My horrible springtime taxes

 Last spring we spent all day on a Saturday doing taxes while the kids played with each other and got bored of doing so. Maren wrote a poem called “my horrible springtime taxes.” Jeff says it was actually called “my spring time taxes are horrible.” Either way, same sentiment. 

The reason they were so horrible is that we had to do both Canadian and American taxes, we were part your residence in each country, Jeff was a resident in the US for tax purposes but not yet a permanent residence so we could not file jointly, and things were generally complicated. This year we expected things to be much less complicated, but fortunately/unfortunately our union had not finished negotiating a new contract before we left our old jobs, and we received a small amount of backpay in 2024. We ended up having to file Canadian taxes as non-residents, which is way way more complicated than it should be. So we braced ourselves for another annoying tax year.

We did not want to put the kids through the horribleness this year, so we spent an entire day working on them while the kids were at a super fun spring break camp, just barely finishing before we had to go pick them up. But now they are done and we really truly expect things to be simple next year. Fingers crossed they actually are!

And here is a photo of Maren reading to Linden, cozying up on a rainy day under blankets next to the fire:

I found them this way and snapped a photo without them noticing ❤️