Sunday Afternoon

And that is how we roll on a Sunday afternoon. Sleeping on chairs, cat in hand.

Under the Maple Leaf

Just as Kje got most of the way home from school yesterday, it started to rain. He arrived home a bit wet but proudly clutching a large green maple leaf above his head, as if it were an umbrella. As I let him into the house:

Me: You should bring your raincoat to school.

Him: Nah, I don't want to.

Me: Well then, how about we get you an umbrella?

Him: No thanks.

Me: So you're just going to get wet then when you walk home?

Him: Nope. I'm going to use maple leaf umbrellas. They are organic and eco-friendly!


I love that! He comes home wet and happy and ready to change the world. Go Kje go!

And this little piggy went wee wee wee wee all the way to school

Kje went to school today. New school. New classroom. New friends. Looked outside the window from his new desk to see a little pig munching on the grass on the field. Seems the guy that mows the lawn brings his pet pig along with him to help him out.


Just another happy moment to help explain why I love living on the Saanich Peninsula.

Everything You Need To Know

My younger son graduated from elementary school this year and part of the process was getting a published Yearbook. As I contributed photos to the yearbook (yay!) I was just as excited to flip through it as he was. But I have to admit, my favourite page is full of quotes from the Grade 5 class in response to "Any advice for next year's Grade 5's?"

In the spirit of Robert Fulgham, I thought you might enjoy reading their responses:

Listen in class.
Listen carefully and follow instructions.
Don't get stressed by homework, it'll only get you frustrated.
Bring your homework back to school.

Make good choices, use your manners, be awesome.
Be a role model.
Don't be a tattle tale.
Don't get into trouble.
All the kids look up to you so do good stuff and help when needed.

Stay on your toes.
Make memories, work hard, have fun.
Participate.
When in PE don't be afraid to go all out. Do your best!

Study.
Study Math.
Listen in Math.
Try to live through Math.

Don't be an idiot. Be Smart!
Be creative.
Believe in yourself.
Get some sleep. 

Hmmmm. Pretty good stuff. Pretty smart kids.

Laughing it up at the Lytton Pines Motel

Thank you Lytton Pines Motel for hosting our late night glow photo shoot last summer! Stumbled upon these tonight and thought I would share a few with you.

Maui Surf, Face First

The first time I took surf lessons, my surf-guru Dove and I paddled out off the shores of Malibu Beach, California and learned pretty quick that good, local surfers didn't take too kindly to newbies in their midst. It was a short lesson and I caught more insults than I did waves. In fact, I didn't get up on my board once.

Thankfully learning to surf in Maui is as common as flip-flops and fish tacos, and the locals, at least the ones we met, were more than happy to have us share the warm water and tiny waves with them. These photos of our family surf lessons were taken by Big Kahuna Adventures, but I played around with a few of my favourites to share with you.

Put your diamonds in the surf
(yes, we went to the Jay-Z and Kanye concert the day before leaving on vacation).



Kje, which means garden of the sea, shot up on the board first time, first try. Awesome!

Surf Dude

 Really, I did get up! How else would you explain going down like this?

Letter from Paris

Received an electronic letter (somehow that sounds better than saying email) from Paris today. I kinda like this sentence he wrote and thought I would share it with you.

"aLL i CAN REMEMBER IS WHAT i'VE TAKEN FROM THE PAST, AND i CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING i'VE GOT IN THE FUTURE."

Writing of Courage

Earlier this week my youngest son completed a writing assignment at school about courage. That night he brought his writing book home so he could work on his homework. While checking over his spelling and sentence structure I flipped back and found his courage assignment. I admit, it made me cry, for reasons it would be hard to explain unless you knew him and me and his dad and his brother and what our family has gone though over the last three years. There is something courageous about writing from your heart, about writing in your own voice, about writing what you know to be true in your world. Kje has struggled with being a good writer and he has been working on it with his teachers and me for a few years. I think he has nailed it on this one and I had to share it with you.

Courage is not giving up on feeding a cat for 1 to 19 years.
Courage is cleaning a toilet after someone went poo in it.
Courage is saving someone from a disease.
Courage is jumping off 10 metres into water.
Courage is going to a new school.
Courage is resisting temptation to eat the cookies while your mom and dad are in the hot tub.
Courage is not giving up and getting modifications on Minecraft when you're new to going to it.
Courage is helping your brother when he's sad.
Courage is not playing the world's most addictive game.
Courage is being friends with the most popular kid in school.

While driving him to school that morning (yep, I was being lazy and didn't want to walk in the rain) I told him what a great job he did and how proud I was of him for expressing himself so well.

"A few of those are lies, " he said.

"Oh?" I replied and waited for him to say more.

"They're not all true. I play the world's most addictive game."

"And have you got cookies while we were in the hot tub?"
"Ya," he says with a chuckle. "That too."

I chuckle with him, telling him it's okay without having to say anything. I think courage is telling your parents you lied and then telling them you did something you weren't suppose to.

There are these amazing moments in life, when you know your child will be okay, good, honest and courageous. Kje still has lots of writing assignments left in life before he becomes an adult, but for now, I can't help thinking he's on the right track.

Pondering Paris

Today was the first day of the last year of high school for my older son. I just looked through his school's online calendar and put all the pro-d days and report card days and band concert days into my calendar, too. I must admit, it felt pretty weird to add "Grad Dinner Dance" to an upcoming Friday night. (Yes, at the moment 2012 feels "upcoming".)

I wonder what he will wear to his prom. I am thinking a green Wilco t-shirt and wool Irish cap. Perhaps with a black suit jacket and black pants, a cotton handkerchief peeking out of a pocket somewhere. His signature grey canvas sneakers. I wonder if this will be one of those dinner dances where parents are invited. I wonder if there will be live music and if Public Access will play Bright Side or End of Yesterday.

