As a child growing up in Ontario in the 1970's, I recall that we didn't take French until grade 5 or 6. I think kids start much earlier these days. In high school I took it in grade 9 (I think it was my homeroom class actually) and then didn't really bother with it until grade 13 (there were extra seats available on the trip to Montreal and I liked shopping as much as the next 18 year old girl so I went on the class trip with some friends). Because we live and work in a city where French isn't a requirement, my huge lack of formal education hasn't really held me back from doing stuff. When we travel in Quebec, I'm able to navigate pretty well and I chalk it up to learning about French language via cereal boxes. That may sound like a joke but I seriously think that exposure to bilingual labels on stuff helped me.
In other news, our yard is really looking good. We (I say we because I did a little and Mark did a lot) worked in the yard almost all weekend. The deck is almost completely finished now and the yard is cleaned up and ready for sod. Hopefully next weekend, we'll be able to finish up completely (did you know that you can't buy sod in Kingston on a Sunday afternoon? - we didn't). It's all very exciting, seeing it come together. My plants are even growing, neat huh? We've been in the house for 4 years and we're finally getting the back yard the way we want it. I think that we're both appreciating it a lot more because of all of the time and work that has gone into it. I still would have enjoyed it if happened quickly, but I don't know that I'd feel as proud of the work as I do now.
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