What a Day!

Amy and Erin had their swimming assessments on Thursday after school.  They loved this for two reasons:  They got to go swimming again, and we had McDonalds for dinner because we were in such a hurry to get to swimming and then to the school's reading evening.  (note to all health conscious friends and family:  SHUT UP!  Happy meals have apple slices now...SHEESH)

The girls both did splendidly and the young lifeguard who conducted the assessment (a South-African girl who was tickled by the Ghana factor) was thoroughly impressed by their ability and enthusiasm.

Please read on, all is not as rosy as it would seem:

So they do their assessments, well, and the young lady says no problem:  Amy will be level three and Erin will be a whale.  I'm told that's a good thing.  The girls get dressed and we go out to the main office to sign up for lessons and such.  When the lady finds out that Erin's a whale, she says sorry - they have no whale classes on and that if I really wanted Erin to take lessons, I'd have to find at least three more kids of equal age and skill to join her.  I tried all kinds of angles, like private lessons, putting her in with an older class, a younger class, etc.  All were 'no go' except for the private instructor, but that would be 26 bucks per hour.  Because they're Red Cross they can't make exceptions.  Needless to say, Erin was slightly devistated.  Tears welled up.  If you knew the background a bit you'd understand:  We found out that gymnastics were full in our first week in the new house.  Then we found out that dance was full a couple of weeks ago - that was the one Erin really wanted.  It seems that all of these things were signed up for just before we got to Peace River.   I had told her that since we were doing the assessment, she'd be going swimming for sure.  Dumb ass.  

Well, all is not lost.  Skating and snowboarding are taking her for sure - they seem to just want our money.  (of course, they're the most expensive classes too).  I only hope and pray that Erin really really likes skating and snowboarding.  

I think I made this sound terrible and devistating.  Please don't feel too bad - Erin is really fine with it now, and knows that I'll do all I can to get her into a class of four or more swimmers and knows that she might have to wait until spring.  She's really ok with it all.  The tears were just about ten or twenty seconds.  She didn't really cry.  She remains a happy girl who's got a full schedule of play with lots of friends and is fast becoming royalty in this town.  

You want to know who the real loser was in all of this?:

She was so ticked off that she couldn't go swimming.  She cried a heck of a lot more.

Here's a nicer story...

So the girls and I are at Reading night at school.  We go around the rooms, being read to and doing crafts.  Nice.  The last activity is one where we trace out two polar bears, a baby and a mom, and then we use chalk and crayons to recreate the scene of the two of them under the northern lights as in last book that was read to us.  

The lady directing the activity points out two pictures as examples, one by the front door of the school and one over by the office.  I suppose the school has two star artists.

So we do our activity.  Sadie and I get right into it, creating a huge explosion of light and colour in the flavour of Gerhard Richter or Turner.  Amy as usual is quiet, diligently working the chalk into the drawing to get her polar bears just right.  Erin, as usual, isn't too interested and is finished way before the rest of us and is chatting with some kid.  

After about ten minutes, the activity is coming to a close and I'm just waiting for Sadie to finish up.  Amy's got hers done and Erin's walking around.  All of the sudden Erin comes up to me and says "did you see mine?"  and I say "yeah, right there"  pointing to her unfinished piece.  She says "no that one" and points to the front door!  Our little Erin had created the perfect rendition of the book and it was on display at the front door of the school!  Here are a couple of photos.

(I know this is the typical proud parent story and have tried hard not to use any hyperbole or unnecessary praise.  But hey - this is for the grandparents, after all...)

That's all for today.  Talk to you later! 

The competition

I finally got some photos of my wife's new companion.

Yup, it's a chevy.  Unit 623 to be precise.  She came back from a four day trip in it yesterday and has just this afternoon gone away for three days again with it.  Cool logo on the door, huh?  That's on her business card too.  I wonder what she sees in him...

The girls had haircuts today.  I'll let the photos speak for how the haricuts were recieved....

Typical Erin, huh?  On a happier note, here's a regularly-occuring scene in Peace River.  After the girls have gone on the bus, Sadie and I take Sherrie to work.  She and Sadie always blow kisses to one another when we get there.  Here's a photo that sums it up pretty well:

So much going on!

Ok, so on Thursday evening we went to the Festival of Trees.  That's where many local residents and companies (mostly companies) donate a pre-decorated tree, wreath, or the like, to be auctioned off to others.  It's really quite a specatcle, with many beautiful holiday things to see.  The kids all get to decorate gingerbread cookies to take home and they also get to meet Santa Claus.  The girls all had a few shots taken with Santa but I'm not sure how we'll get them back - it cost five bucks but they never took even my number....  I should have taken some on MY camera.  Oh well, 

I'll sort that out later.  For now, have a look:

Makin' playdough

Hope they don't get any in the laptop....

