Barry's Bay - First Few Days

It was a rush to get into the swing of things. We only had a couple of days to get our bearings, familiarize ourselves with the house and prepare for school. We did get help from Pia (at school) and Eugene and Annalynn (next door). The hospitality of the Canadians we've met so far is something to behold but these guys, very quickly, exceeded that as well.

After the first week of school we were invited to the ice fishing shack of Sean, the older brother of one of my students. He took the kids out for a Skidoo ride on the frozen (hard to pronounce) Kaminiskeg lake and showed us his ice fishing shack and the 12 lb pickerel that he'd caught. Now Nic and I are on a mission to pluck a fish from beneath the ice.

The kids settled into school pretty well. Nic went into Grade 7. Ivan went into Grade 6. Ella went into Grade 4/5 (in Year 5) and Jordan went into Senior Kindergarten. Jordan went every second day. They have 3 recess breaks each day and it takes Jordie most of each break to get all his winter apparel on. He then gets time for a quick snow angel or a slide down a snow mound and then it's time to go back and reverse the procedure. Jordan was put up into Grade one after a few weeks so is now going full time with the others. Took him a little while to settle in, as he'd missed the first half of the year, but hopefully he's getting the hang of it now!