Pattinson Times 2014

Seasons greetings to our friends and family around the globe. We hope that the end of 2014 finds you in good health, and with plans for many adventures in 2015.

As you may have guessed from our beach photo, we spent a fun filled week in West Palm Beach last March. My sister Annie joined us, which is a special treat for all of us, although I suspect she needs a long drink followed by a longer nap after spending the week with us. Never a quitter, she's returned to visit us a couple of times this year and now officially has her own room at our house.

Tony is living proof that 60 is the new 40 as he continues to "push" in the weight room, and "pull" in the delivery room. His weight training hobby has earned him some impressive muscles along with a sizeable hernia which he had repaired a few days ago, giving him the Xmas vacation to recover and get back to work. We don't really have any desire to slow down at this point, and the kids keep us immature, so we have an unconventional retirement plan to perhaps open an IVF program in our small community…just to keep us out of trouble.

I set fitness goals for myself this year: to be able to do chin-ups. I accomplished this last March with much encouragement from the girls and Lily proclaiming that "finally Mom can carry her own weight." The chin-up was followed fairly rapidly by the shoulder injury, months of physio, and thanks to some great and very patient medical professionals, I am back to picking up heavy things and putting them back down again. I've discovered that at my age, it takes months to build a tiny bit of muscle and just days to lose it, so I'm working hard enough in the weight room that the big boys at the gym have stopped treating me like a girl and started giving me tips.

Lily remains the true rocket of the family, running like the wind with the track team, and swimming 5 times a week with the local swim team. We spend so much time at the pool that Tony and I have trained to become timing officials at the swim meets. Lil struggles with word processing, and homework has once again become a family effort, with me finally having to learn geometry and Tony having to dumb down his teaching strategies to explain these crazy concepts to us. Lil reminds us that she is a jock living with 3 nerds and while we can't identify with her scholastic challenges, she doesn't get why we're afraid of water. Thankfully, she is a most patient child, and she tolerates and loves us despite our nerdiness.

Grace is quite an interesting little character who announced that she was retiring from competitive gymnastics to pursue her dream of becoming a scientist. She spends her days in grade 1 learning to read and write, and in her spare time, plays with lego, reads Dad's gynaecology journals, takes piano, swim and gymnastics, studies astronomy and sarcasm. She doesn't say much, but when she speaks, watch out. This week she asked if she could skip elementary school and move on to high school. Last week she announced her intent to sell her sister for 5 bucks and look for a younger model. She frightens us and makes us laugh on a daily basis.

The schnauzer sisters, Bella and Sophie continue to keep us entertained and comforted, walking the kids to school each day and jumping all over them on their return. The squirrel chase is their sport of choice, although they're up for any game the kids have in mind. The relationship between the girls and their dogs is magical and a joy to witness.

We've had some great visits with my sisters, and Uncle Scott this year and are looking forward to my nephew Adrian's wedding to his beautiful lady Meredith next autumn. We're planning to return to West Palm Beach in the spring but so far don't have any other holiday plans in the works. So if any of you are brave enough to drop by our crazy house…bring the wine.

Love, Tony, Mary, Lily, Grace, Sophie and Bella