Weekend Winter Fun

Had a fun weekend with some productive stuff and lots of fun stuff too. It was nice to have lots of sunshine after all the snowy days lately. Taylor and Matt Murphy stopped by for a snowshoe run with Derrick on Saturday and it was nice to hang out after. Then on Sunday, another snowshoe run in Frontenac Park. Derrick ran with Keith and Aaron while I puttered along behind on their trail. I was happy to get through the full loop, which capped off a 4h15m week for me! Feeling very good!

A highlight of the weekend was having my cousin Chris, his wife Jaqueline, and son Nicolai from Australia come by on Sunday morning for a dogsled ride. Nic, who is 11, has been eating up winter activities, like skiing at Whiteface Mtn, since they arrived here from Sydney last month. His parents say he must have a lot of Canadian in him the way he is handling the cold, which of course he's not used to at all.

He also just loves dogs, so bringing him on a dogsled ride was a blast, and something he can tell his friends about back home. Brennan and Heather showed him the ropes and I think it was neat for them to hang out with people from Australia with cool accents. Nic rode in the basket while Derrick drove the team, and then he let Nic take a turn on the runners part of the way back. Afterwards, Nic even fed the dogs with Derrick like a true musher, and took it upon himself to go go back out and say goodbye and give scratches before they left. At the last minute Derrick thought to give him the musher hat he wore as a memento of his winter adventure. My mom, who had dinner with them all later that evening, reported that he hadn't taken it off. :) We all had a lot of fun!