Disco Duck Dance Recital

Katie is a dancer! She and her community dance school played the Wright Theatre at Mount Royal University last weekend and she was every inch a star.



The preschool dance class did one number, called "Disco Duck" and they had the CUTEST feather-and-sequin costumes you ever laid eyes on. Katie got her costume weeks before the recital and it was all she could do not to wear it all that day. We let her wear it briefly that day and then it hung safely, with the feathers intact, in her closet until the big Friday dress rehearsal.



R told her that she did such a wonderful job at the dress rehearsal and that she would most certainly do a wonderful job at the recital the next day. To that, Katie responded, "That wasn't the recital?" She got to do it two more times the next day -- which was actually a bit of a marathon event for both Katie and R. She had a crowd of 5 fans for Saturday morning (Grandma, Grandpa, Karla, Mom and Dad) and then R bought her a rose to congratulate her for her first performance on the big stage.

Opening Day at Calaway!

[May 17 2014]



As usual, we have season's passes to nearby Calaway Park. Scott can now go on all but a handful of rides and Katie can do more than last year and should be able to do several more before the summer is out. We ran into some friends on the Ocean Motion and they snapped this sweet action shot. The first of many this season!

Quirks, Quarks, Luge and Steak

[May 27 2014]

This year I somehow ended up running an online auction as part of a big fundraiser breakfast event for Scouts in Southern Alberta.

In turned out that the night before the breakfast, I got invited to come along to a dinner with keynote speaker Bob McDonald, who is CBC Radio's main science correspondent and has been the host of the science program Quirks & Quarks for 20 years or more.



The hotel forgot to pick him up at the airport. Whoops.

One of the guests at the dinner table (a University professor) started flogging his book pretty shamelessly. I learned that Bob McDonald lives in Victoria and he loves motorcycles.

I ran 6km uphill to my truck after eating steak. During the run I stopped to take a picture of the soccer field on SAIT campus because it was so nice outside.



On the way through Capitol Hill I got chased by a cat that was defending its yard. I was genuinely afraid of the way it looked at me.



The next morning at the fundraiser event I met Mitch Malyk, Canadian luge athlete. One of the auction items was a luge ride with Mitch as your coach. A selfie ensued.



It was an interesting 24 hours.

The Easter Bunny Was Here

[Apr 19 2014]





As usual, the Easter Bunny left treats to discover when the kids woke up on Saturday morning. A trail of little treats led the way to a basket of toys and books. It is good to see that the Easter Bunny is on the same page as Mommy, who really would prefer to keep candy to a minimum.

Last Indoor Soccer of the Season

[Mar 1 2014]



The last indoor soccer game of the year fell on a Saturday just an hour after one of the last sessions of early-morning Biddy Ball. Since Scott and Hayden are both on the same soccer team, and they practiced Friday evenings near our house, we threw a sleepover into the deal and made a real event out of it.



Biddy Ball has been a lot of fun this year, as the boys are getting to the older end of their age group and starting to really pick up their skills. They also love getting a juice box and a granola bar at the end. Scott was a little teary at the end because one of the other 7-year-old boys had criticized his shooting technique. The granola bar helped offset this injury.



After Biddy Ball we had to race to the other side of town to get to our soccer game. Instead of the standard game at the NW soccer dome, we had to go to the one in the NW for "MiniFest". As it turned out, the pop-up nets were tiny and the other team outmatched our boys. Their skills have come a long way this year, as they have had to play against some pretty skilled teams. It hardly compares to the outdoor league they played on in the summer, where most kids were there for the first time.



The video quality isn't perfect, as I am still learning to focus the massive zoom lens on our digital camera when filming moving subjects. Scott is #23 and Hayden is #30.

FHE: Learning Patience From Marshmallows

For us, a typical FHE includes a church video. The kids have certain favourites that we have watched a zillion times. Recently, we were browsing the Mormon Channel for some new videos and I found this gem about kids, patience and marshmallows.



The basic message was so easy to understand that when we started discussing it with our kids they instantly wanted to try it. They both promised that they could easily wait 15 minutes to get the extra marshmallow. Fortunately, we had a big bag of marshmallows in the pantry, so we put them to the test.



I was going to suggest that we play a game or something to pass the time, but Scott wouldn't hear of it. He wanted his display of patience to be as pure as possible. The two of them just sat at the table, staring at their marshmallows. Then R started joking a bit, trying to convince Katie to just gobble up her marshmallow, which Katie thought was the best thing ever. She kept telling R to keep doing it.



