Hi everyone! Merry Christmas from Becky and Mathew and Caitlin and Meaghan and Zoe Ingram. We are settling in to our new home near the Rouge river in Toronto — Scarborough to be precise. I (Mathew) am working on the Globe and Mail’s live news website, an experiment that launched last year just in time for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Living in Rouge Hill as they call it makes it easy to get in to the Globe by taking the GO train, which runs right by our house (we are down by the lake). For Becky, much of the year was taken up by a court case in Peterborough, after our friend Kris’s dad was brutally murdered last year by a mentally-ill neighbour on Halloween night.
Other than that, we spent some time in Florida at Becky’s mom and dad’s place in Bay Indies, a retirement park near Venice, south of Sarasota. We took a boat ride across to an island called Rum Bay that has a great BBQ rib restaurant on it, then walked around on the private beach where Zoe did one of her trademark poses. There was a parade and all the girls and Becky got dressed up and made friends with some neighbour kids, and then we went to an aquarium called Moat Marine up in Sarasota and spent some time with Becky’s cousin and her family at their place on Siesta Key. And we had lots of great beach time and pool time and dinner at a place out by the Venice airport (where some of the terrorists from 9/11 did their training apparently, as I found out later) and ran down the jetty at Sharky’s out near Casperson’s beach.
Back home there was a birthday party at Bob and Edie’s cottage in Muskoka and climbing on rocks in the woods and then some jumping on the trampoline at my uncle John’s place in Mississauga and another visit to the cottage in Muskoka in June and a big get-together with Becky’s family and then her cousin Libbie got married at Toronto’s hilarious fake castle Casa Loma where Zoe did her famous Zoe face. There was lots of swimming at the cottage and picnics on the deck and rafting and Meaghan helped her grampa make bread in the bread machine and there was some go-carting and mini golf and tubing and picking berries and saunas to be had and more of Zoe’s trademark posing for the camera. Meaghan had fun in Girl Guides, which Becky helped out with, and the kids got together with their cousins Scott and Curtis and Lindsay at Golden Lake and Meaghan tried the windsurfer and Zoe did some minnow catching and then ran out of gas.
Back in Toronto, I had my 40th birthday party downtown, Becky’s brother Dave and his family came for Family Day at the Rouge Hill community centre and then we went on a trip to the zoo, which is right near our house, and Zoe did her best tour guide impression. Caitlin did some horseback riding at a place up in Lindsay (where her cousin, also named Lindsay, lives). And Meaghan and Zoe got to sit on a horse as well. And back at home in Rouge Hill, I got a photo of Zoe sitting out on the back deck and singing to herself. Up at Golden Lake, she and her cousin Rylie played catch with balloons and we had a group shot with the cousins and a shot with everyone and Mark and Miles and I had a visit with our uncle John up at his cabin. At one point during Thanksgiving dinner the power went out so we ate by candlelight, which was actually kind of nice.
Megs and Zoe had fun in the hot tub at The Farm and then it was time for Halloween at Dave and Jenn’s place in Kingston, where the neighbours went all out on costumes (I was Spider-Man) and we did some pumpkin shopping and then did some pumpkin carving at home with the girls. Zoe dressed up as Sailor Moon for Halloween and then went out trick-or-treating as a unicorn with Meaghan dressed up as Harry Potter. Zoe also enjoyed the swing set at the park near the Rouge Hill community centre not far from our house, and she and Meaghan watched movies from the couch together which was cute, and Zoe fell asleep under a table. We did some hiking up at The Farm and ate some ribs and then we took the kids to the Globe and Mail Christmas party at CBC headquarters in downtown Toronto and Meaghan played with a snake.
And that was pretty much it for our year — hope you and yours had a good one!