Folk Fest

Folk fest is one of the many great outings of the summer. We drive out to birds hill and spend the day running around listening to music and looking at all the hats and jewlery. Tee and I run around all day with our friends and we go get air brush tatoos, basicly freely running around with twenty dollars.
At the time of the picture I was lying down right after we moved our blanket closer to the main stage. Soon after that came the big main stage performances that everyone loves, plus the other stages are empty just calling for all the kids to go and play around on.
It was a great day.

Jay

Grand Beach

Yesterday was another great day at Grand Beach. We do not have any pictures so I am using one from last year.
The beach is fun for everyone, if your an adult you can read in the sun or shade enjoying being outside, and if you a kid there is games swimming exploring and so on. We drive out there in the morning and then we spend the entire day doing what ever we fell like and the leave when we want, there is no schedule we just plan our own day, that is one of the many great things about summer.

Jay

Cat Gymnastics

Moo is a great entertainment when he is in a playful mood and has string near by. At the time of this picture we were unknotting all the string we had and the floor was a string paradise for Moo. He wrapped several balls of string around him and rolled, clawed, and squirmed to his delight. It was a very good live entertainment that happened daily.
Yet another advantage of having a cat.

Jay

Fantastic Cakes

At our house if it’s your birthday you get a fanstastic cake. The one in the picture was for my tenth birthday, It looked very preety and tasted tarific. Sometimes it’s actually kind of difficult to eat your dessert when it’s so cute, but then you think how good it’s going to taste and you dig in. I sometimes think it would be amazing to have a cake so good everyday but then I realize it wouldn’t be a treat after awhile and I would probably get sick of it, so I eat it when it comes around but thats it.

This is last years cake for me. It’s name was sardonic bunny.

Jay

Learning how to Relax

“GO away  or give me a tummy rub.”

If you want to learn how to relax, Moo is the best teacher you can get. He someties has a miny adventure liking escaping to the outside world for three seconds and then we pull him back inside and he takes the rest of the day off so he can find a cozy spot and have a cat nap.
Most of the time when I walk in to the living room Moo is half awake on the couch, Or streached out on the floor. One of the best things about having moo as a cat I have had no probablem getting relaxed, because Moo is the best teacher anyone could have.

Jay

Levitation Meditation

Levitation meditation, a pose on the bars at my school. A couple of my friends and I do a lot of flips and twists all over the play ground at our school, sucking out every last bit of fun that we can get out of the simple structure placed in the school ground. It is really fun and interesting thinking about what possible things you do on a metal bar or a small ladder.

Thats how I find a way to have fun at a place I don’t like, Jay

Fire Show

At camp when it was dark and the fire was big we would put sticks in the fire until they had embers on them, then we waved them in the air so it all looked like a drawing.
It was also very amusing to set a stick into flames then take it out of the fire and watch the stick burn in the red hot flames!
We did that almost every night, amusing are selfs with the wild fire.
It jumped and danced in the night air, eating the logs we fed it!
Biulding it higher and higher, we pushed it around till hot embers went flying into the cool night!
The fire also warmed us because the nights were chilly and we needed its warmth, and then we would go to are tents and fall asleep.

by Jay

Our Canoeing Adventures

Our adventures canoeing were amazing. We went to a portage spot and swam in the rapids.
That was really cool, because we got to be pushed around in the water.
It was a very sunny day when we went to the portage, so the water was as warm as ever!
Later on the return journey back we saw a beaver swimming in the water. It was dark brown, and very graceful.
After a couple moments the beaver got out of the water and went up a hill, and when we were about to leave it came scurring down with a twig in it’s mouth then it swam around for a second or two and then disappered into it’s lodge. When we where turning around to leave we saw debarked twigs all in the same area so we thought that was one of it’s eating area’s. the whole thing was amazing and then on the way back we saw a loon family it had the two parents and two babys, it was beautiful.
It was a really fun part of our trip

by Jay

Cliff Jumping

When we were camping at Tulabi Falls we diceded we would try CLIFF JUMPING.
So we we found the regular spot and tried it out, the lowest spot was about 1 and a half meters tall, the second i have no clue, and the tallest was just under 7 meters, plus there were a couple in between.
Of course all the kids jumped off every single one, and mom jumped off the highest!!!
You just jumped off and then there was nothing you could do but wait until you hit the water. When you jumped off the highest you could say a full sentence before you hit the surface, it was really cool!
and when you were too cold to jump any more you could just sit on the warm rock.
Cliff jumping was proably one of the most fun things we did at Tulabi Falls.

by Jay

Cliff Jumping

Time to dive back in?

fdsfas

Fun in the Snow

Shoveling the river surface clean to make a skating rink. Skates already on. Shoveling goes much faster when skate-powered.

