Around this age, me and my little brother Patrick went on a three-month trip to Canada. My Grandparents, cousins, Aunties, Uncles, etc. on my mum’s side all live in Canada. They live in a small town called Borden which is about an hour’s drive away from Saskatchewan.

I told you about the apple tree, right? It is in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard. It inspired my dream to have an apple tree.

At first when we got to Canada that time, we were staying with my Auntie Dorothy and my Uncle Dan. I was disappointed because I wanted to stay with my grandparents. But Dan and Dorothy were very nice and cleared up the basement so we could stay there. You should see their basement…. Its great.

Dorothy wasn’t able to have kids which made her very sad. Dan and Dorothy thought about adopting. At first, they didn’t. They were foster parents and looked after two kids- Jadice and Ethan. I really wanted them to become my cousins but back then it wasn’t for certain. They are really nice kids.

When I was playing with Jadice, I would talk about my mum and all mum and relatives. Jadice is a bit younger than me. Dad gently pulled e over and asked me to call Mum “Auntie Melody” for Jadice because there would be a lot going on in her mind about moving to a new family. I didn’t need to confuse her with changing people names from different perspective. I felt like Dad was telling me off, but he wasn’t really but just trying to help. After that I tried my best to refer to Mum as “Auntie Melody” around Jadice. As you could imagine that could take a lot of getting used to.

Eventually they did become my cousins, but I didn’t know that then. I felt like they had to be my cousin and I couldn’t resist getting my hopes up. My Dad says that absolutely everyone is worth getting to know. It doesn’t matter if their different, or if you know you are leaving. You should still try and make a close friendship. It is always worth it even if it makes you sad. Except this time, I was happy and getting my hopes up payed off.

My Aunty Dorothy is an artist. She even made me this painting I still have which is of the beach. She used the colour purple that is my favourite colour and orange- Robyn’s favourite colour. It is in our room. I can’t paint as well as her because she had had lots of practice. Robyn sometimes said that there is more purple than orange. Overall thought I think it’s fair because there isn’t much purple in nature.

Purple had been my favourite colour since I was like five. Its is great to have a consistent favourite colour because it means that sometimes something purple reminds your friends of you and they buy it for you. So, thanks guys for all those purple gifts.

Later on, in our stay in Canada that time we moved to Grandma and Grandpa’s place. I was really happy about this and didn’t really get my parents weren’t planning to move. I suppose it was inconvenient to be away from the town. Mum and Dad hadn’t expected it though.

Grandma and Grandpa had rearranged their house. I also loved the cereal because cereal in Canada is great (though the toothpaste in bland)

The last important thing I can think of with our stay in Canada that time was my seventh birthday. Oh, and camp Okema. Looks like I left the important stuff until later. I’ll tell you about them on the next post.


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