Reminiscing

It's a quiet Sunday for us, the perfect day to reminisce about what we were doing one year ago this week.  We've been getting "memories" from Facebook all week and most of them were from one year ago...we sold our home in Huntsville and started our house hunting journey. This journey was going to take us to Burlington and yet, here we are living in Quebec. We never thought in a million years that this is where we would end up. Life is full of surprises sometimes.

All is good with us, although we are feeling a little melancholy from those memories.  I also think that the weather is not helping.  March has not been a good month weather wise. We woke up Saturday morning to more snow although the scenery was spectacular.  Russell was out there with his camera to take photos of the trees. I was looking at our crabapple tree from our kitchen window.....in a little while, it will be in full bloom.  Such a beautiful tree in the Spring.  We did notice though that many trees have buds so I guess something warm is going to happen soon. Our "weather specialist" from the Southern Quebec Severe Weather Network is predicting a warmer than normal April.  More importantly, he is predicting a mild 2017/2018 Winter, thanks to El Nino. His predictions are always right. Bring it on!

Cooper and I are doing well at training.  The class on Wednesday was good.  We practiced a lot at home and it made a huge difference.  A funny little tidbit:  towards the end of the class, Cooper had to do a "Down Stay" for 2 minutes (by the way, 2 minutes seems like an eternity).  While this was happening, another instructor came in for the 8 pm class and he unwrapped a cheese string. When I saw what he was doing, I thought for sure Cooper was going to stand up and try to get his paws on the cheese string.  Well, to my great surprise, Cooper stayed in his "Down Stay" position, although his head turned to look at the instructor.  Good one Cooper.  That's what I call training with distraction.  I can't unwrapped any food at home without Cooper running to me!

Russell continues to work on his family tree, which, in my humble opinion, is starting to look like a forrest.  He is in touch with a few cousins through Facebook and email and they are exchanging information.  Today, he found photos of his great great uncle and aunt, on his mother's side.  Quite fascinating.  His aunt Lorraine's DNA has arrived in Ireland and is being processed.  We should have her results in about 5-6 weeks.  My DNA kit should be in the mail by now. Fun stuff.

That's about it for our news.  We may watch a movie later, or not.  We'll see.  On Friday, we watched the movie "Arrival", produced by "un gars de chez nous". Excellent movie! Have a great week everyone.  Remember, Saturday is April Fool's Day!

Fresh snow on the crabapple tree in our backyard.

The tamaracks were decked with snow too...one breeze
and it was all gone.

Mr Cooper on his chair...lazying and waiting
for the next treat...not before working for it though

Finding a sunny spot to lounge is hard work but...
Cooper is always up for the challenge.

Meet Edmund Watkins...
great, great uncle to
Russell.

Ann Babb was Edmund's
second wife...a real
cutie in her day!