Pretty soon, the 15 minutes were over and the two kids snarfed their 2 marshmallows. Scott was a bit disappointed that he only got 2 in the end, but the lesson was about patience. Maybe there is a different video that addresses other aspects of self-restraint.

Grade 1 Choir Concert

Keyboard Recital

Scott has been taking a group keyboard lesson this year. There are 5 first-year students in the class, and they have a circle of keyboards where they alternate playing alone, playing together, singing, doing rhythm on drums, and other ear-training exercises. Rather than starting with reading notes, they started with Solfège and playing in different keys by ear. It is pretty incredible how he is able to transpose the simple medlodies (which are often scales or intervals disguised as melodies) into different keys. He does worksheets during the week as well as practicing his songs.



Rather than a performance class, it is all about participation, but they still had a recital of sorts for the last few minutes of the last class of the year. Scott got to announce his two selections and then bowed once he had finished. He does really well. I sat in on the class before the recital began and I noticed that he is always the first to volunteer to play a song or to try to answer a question. He is very engaged and he is excited for next year.

While Mom Went Away Part 2

[May 1 2014]

R picked the right weekend to go away to Utah for Women's Conference. The first half was nice enough that I got a slight sunburn, and the second half we got buried under a foot of snow.



It all started with a bit of rain in the afternoon when we went to get Scott from the bus stop. And then it continued all evening and through the night.







The kids weren't super excited about playing in it at first, but I forced them to go outside and then they never wanted to come back in, especially once they got started throwing snowballs at Dad.





Elsa's Castle

Katie said, "I'm going to live in here!"

Celebration of Learning - Grade 1

While Mom Went Away - Part 1

[April 30, 2014]

R went on a 5-day road trip all the way down to Utah with her sister J to attend Women's Conference on BYU campus. They stayed with her Grandma W and hung out with her brother B and his wife K as well.



Aside from 30+ hours of driving and getting very little sleep, it seems that enjoyed herself. The weather was fabulous (especially compared to the weather in Calgary) and the campus was beautiful. She also managed to connect with my fam at the mall in Provo, just before Spencer ran a race and Livvy played a soccer game. How fun.



While she was gone I took a few day off of work and went on some adventures with the kids (actually, I ended up working at night and adventuring during the day - exhausting). One day 1, Katie and I had a picnic lunch at a park in West Hillhurst, kiddie-corner to Queen Elizabeth Jr/Sr High School -- the legendary place that featured prominently in my the pseudo-academic exploits of my eldest brother J (my sister A denies any association with the school whatsoever).





We ended up touring by 2 more playgrounds as the afternoon progressed, including one in Capitol Hill that had a dinosaur theme and some bouncy balls to play with. We nearly had to make an emergency pitstop behind some foliage, but then we found the door unlocked to the community center and a man doing renovations inside let us use the facilities. Whew.



On Day 2 we diagnosed Scott with some form of horrible disease the forced him to come play with us for the day instead of going to school. I asked the kids what things they wanted to do. Katie said, "I want to hike on a mountain!" Scott said, "I want to go to a park!" I should mention that Scott was not at all supportive of the mountain idea. I figured out a compromise, where we could go to a park AND do a hike.



First we went to a park in Varsity that I found on a website list for best playgrounds in Calgary. It was pretty good, but I don't know if it was great. While there, I overheard two first-time moms with little babies lamenting how people at work had shared links with pictures of their precious little babies, exposing them to online exposure without their baby-consent. They were outraged that such a thing had happened. It was this conversation that leads me to believe that they were first-time parents.

We left to get pizza and head on our hike, but then I realized that I left the kids' hoodies on a bench at the previous park because I am an idiot, so we had to go back. Ugh. Finally, we had a pizza picnic in the back of the truck before embarking on our hike. I had read on a website somewhere that there was a cool waterfall hike not far from where we live, so that was our goal for the afternoon.



The hike was very simple, and had the benefit of a boardwalk all the way down the ravine, keeping hikers elevated above the various waterflows that converged along the descent. It was somewhat puzzling where the water was coming from. There was none at the top and then there was a pretty good stream by the time we reached the bottom.



At the very bottom, just before reaching the Bow River, there was a cute little waterfall spilling over the rocks and creating an interesting mineral formation tinged with mossy green. There was also an emergency pitstop that had to take place, as usual. We managed to steer clear of pathways and waterways, however.



On the way back up we saw a snake in the creek, which is a bit of a rare thing in the city. It was small and pretty sleepy so it was hard to spot, but the kids were much less intimidated by the snake than the large dog which had been the first to spot the snake.



