After winding our way through snow-peaked mountains, we found ourselves tracing backroads surrounded by white fields and never-ending sky, looking for a place even the GPS could not find. My aunt and uncle’s farm.

When we lived in Calgary, Alberta we loved making the drive north, stopping just outside of Sylvan Lake, at the expanse of land that is their home. Not only did we enjoy visiting with my aunt, uncle and cousins, but we delighted in being tucked away, hidden from noise, people, demands.

Taking in the stretching fields and the silence.

If we enjoyed getting away from a city of one million, imagine how much more now, escaping eight times the population! In fact, when we visited three years ago, we spent most of the time trying to get over the shock of isolation.

I have heard Chinese people say that when they go to Canada it feels eerie to be in a place so unpopulated, to be standing somewhere and be totally alone. While I long for a more peaceful environment, after becoming accustomed to China’s cities, I can understand that someone who has never experienced the quiet corners of Canada might find it unsettling.

This time, thankfully, we’d already had the pleasure of staying in a cottage outside of Mission, B.C. and were more adjusted to Canada. We were able to thoroughly enjoy our visit.

I talked a lot about China, and showed pictures. My aunt was especially interested in hearing the differences in raising kids in China rather than Canada and I enjoyed sharing numerous stories and anecdotes with her. I was so thankful for her genuine desire to understand how our experiences are shaping our family, especially our children.

The kids joined in at times but for the most part were unaware of our conversation. But they were still loving our time there. We arrived in what should have been the beginning of spring, but were greeted by knee deep snow and spear like icicles dangling from the roof. Evidence that it truly had been the menacing winter so many had reported.

While most people would be disappointed by snow in April, our kids were not. People often ask, “Do you get snow in China?” “No,” Brian and I begin, but are drowned out by our kids excited replies that we do. Enough to make a few snowballs and a miniature snowman that can rest in the palm of their hand. It has even stayed on the ground once or twice.

Our kids may have questioned our judgement when they heard us say it doesn’t really snow. Until they got to Sylvan. For the first time ever, Cherry Blossom donned snow pants. They all got suited up in the winter wear my aunt had tracked down and spent hours outside, making snowmen, building forts they could climb right inside of and shovelling passageways. They were thrilled. And I was too.

One of the hardest things about living in another country is that there are key experiences that I don’t get to pass onto my kids. Just this week, Cherry Blossom was doing a phonics worksheet. She had to answer yes or no to the question, Is it fun to sled down a hill?

“I don’t know,” she said to me, “I’ve never tried it. Have you mom?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied, surprised by her response, even though I shouldn’t have been.

“Is it fun?”

I have fielded many such questions, and have been reminded that our choices have taken us on a path so different. Not one of our kids has ever been sledding or ice-skating. We have traded these experiences for others.

Seeing the three of them pushing a snowman’s head up on top of a body almost as tall as themselves, shovelling paths in the snow and hiding in forts they had dug; immersed in some of my own childhood joys, was not only fun for them but it fulfilled something deep inside of me.

Even in April, when the rest of Canada was just dying for spring!