Last night was his first grad party, a camp out at school, cut short when the police broke it up at one o'clock a.m. due to excessive noise.

I wonder where life will lead him, starting the day after the last day of the last year of school.

Tiny Wet Beads

After just finishing Holy Skirts, a fictional novel about Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven -- poet, avant-garde and woman extraordinaire -- I was thrilled to hear Kje speak poetically to me this morning as I was dropping him off at a friend's house.

I had to write it down.


I love these days,

warm days when my hair is wet.

I shake my head back and forth

and back and forth

and stick my hands in the middle where

tiny wet beads of water hit all over. 

Robert Bateman Day

Took the boys for afternoon tea yesterday, complete with dainty sandwich triangles, raisin scones with Devonshire cream and a puffy, brown tea cosy for our pot of Orange Pekoe.

Not sure how we got on the subject (afternoon tea conversations can be sooo random) but Kje mentioned that he tried haggis. Hmmm.... news to me.

"I'm impressed. When did you do that?"

"At school, on Robert Bateman day," he replied.

Smile.

"Um, do you mean Robbie Burns day?"

"Oh ya, that one."

I think Robert Bateman would get a kick out of having his own day, not to mention kids eating haggis in honour of it.

Hallowe'en in March?

Just stumbled upon this photo again and thought I would relive the moment with you...'cause he looks too damn cute to just file away again in the deep dark depths of my photo archives. Happy Hallowe'en!

Cougars, Bears, Oh My!

I seem to recall writing a post about this a few years ago, but I can't find it. It was one of Kje's first weeks of school in Victoria. I asked him about his day and he mentioned digging for worms in the dirt pile, catching snakes and a salamander in the snake pit,crawling through blackberry bushes to the cougar pit  (sorry if you have heard this story before & I'm boring you) and then getting stung by a bee after he put his hand in a bush too close to the hive. It was then I knew Victoria was the right place for us.

A school with snakes, salamanders, bees, blackberry bushes and cougars was better than a school with needles, broken glass, homes for the homeless and used condoms.

So... guess what Kje said about school today? He was going to play on the rock pile (you know, the one with the mosquito pools) and his Principal told him he had to go inside immediately as a bear was spotted on the rock pile this morning. Yep, a real live bear.

So, I said, what happened to the bear?

Nothing, he said, they just let it do its own thing.

Hmmmm...... just another day on the island.

Public Access... live from Victoria

Just a few shots of Public Access hanging out downtown Victoria before their debut gig tomorrow. I must admit, I do like my role as Public Access official band photographer and have decided my goal in life is to get my picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone. (Going to see my picture on the cover... gonna buy five copies for my mother...) 

Sting Diving Competition in Victoria

I took some photos of a recent diving competition in Victoria. The large Canadian flag made a great backdrop for the boys in bathing suits.

Diving

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of watching Kje dive, here are some "typical" diving shots. The pool enclosure is actually very warm, but I thought I might cool these shots down with a blue tone, just for fun.

Olympic spirit, localized

Away from Vancouver. Away from the Games. Here are some images from our local school Olympic celebration - the best opening Games ceremony you can imagine. The crowd (well... the kids) go wild when Team Canada (well... the grade three class performing their slam jam dance) entered the gym.

Jesus And Me But No Christians Are In My Band

Paris wrote this for his Write Stretch creative writing class. I love it and thought I would share.

Jesus And Me But No Christians Are In My Band


i'm not Christian, but I'm friends with Jesus because he's cool and Jesus isn't Christian (just his dad, sorta) and Jesus smokes pot (i seen him doin it) but i don't and he respects that and he's pretty good at video games (but i usually win) and he's a damn good drummer, like, he started with jazz so now he throws all kinda beats out, and he's pretty !@#$ing good at guitar so i almost got borned one time and down comes Jesus, and Jesus says 'wassup lil man' and i say to him 'not much' and he says 'listen up now, the world is here for you to do some stuff' and i say 'what kinda stuff' and he says 'some pretty darn cool stuff' and he teaches me to play blues guitar real good (cause Jesus is pretty chill and it was chill blues like Johnson, not like Trout) and i didn't even hafta sell my soul for a tuning (cause he's Jesus H. Christ) and i say 'cool' and so he leaves and then i got born and that was the day i became friends with big J but like i said Jesus isn't even religious which is pretty cool cause that kinda stuff's lame and now he's the drummer in my band

My Favourite Photo

These were once my favourite photos. So.... one of my favourite photo sessions of 2009 was shooting Public Access, a Lower Mainland indie / punk / ska band with a touch of blues (according to their Facebook site). These photos were suppose to remain a secret until their CD was launched, but..... they have a new drummer, which makes the pictures kinda obsolete. It also means I can share them more openly, as opposed to hide them on the right.

Team Shirt

Guess who is officially part of the Boardworks competitive diving team? Tonight, Kje dove in his first "mini-meet" and came 6th in his class. As part of the event, the coaches handed out prizes and then gave each team member their own t-shirt.

"It's not a t-shirt mom," Kje tells me afterwards. "It's a team shirt." I love that!

A few hours later, after the good-night tickle and giggle.....

"Guess what mom?"
"What?"
"I'm going to wear my team shirt to school tomorrow to show everyone."
"Great idea. Good night."

Pause...

"Guess what mom?"
"What?"
"I'm going to wear my team shirt to school tomorrow."
"Perfect."


Pause again...

"Guess what mom?"

"What?"
"I'm going to wear my team shirt to school tomorrow."
"What a great idea."

Repeat the above a few times, then one last time...
"Guess what mom?"

"You're going to wear your shirt to school tomorrow."
"Yep."

He definitely feels part of the team now.