Fun with the kids

Anselm and I have been working on a "heritage" project from school. The kids made corn dolls in class, and we dressed him at home over Thanskgiving with clothes from his heritage. Anselm leaned to Australia as his theme, so we talked about farm life and shearers. Over the last few days he has been writing a short piece in the first person as his character, and has done an illustration of an Australian farm house. It's been fun dredging up memories of our visits to the country as kids, and Mum's stories, and trying to bring these to life for him, with help from the web.. songs, images, movies of shearers at work. He loves the idea of farm life and asked whether one could do farm stays for holidays. Maybe the rest of the family could be talked into an "agriturismo" one day, as long it was in deepest Tuscany or Bourgogne.

Eliot is all set for adventure, both our upcoming trip home but also the looming excitement of Whistler this weekend. She asked to do ski class and seems psyched about it; can't wait for the trip and is counting down the days. In trying to settle to sleep tonight, she was full of reminiscences about our trip up last year-- "There are no houses in Whistler. We'll stay in the hotel. I love that hotel! We ate a snack of nuts and berries-- in my yoghurt cup-- I opened up the shells and in each one, a nut! but they were weird, they were green! Eating nuts and berries.. like little bears."

Here's hoping she's over her cold by Friday.