We are slowly approaching the end of 2021. A year ago, we had all hunkered down for an extremely quiet Christmas and New Years Eve. We started off 2021 with a family trip to Madge Lake to go tobogganing and cross-country skiing. The trip was fun, except we ended it on my crappy fall 100 m from the start line. I fell and ended up twisting my knee, and then ended up hobbling back to the car, crying and cursing up a storm because my pride was hurt. It was a rough fall, which resulted in some PT for the knee over the next 2 months, but all is well now. We had a blast as a family.

Our winter was quiet, spent mostly at home. We did manage to sneak away to Cypress Hills to ski at the end of February. We managed to sneak down to the farm in early March, just as Saskatchewan lifted the gathering limits. That was short lived for us in Regina, and we quickly went back into a lockdown after a short weekend of freedom, while it felt like the rest of the province was able to move about freely. The end of March/April was all about virtual learning, as Regina tried to manage its way through the pandemic wave we were dealing with. We were fortunate enough to have friends lend us their cabin for Easter, so we were able to get away from the city as a family for a few days. May and June brought warmer weather which meant camping season for us. Our weekends were quickly spent driving to and from the lake to enjoy the weather.

July and August were HOT, HOT, HOT. So hot and dry in fact, we had a fire ban at the campground nearly the entire summer. Most of our days were spent in the water, at the beach, and then back in the camper trying to cool off from all the heat. While our COVID numbers were lower in the summer, we used that time, to see friends, family and loved ones, to fill up that bucket and our hearts before returning back to routine, and higher COVID numbers once again.

Zaeya (our oldest) turned 8 this fall. She is in Grade 2 and enjoys school. She has started Biathlon this fall, with her dad as one of her coaches. She is still learning to skate ski, but she is quite the shot (she must get that from her mama). I think she is likely to out ski me by the end of this winter. Zaeya loves to read, spends countless hours crafting, and enjoys spending time with her friends.

Logan is 5 and has started Kindergarten. He is an adventurer, he loves to hike, and be outdoors. He loves “experiences” as he calls them. He is our cuddle bug, our goofy and sensitive guy. He is showing great interest in letters and words and is quite the little scientist. He tells us he wants to be a chef when he grows up.

Nash turned 2 this year. He is a little copycat, and he is cute, and he knows it. He still loves Mama the best, but Dada, is a close second. He is our bravest little person and will attempt anything his siblings attempt. Basically, any object in our house is something to be jumped on or off, or dangle from. He is fiercely loyal, and empathetic. He loves Batman, and cars.

Brett has had quite a busy year. It started out a touch stressful, as he had a lymph node in his neck removed and found out he has a slow growing form of lymphoma. We are currently not in a treatment phase, but it is always on the back of our minds. Work has been very busy for Brett, which, in the midst of a pandemic, we realize how fortunate we are, to have this opportunity as a small business. Brett has also been busy with some new hobbies. Brett bought himself a yellow Jeep in the fall of 2019, and so this past winter, he began working on his Jeep in the evenings in our garage. He spent countless hours out there, most evenings. Brett has also been putting in a lot of extra time training for biathlon, in all seasons. He can often be found dry shooting in our basement, skiing (when we have snow), running hills, or roller skiing in the summer. At the end of November, Brett travelled to Canmore for his first Biathlon race in the mountains. He did quite well, ending up with a 5th place finish in one of his races. He now has his focus on training for Nationals in March (assuming they aren’t cancelled due to COVID).

I am still doing the teaching thing, running the Supportive Environment Program at Campbell Collegiate. Last year during 2020/2021 school year, I was in a hybrid teaching mode from mid-November to the end of June, and also had a number of virtual teaching days due to a proactive school board, and high COVID case numbers. I can say without a doubt that pandemic teaching has been the most challenging of my career. It was nice to come back this fall and see my students every day. The highlight of my year was acquiring Betty (my white Jeep). One day in April, while I was teaching at home virtually, Brett poked his head in to the office I was working in and said to me, “Babe, I found a used 4 door Jeep for real cheap, should I buy it?” My response was something along the lines of “Ummmm, I don’t know, I am in the middle of a Zoom call with a student”. Well, thankfully he didn’t wait for me to respond or have time to react and purchased the Jeep. At last we have a 4 door Jeep that our whole family can fit in to. Brett spent the spring fixing up the old girl. We named her Betty White, and even got her a custom license plate. She has been a lot of fun to drive, and my co-workers this spring had fun trying to guess who on staff was driving the White Jeep, with the top off, and 3 kids car seats in the back. Cool mom mode activated. HAHA!

The last member of our family is Pixel. This old boy turned 15 this fall and is still here with us. He tends to sleep the day away, and comes out once the kids go to bed, for cuddles. He has become very tolerant of the kids in his old age, accepting the occasional chin scratch from them, happy when they add treats to his bowl, and putting up with all the loud noise they create. He is keen to snooze in the sunbeams as they move throughout the house in the day, and keeps an eye on the neighborhood cats, ensuring there are none in his territory.

This fall my parents finally had to make the hard decision to take down the old hip roof barn. My Great Grandpa built the barn 100 years ago on the Tessier family homestead. In the 70’s the old barn was moved to the current farm site (1/2 mile south of the homestead). The old barn was used this past winter, but with all the big crazy winds this year, the old girl, was no longer safe to be used. So, in December the demo team arrived to take the old girl down. It was sad to watch the video of the old girl going down, and they really had to work to get her to fall, but it was time.

As the last hours of 2021 wind down, we are cautiously looking forward to 2022. We are hopeful to get in lots of skiing this winter and splashing in the lake during the summer. We hope to see more friends and family in person this next year. We wish you much health and happiness in the New Year!

Love,
The Parks
Brett, Danielle, Zaeya, Logan & Nash