Spring is Slowly Coming

Spring is slowly coming and that is good. It is still light out at almost 7:30 at night. I like the extra light now but as it stays lighter later, it does make it harder to convince the kids they have to go to bed on time. Once school is done in a few months they can stay up late, but for now they need to keep to school hours.

I saw other signs of spring today when we were out for a drive. The geese have started to come back to the island. I'm sure they are thinking WTF is all this snow still doing here, why did we come back already. Don't worry geese, soon the snow will be gone. At least that is my hope! We also saw places where streams and rivers that had been frozen over are thawing out and the water is running again. The ice in the harbour is definitely thinning out too. I'm just waiting for the day the cormorants come back. That's how we'll really know it's spring because they leave in late fall and don't come back until spring is here.

The temperatures are slowly creeping up, although today seemed chillier than the past few days. The temperature is suppose to go up and down this week, which I expect in spring. And with the increase in temperatures, there is more snow melting. And with snow melt we get mud. Lots of mud. The kids snow clothes (yeah, they still have to wear them) are going to start coming home muddy as the snow on the playground melts into puddles of mud. Joy! Spring here on the island can be quite messy. Last year we were introduced to 'splash pants', which are lighter weight than snow pants but still add warmth while keeping their pants clean. I have a feeling they are going to need them a lot this year.

With spring, we get a new round of sports. S began her spring session of soccer tonight. She had a great time and was happy to see the coach she's had all year was back for the last session. She wants to do summer soccer which we'll go ahead and do. It is once a week on a weekday, so it shouldn't interfere with weekend plans. We'd like to do things like visit other provinces and go camping this summer. Last year J's baseball schedule made it difficult for us to do that. We're trying to get J to skip baseball this year and spend the summer having fun.

J starts spring hockey this week. Looking at his schedule, it's going to be busy. There are some nights where they have practice for close to two hours and go as late as 8:30. He is going to be tired but hopefully he will get a lot out of it. He is trying a new spring program this year, so we have no experience with them but everyone has good things to say about it. I guess we'll see.

Spring is slowly creeping in. Last year at this time it was snowing. I know this because when I opened up Facebook this morning, it showed me a picture from exactly a year ago. It was snowing and there was snow on the ground. My caption was 'Spring is broken'. The picture made me laugh because there was maybe a foot of snow on the ground, if that. Compared to now, when we still have around 5 feet of snow on the ground, last year seems like nothing. Of course, on April 1 of last year we got hit with a blizzard and 2 feet of snow, but still, that is nothing compared to this year. Last year, everyone told us it was the worst winter they had seen in 40 years. They told us the same thing this year. If they tell us that again next year, I'm going to start think they are messing with the Americans. :-)