Amy wrote her first song today.  Here it is:

Birds!

There are lots of birds coming to our tree on the front lawn.  They look like cardinals, but they're all greyish brown or brownish grey, with yellow bands on their tails.  They're eating the berries on the tree/bush that the deer haven't been able to reach.  There must be almost a thousand of them - when one group of a hundred or so comes down to the tree, a much larger number sit up in the higher trees accross the street, and they come down to the berries in shifts.  I'm sure the video isn't doing the spectacle justice - you should see how many there are!

Very cool

Monday

Hi everybody

It's still snowing, has been all day.  I'm loving it!

I even shoveled the neighbour's place today after doing ours because I was enjoying it so.  Sure, that will wear off, but one must enjoy the snow while the novelty lasts.

Amy gets home via school bus at around 4:15.  We pick up Sherrie at about 4:45.  The town's best tobogganing hill is right by Sherrie's work, a ten minute drive from our house.  Are you seeing what I'm seeing?  The girls and I tried it out today, and it worked.  I'm thinking that we'll do a lot more tobogganing this winter.

I also visited the ski hill today and got the forms for our family pass.  Looks like the Koses are going to be outside a lot this winter.

Oh, and Sadie and I went to the toy library's playday today.  That happens every Monday and Wednesday.  We'll be going back on Wednesday for sure - it was excellent.  There's even a few sofas and free coffee for the parents.  Sadie absolutely loved it, and her favourite part was the sing song at the end.  She enjoyed incy wincy spider and wheels on the bus, but her hands down favourite was head and shoulders (knees and toes).  I was really enjoying the spider song.  Not much else to report, but lots of deer tracks on our lawn today.  They must come very late at night.  Oh - I really love watching UFC as well.  We Canadians really have it good.  

Here's Sadie at the toy library.

Random photos from the past

I'm in a blogging mood, so here are some oldies:

Amy and Mike at the farm, June 2004

Erin at the farm in Westport, June 2004
Amy and Erin  October 2003

Melvis

If you've been to Hong Kong at night, you've seen him around.  for a couple of bucks he'll play ANY Elvis song for you.  The truly neat thing is, every song has the same three chords when he does it.  His English isn't so good either.  I always got him to do Suspicious Minds for me.  God I love that guy.

Amy at the beach, Deepwater Bay, Hong Kong.  I used to take her there after work on weekdays.  That's in January 2003

Saturday!

What a lovely day we have been having so far...

We got up and had pancakes and eggs and waffles for brekkie, then put on our snow suits and went tobogganing!

The girls enjoyed the little hill, but started getting fed up shortly after being at the big hill (about a ten minute drive from the little hill)  Amy was such a trooper - the big hill is really quite big, and she went straight to the top and bombed down it a few times.  She fell at the bottom each time, which started to make her a bit sensitive, so I took her with me and Sadie in the big toboggan.  Erin really didn't like the big hill, but went down with Sherrie a few times (just from half way up).  Sadie and I enjoyed the big hill but she was getting hungry.  So then we went to MacDonalds for lunch.  

These photos are all from the little hill, when everyone was still very happy.

The big hill was pretty intense and required all of my attention, so I couldn't take photos.  I even wore my gloves on the big hill.

November 14 2008

Keeping it short today.  Here are some photos:

Sadie and I do art from time to time.  She's pretty good at naming her colours now.

Where Jack O Lanterns go when you don't need them anymore:  Raven food at the Peace County Landfill (note:  I've never seen so many ravens in one place in my entire life.  I will definitely go back there, just for the experience.   thousands.)

With the limited snow we've had, the girls kept their snow craft on the deck this past week.  We should be getting a bit more soon, and I anticipate great things from them.

Amy's castle

Erin's castle

November 13 2008

Sadie and I accompanied Erin's Kindergarten class to the Fire station today.  It was very cool.  I got to be the guy who demonstrated all of the gear they wear and we got to go on the trucks.  

