When we arrived at the trailhead, it was cold and rainy. Aisha grumpily got out while Mara pranced across the parking lot, oooing at the gorgeous yellow aspens. Mathilde had stayed behind with our friends and their baby. The air was thin and fresh at 9,500 feet, and it felt so good to be surrounded by tall mountains! I wanted everybody to be happy and have a good time, but it seemed like someone just needed to complain about something and I had a really hard time finding empathy… This was Rocky Mountain National Park. On a Monday. Girl!!!!

But after a few miles, nature worked its magic, the weather cleared up and we all found our groove. I'm so glad my man reminded me to just give her space, not question her or try to fix her. Just let her be.

It doesn't have to be complicated.

If only I could remember that next time (or like tomorrow…).

I'm so thankful for this stable calm man in that sea of hormones!

As you probably have noticed, I haven’t been in this space much. Now that we are back on the road, I’ll post more about the destinations we visit. I’m posting regularly on Instagram and Facebook. Here’s something I posted about there a week ago that I’ve decided to repost here:

This year, the girls are homeschooling completely online. It’s new for all of us and it was quite the ordeal to get everything up and running. We really wanted them to do the bulk of their classes in French, so they have a patchwork of classes from different provinces, but it is finally set up. Their Humanities class (a cool integrated Yukon combo of English 9 and Social Sciences 9 with lots of content on First Nations) is a virtual class where they have to be online for 1 hour, 3 times a week, with the teacher and other students. The teacher was a traveling homeschooling dad himself and mountain biked quite a bit with his daughters. As you can imagine, they quickly clicked with him. The French class (from BC) is really interesting (BC has adopted a new curriculum last year and it is great!). Their science (from Alberta) and math (from Ontario) classes are more traditional.

I’ve created a Google calendar for each girl in which their classes are well laid-out with deadlines for assignment and times of day (with alarms). On top of their core classes, they are doing a great Art 2D/3D with the Vancouver animation school and two afternoon a week, I have asked them to pick a personal project they wanted to work on. For now, Mara is writing a book, Mathilde is working on upcycled bike parts jewelry and Aïsha is sewing a storage pouch. Their bike training schedule is in the calendar too.

We also invite them to spend some time reading the news each day (American - in English, and Canadian - in French). Our goal for this year is to feed their growing minds and have discussions with them on different topics. We watch documentaries and movies on varied topics with them at night to broaden their horizons. We are very aware that these are some of the most formative years where their brains create tons of connexion. It’s the best time of life for learning!

They have daily tasks that rotate monthly and are responsible for 1 dinner a week. It might seem pretty regimented, but it is quite interesting to see them relax into that schedule. After years of relaxed homeschooling/unschooling, they have demanded a more structured learning process in the last few years and we have created it for them.

Some people will say that our girls are sheltered; they would be right in a sense. We have sheltered them from the mainstream, but not from real life. We have always believed in offering them a rich environment in which they could explore the world, themselves and their interests. And I think we are succeeding in that. Yeah, us.