Although the grassy hills were still brown everywhere, Katie found some beautiful purple wildflowers on the hillsides. She was sad how fragile the flower turned out to be, but she loved it all the same. We capped off the day with a visit to the bottle depot to supplement Scotty's birthday money so he could buy the Lego Ninjago Temple of Light, which he says is the thing he wanted most in the whole world. Katie used her recycling proceeds to buy Ariel & Eric wedding figurines from the Disney Princess collection. This naturally required that I play the part of Eric for the next few days.

Patrons of the Arts

We like to support the performing arts. But we like it even more if we can do it on the cheap.

A typical orchestra-level seat for a production by Theatre Calgary costs about $90. However, one time I noticed that they had a few $25 seats available. Rather than being way in the back or up on the balcony, these seats were on the front row. We jumped all over those tickets, and we've never looked back. We sat about 12 feet from the Man in the Chair (Dean Paul Gibson) for "The Drowsy Chaperone". It was amazing. Tickets in the first 2 rows are cheap like that but if you move back one more row, suddenly it goes way up to $90. And I bet that $90-guy in the 3rd row is still sitting within the "splash zone" (Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby had more range than most).

Last year we snagged some $25 tickets for Pride & Prejudice and invited along a couple that we often go out with. They were a bit shocked at how fun it all was (he had NEVER seen Pride & Prejudice!), and then they were hooked. I got a letter offering me a season subscription for those same seats and they went in on it with us. For only a few dollars more than we had been paying, we could get guaranteed 2nd-row seats for opening Friday for every show, and if we couldn't make it that particular day, they would exchange the tickets for us for a different night without a fee. This year we saw:

- Kim's Convenience (hilarious)
- The Great Gatsby (perfectly cast)
- Major Barbara (Dean Paul Gibson is king of the world!)
- The Mountaintop (Great acting, but language was a bit excessive)
- Mary Poppins (Aaaaaah! This was AMAZING!)



Opening Friday is supposed to be extra fun because they have a gala afterwards with a drink and a snack and you get to meet the cast. We actually never made it to the opening Friday until we went to Mary Poppins, and then the show went so late that we had to quickly snag a cake pop and rush back to our babysitters. Still, there is something strangely satisfying about being a subscriber -- even a cheapo subscriber. It makes you feel sort of classy. Like you are a patron of the arts.

Our kids also love live theatre. For some strange reason, Scott sort of hates going to movies. The only way you can get him to go is to promise him popcorn and pop. He isn't that excited about the movie itself (except for the Lego Movie -- he would give up anything to go see that again, it seems). Katie appears absolutely terrified of all movies. Maybe she was too traumatized by watching "Brave" when she was just tiny. If she sees a character who is marginally "bad" she wants to hide. Same thing if the music takes a dramatic turn. We watched "Muppets Most Wanted" with our Kalispell cousins and she was scared of Konstantine, which was just Kermit the Frog with a mole on his cheek.

The typical progression for Katie at any movie or show is to slowly tense up and curl into a smaller ball as the plot thickens. And then when the good guys finally get the upper hand on things, she suddenly releases in peals of laughter and the cutest giggles for everyone in the theatre to hear. We went to "Flat Stanley" at the community-run StoryBook Theatre last month and it was the same thing. When that girl gets into a production, it's like there is no one else in the room. She just lets go.

That's the kind of audience that you want to have in the front two rows.

Adventures in FHE

Mom was away at a school meeting so we took FHE on the road.
The kids pointed their bikes in the direction of a park and off we went, taking a short detour through the temple parking lot for a photo-op.



Our route also took us past Grandma's front door. Scott was running point on our convoy and he decided we should stop off at Grandma's trampoline. We ended up spending the whole evening in the back yard with Grandma & Grandpa, bouncing on the tramp, helping set up their patio swing, and enjoying delicious popsicles.



On the way there, Katie had stopped to get a copy of the free Metro newspaper from the green box near the bus stop. She had me carry it for her, since her hands were full operating the tricycle. I accidentally forgot the newspaper at Grandma's house, so she decided she needed to get another one. However, the green box was empty on the return trip. Even though we were totally running late, she took off on foot down the pathway to another bus stop. I thought she looked so adorable, trotting away on her little legs, her pink bike helmet bobbing along. She said, "I got this newspaper for mama." This was also adorable.



I think Katie felt very grown-up, out on her own little bike, picking up the newspaper.