Let me tell you the one high point of the week that I experienced today, a true Sadie moment:

The fire guys were explaining to all of the kids about how if they woke up at night and found smoke coming in from under their bedroom doors and the door was hot, that they should not open it and should not hide under the bed or anything.  They had a very cool way of explaining to the kids that they had to remain conspicuous to the rescue teams - what they did was had a smoke machine blowing into the room and then had a fire fighter in full gear crawl into the room full of smoke.  I'm talking air mask, flashlights, helmet, coat and pants, boots, gloves, the works.  You couldn't see the guy at all, just his kit.  And you could only hear the scary Darth Vader sounds of his breathing apparatus.  When he called out, it sounded very scary.  The fire guys were trying to explain to the five year olds that if this scary creature should come crawling into your bedroom at night through the smoke, that they shouldn't be afraid of it, but should call out to it.  It was very scary, though, this heavy breathing alien with a distant and deep voice.  You could see that the kids were uncomfortable with the situation, as if they were in a real smoky room with a monster crawling up to them. I thought it looked really cool.  Anyway, in true Sadie fashion, she cut through the crowd of five year olds and got to the front where the fire man was, went up to him, and hugged him in so gentle a way that all the adults could do was look on in disbelief, followed by the entire room breaking out in laughter.  She showed those kindergarten kids what courage was!  

I guess you had to be there.  Here are a couple of photos:

I couldn't actually get the hug shot in time, but that's her fixing his lapelle after she hugged him, and then him scratching his head (through his helmet?) after the hug and lapelle straightening.  She sort of left them all scratching their heads.  Anyway, it was a fun trip.  

You saw the photo of the chief's pickup grille up top?  Pretty cool, but wait 'til you see the Peace River Ambulances:

I  fell in love with them the first time I saw one of these bad boys in our first week here.  These guys know how to deck out their emergency vehicles!  I'll be the evac helicopter's got skulls and guitars on it....

p.s.:  Found out today that 80% of the guys at the station are volunteers, who are there part-time and have other jobs or are stay at home dads.  They only get paid when they're on a call.  They told me I should consider it....

House Tour

So I've had this little web cam forever and I've never really used it, other than for Skyping.  So I had a look at all that it can do and decided to make a video tour of our new house, for those of you interested.  It's the evening, so it's dark, and it's pretty shaky a la Blair Witch Project, but it's the best I can do when I'm just trying to get it done.  Every time I talk when I'm using our video camera I'm not happy with the results, so I've done this filming without talking.  Might seem a bit weird, but you'll get a pretty good idea of what our house is like.

Enjoy!

I figure next time I'll do an outside tour.  Take  care, see you later.

Steve

November 8 2008

here are some photos from a drive to IGA this weekend.

Those are mule deer; one buck and three does.   There are usually about seven of them.  I wonder if they're the same group that comes to our lawn at night and eats the berries from our tree... 

This was quite a thing to see:  some guys were going into Tim Hortons for a coffee, and they just parked their trailer while they went in.  Looks like they were just hunting.  Funny, I thought the season was over.  The moose looks like an older one - huge, but skinny and whithered.  I felt kind of bad for him.

November 8, 2008

We're nicely settled in now, and just about finished emptying boxes.  The next step is to get the girls involved in some extra curricular activities, other than playing in the basement and watching cartoons.  They all want to go skating but I don't think there are any rinks open yet.  It's cold enough, but that type of weather has just begun.

This week I'm going to look into swimming, gymnastics and brownies as well.

The snow is here now, and it's beautiful.  The girls have really been enjoying it too.  not many new photos, but here are a couple:

A lot of my time is spent with Sadie when the girls are at school and Sherrie's at work.  Here she is, hard at work at her 'office'.  She's pretty stressed out about the economy right now.

Our Halloween display.  Notice the little African clay one?  They don't look like much in the daylight, but they looked great with the candles at night.  

Our Sadie.

This is our house from the front

November 1 2008

Well, the movers finally arrived last Wednesday.  They were a very nice couple from Newfoundland who traveled together in their big truck, moving things all across Canada.  After they were done, I insisted that they stay for lunch and made them soup and sandwiches.

Notice the dirt lawn?  Had that done a week ago.  The lawn was sloping towards the house (no good in a drainage sort of way) so we had to have it reshaped.  Unfortunately that meant having dirt until spring, because no one is selling sod at this time of year.  

Halloween was a blast, and the girls enjoyed it very much - first there was the pumpkin carving in the basement, then the halloween parade at school, then getting ready with their friends and going trick or treating (in a group of eight or nine with several parents in tow - I was kind of bummed that the girls had enough and wanted to quit after just one street - we could have had a collosal haul if they were into staying cold and tired... oh well) and then a halloween barn party the next afternoon - what a blast that was!  watching the little kids dancing to monster mash is always a treat.  Here are some more photos: