seven and thirteen

It’s probably a sign of how busy we’ve been and where my head is at that I am lumping two significant events together even though they occurred over a month apart.

On the 21st of March, our little pink thing became a little less little, though certainly no less pink when she turned seven years old.

Bubbly and happy, she continues to exude confidence almost everywhere she goes whilst occasionally slipping into squealy, scared little girl mode, more often than not just for an excuse to get Daddy’s attention I am sure. She was very excited for her birthday, as is more than appropriate for someone turning a massive seven years old. She was especially happy about the party that we held for her with a host (or perhaps more accurately a gaggle) of kids from school. two boys were ‘fortunate’ enough to make the invite list, the first of whom was greatly relieved to be invited into the basement with Emily’s brothers as the girls went crazy around her.

Two moments stand out in my mind from the day, the part where she was opening her presents, seated on the couch, the entire party population crowded around her like petitioners about a court princess.



The second moment occurred when it was time for the pinata. We’ve been through any number of pinata’s over the time that our kids have had birthdays, home made, store bought, but regardless of the origins, they’ve all gone down the same way ... gradually bludgeoned to death by small beings wielding a long blunt object with varying degrees of proficiency.



But for some reason this one was supposed to be different. Not that I had a clue. I did the usual thing, hung it up, lined up the kids and gave them the blunt object. Emily protested loudly but I insisted that this was exactly how it worked and away we went. Each time Emily came up, she took the stick with a dark look and an overly angry and enthusiastic swing. When the candy finally fell, she stormed off with tears in her eyes.

Apparently this was a ‘special’ pinata and everyone was supposed to hold one of the streamers and pull it and that would make the candy fall ... except for the fact that I don’t remember seeing anything about that anywhere on it. She cheered up again soon enough.

One of the big differences that we’re seeing this year is the fact that Emily is learning to write and that she’s more than happy to share her new-found knowledge and skills with us. Its not unusual to find a little note outside the door or scattered about the floor letting us know that the little pink thing does indeed love her Mum and Dad. Of course, with the skills, one doesn’t necessarily develop the filter that social norms might otherwise give us and so we’ve also been known to find amongst the literary marvels the occasional note that says something as blunt as “I hate you”. Of course, that only happens when she doesn’t get her own way!

So at seven, the opinions are stated firmly and loudly, the smiles plentiful, hugs large and genuine, and the mood swings gradually coming along to show us those potentially horrifying glimpses of the future with a teenager!

Which of course leads us to the other momentus occasion that was as recent as yesterday. Michael turned 13, and so we do, in fact have a teenager in the house.

The biggest thing for us with Michael turning 13 this year was as simple as finding something to give him. With departure from Canada on the horizon (even if further than we’d like) it rules out a lot of electronic options as we are better off waiting until we’re back in the land of 240v (even if its more expensive) and we don’t really want to clutter up the house with crap any more than we’ve already managed to. In the end, he decided the he’d really like some roller blades so that along with a few books to read seems to have done the trick.

Michael continues to succeed at school, though I think somewhat reminiscent of another family member, might struggle with some of the more mundane aspects of the schooling. With the age gap to most of the people in his class, he’s struggled to click with a lot of his peers and seems to view them mostly as more trouble than they’re worth. He’s continued to enjoy to read, devouring my bookshelf at a rate that simply blows my mind. Nothing like buying him a book so that he’ll have something to read for the last couple of days of a holiday and seeing him finish it before we even get to the part where we’re traveling home again. Of course, it’s hard to complain when your teenager gets excited about a book shop.

We’re definitely seeing the emotions run hot and cold as Michael embarks on this next stage of life’s journey and I can hardly wait until the communication drops off to grunts and groans! He continues to enjoy his soccer, having been one of the key players in his indoor team.

Summer will be interesting when having just turned 13 he will have to play in a combined U14/16 team. Some of the older kids that I saw playing after the U14 games during the winter were taller than I am. At least the better U16 players will be playing in the men’s league where I’ll have to try and out run (not likely) or out push (highly likely) them. I’m also hoping that he gets a decent coach as I believe that he’d benefit from being coached by someone other than his father (maybe he’d listen a little more and offer a few less opinions).

Regardless of how it turns out, he’s a kid that its easy to be proud of and I hope that he keeps going down the right track ... even if he does need a bloody hair cut.

The Great American Road Trip Pt. 1

In retrospect, referring to our holiday as our Great Griswaldian Adventure in the weeks and months leading up to it may have been a less than inspired choice, if for no other reason than feeling like it’s poking fate in the eye and waiting for a reaction.

Caroline and I were up until after midnight the day before the trip, making sure that we would have everything that we would need and that it had been compressed into suitably small shapes so as to allow us to board a plane.

The day of depature, Michael and Sam had their indoor soccer finals and the original plan had been to go straight from the soccer to the airport where we’d abandon the car for a couple of weeks. When I looked at the luggage that needed to go in the car it was readily apparent that one car stuffed to overflowing simply wasn’t a good answer, not to mention the fact that the last minute panic meant that we weren’t all ready to go at the same time.

So two cars it was to soccer, with Michael and Sam both coming away with Gold medals after their respective games. Following that, it was a dash to the house, loading everything into the car to the point of imminent explosion and off to the airport. I dropped Caroline, the kids and the luggage off at the door and was about to go park the car when Caroline asked me where my hand luggage was.

Oh crap.

The instant she asked me, it flashed through my mind. In order to pack the luggage in the car I’d moved my car out of the garage. When I’d packed everything else, I put my hand luggage down on the ground. Because the garage was full of mud from the snow, I put it on one of the few clean spots. To get Caroline’s car out I had to move mine back in, which meant that my luggage was now right in front of my car. In fact, it was basically underneath the front. We all piled in the car and left, sans my hand luggage.

My instant reaction was to flee home to get it, but we were close enough to boarding that I didn’t think I’d have time. I gave it up and went to park the car.

Urgent calls to the one person that had access to our house went unanswered.

When I came back from parking the car, Caroline told me there’d been a slight delay and that I may have time. I fled the airport, mind whirling, eyes on my watch and doing the arithmetic. If I sped the whole way home and back again, I might make it just in time IF they took 10 minutes to board and I could get in at the last second. A bad run of lights, getting booked for speeding, or simply having to park a little too far away would potentially mean missing the flight.

I stopped, turned around and returned to the terminal, where Emily unfurled herself from her mother’s arms to give me a big hug. She’d been terrified that Daddy might not make it on the plane.

Normally missing my hand luggage wouldn’t mean a lot. No book to read, no iPod for the journey, possibly even missing a snack I’d packed. On this occasion however, I’d happened to pack the bag with all the charges for our cameras as well as the video camera in my backpack instead of the luggage.

As we flew to LA, we considered our options. We’d get some photos, but would probably exhaust batteries fairly quickly and we’d have no video. Our first point of call out of LA was intended to be the Grand Canyon. Surely that wouldn’t put too great a strain on the cameras! Yeah, right.

Option 1 was try and find a retailer that would sell us new battery chargers for the cameras. Likely to be expensive.

Option 2 was to have Nancy go to our house, retrieve the bag and courier it to us. If we went down that path, it would also be expensive and involve a change of plans so that we could be in a location where we could receive mail.

We settled on option 2, forked out the requisite arm and leg and changed our plans to head straight to Vegas from LA rather than the Grand Canyon.

And with that happy little start, our vacation was underway!

Jasper Juniors

This year, rather than spend our winters freezing our butts off at, and shuttling back and forth between ice rinks, we managed to keep the kids out of any ice sports and pursue other options. 

The boys all played indoor soccer and Emily and Thomas joined the Nancy Greene Ski Program. Emily would have loved to have played indoor soccer but unfortunately her games would have been on Saturday which simply wasn't conducive to the lifestyle that we wanted this year. At least when the kids are skiing we get to indulge as well.

One of the things that the Nancy Greene program enables the kids to do is participate in ski races, something which Caroline and I were certainly excited about, regardless of  whether Emily and Thomas thought it would be particularly special or not. 

With our other commitments and fun (like holidaying in the Caribbean) we didn’t actually get to as many of these events as we’d have liked, but we did make the one that we considered most important - the Jasper Junior Olympics.

It was held the week after we arrived back from our cruise, so we went from the sand to the snow in a very short space of time. Caroline and the kids went on the bus on the Thursday, whilst I worked through Friday. Then I caught the plane to Edmonton and drove out in a little Hyundai to meet them in Jasper.

It almost uneventful except for the bit where I was driving along at the permitted 110kms/hour and looked up to see the back end of what I think was an Elk wandering off the road to my right. I hit the skids, veered into the left lane and set the heart racing to about a billion beats a minute. I slowed down and considered just how bloody lucky i was that there hadn’t been anyone in the lane along side me, not to mention that it hadn’t been the front end of the animal that I’d seen! Otherwise it would have been a very very messy experience.

Eventually I controlled the heart and made it the rest of the way and by the time that I’d managed to make it to the Rockies proper, I was in a suitable frame of mind to admire the absolutely stunning view as the bright, silvery light of a very full moon cast its ethereal glow across the snow-capped mountains. It was truly wonderful and I would have given a lot to have had a camera handy (not to mention some decent photography skills) so that I could have captured it to share.

The following day we were up bright and early to pack ourselves onto the team bus so that we could head up to the mountain to do some skiing (oh and um, watch the kids too). The kids were split into age groups and genders for racing and the older kids skied on a tougher course. That meant that Emily would be skiing down a green run near the base of the mountain whilst Thomas would ski at the top on a black run! Caroline was kind enough to do our volunteer duty so that I could fit in some extra skiing (something about having missed most of the Christmas ski adventure).

It was going to be a delicate task once the kids were ready to ski as all we had to go by was the number of their bib as to when they would be coming down the mountain. Michael and Sam and I did some exploration to make sure that we’d be able to get from one to the other in time the waited near Emily’s run for her first race.

It was very cute to see the little kids skiing their hearts out as they weaved in and out of the gates to get the fastest time that they could. On the first day they would each have two timed races to see who could produce the quickest time.

Emily fared very well in her event, coming in 11th in her age group, which was just one place short of getting a ribbon! After her first run we raced to the bottom, caught the lift back to the top and skied across to Thomas’ course. We had to repeat it for the second run in the afternoon.

Thomas skied well on his first run, but unfortunately on his second, lost his edges about 5 gates from the finish. He got up quickly and kept skiing, but hadn’t realized that he’d missed a gate in the process and sadly ended with a DNF (did not finish). That meant that he didn’t get an official time for his runs, but from his first run he was around the middle of the pack. When you see the speed some of the kids that have been skiing (and racing) for many years achieve, middle of the pack is bloody good.

On the second day, the racing was a team event, with the various ski teams competing against each other. This meant that each skier would participate in two tandem slalom races, weaving through the gates side by side against their competitor (based on their time from the previous day). Apparently there’s then some mathematical wizardry around which teams win how many of their races to determine the overall winner.

Again Emily was the first down the mountain and she managed to get over the line first, smiling as she came over the line. I had a little more concern for as although he had put a brave face on the disappointment of the Saturday, I knew that he really wanted to be able to say that he had won something.

In his first race he managed to well and truly beat his opponent over the line. Then we raced off to see Emily again. In the first race they came down one side of the course and then in the second race came down the other, I assume to even out any slight imbalances in the positioning of the various gates. Emily went close, but was just beaten over the line before we scuttled off to the top of the mountain for the last time.

Thomas skied his best and again managed to get himself over the line, coming out with a double victory and happily, a good story to tell about his efforts at the Jasper Junior Olympics.



From there it was just a casual bus ride back to the Mac. All 10 hours or so of it!