Making snow angels.

Running headfirst into a snow pile. On purpose.

Facing Reality

In a follow up to the last post, a list of parenting jobs that I am good at and not-so-good at:

Things I Can Be Counted On To Do Well:

• reading out loud
• tolerating messes related to crafty or imaginative projects
• baking
• helping tidy and organize
• playing board games or other games with definite rules and end times
• drawing, coloring
• science projects
• building projects

Things That I Get Bored With Quickly:

• pretend play of any kind (tea parties, dollies, knights, castle, bionicles)
• playing outside
• playing really of any kind
• listening to an early reader read out loud
• open ended games with no defined rules or end times
• listening to detailed descriptions of movies, books, or computer games
• actual involvement in crafty projects
• anything that involves sitting still for too long and being the audience

A Moment Squandered

Up at seven as usual. Cup of coffee, bite of toast, and then off to drop the girls at gymnastics and diving. On the way home it occurred to me that Saturday mornings would be the ideal opportunity to spend some time with just number two son. I vowed to myself to make it so.

Which is how I found myself playing the good guys in a battle of the Knight Figures.

I knew from the moment that I hunched down behind the wooden block barricade that I wouldn’t be able to sustain interest in the game for the time it took to play it, but I willed myself to try. I wanted so much to suspend my adult self for just an hour, to find some vestige of genuine interest in the toys before me. This gangly, giraffe-like eleven year old, with knobby ankles sticking out of too-short pyjama bottoms and wild unruly hair, this almost-teen, still earnestly involved in his make-believe world, and eager to invite me in, he’s not long for childhood.

But no. I couldn’t.

We waffled and fudged and he finally took pity on me and wandered off to read.

So much for good intentions.

It Was a Piece of Cake

I figure that with an almost 16-year old, a 13-year old, a newly minted 11-year old, and an 8-year old, I’ve made 46 birthday cakes so far in my career as mother.

This was number 47.

Not too shabby eh?

Over the years, I’ve often gone head-to-head with young son over his apparent lack of concern for Very Important Things, but on this day, I had a brand new appreciation for his nonchalance. He took a passing glance at the cake disaster and said YUM! I told him that I could peel the smarties off and make more icing and try to cover the cracks, but he said Nah…. so I didn’t. Good enough for him, good enough for the seven other little tobogganers coming to his party.

Later on, after the toboganning was nixed in favor of a snowball battle, after the presents were opened, and after the unplanned sleep-over ended, I asked him how the day had been.

It was epic! and the best party ever!

He’d made the invitations, made the phone calls, planned the activity, and hosted the party. I made the cake, served the hot chocolate, and lit the candles.

He had seven friends over, and they spent several hours playing outside, and then inside. I sat on the couch and read a book.

It was so very easy that I felt a bit at loose ends, but upon reflection, I realized, with some surprise,  that the days of harrowing kids’ parties are coming to an end.

Christmas Pictures

For the first time in absolutely ages, I dragged all four kids to Alberta this Christmas, to visit my sister and her family.

There was a lot of snow at my sister’s place this year. 21 people in one house meant that sometimes it was absolutely necessary to get outside, but on an acreage, going outside means walking up the road or walking down the road. Unless you’re a kid. In which case you have more options.

We spent one afternoon at a nearby creek….

….but then the weather took a turn for the worse, and we gave up and spent the rest of our visit inside where it was nice and warm.

It was pretty nice, sitting back, eating treats, watching movies and playing cards. Not to mention spending so much time with long lost cousins and aunts and uncles. I think it made the wretched two days in the airport a worthwhile trade-off. I had no idea that air travel over the holidays was such an ordeal. Next time I think we’ll drive.

Christmas in the Country

My Goals

This has been a year of reflection and growth. Partly it’s a function of growing older, partly it’s been a function of having had blocks of time away from the constant-ness of the kids, and partly it’s been a result of the reading I’ve done. I have a long way to go in terms of being the person I’d like to be, but I do have a sense of where I’m heading, and in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, I’ve come up with a compassionate list for myself.

I would like to:

• Try as much as possible to be present for my children. When I am with them, I would like to give them my full attention. When I need to attend to something else, I will tell them, and when I simply need some mental space, I will take it, but I will do my best not to be with my children while being mentally elsewhere.
• See what is in front of me. To actually experience the moments as they are. That translates into seeing the gray days without wishing they were sunny.
• Work on accepting the discomfort that I feel with being uncertain.
• Work on increasing the time between impulse and action.