I'm an energy champion!

A few weeks ago i entered a competition on Mom's computer, and yesterday they phoned to say I'd won!!

The prize was a trip to see the Vancouver Giants play the Calgary Hitmen, including going behind the scenes, a live onscreen interview, and a brand new hockey jersey.

i was a bit worried about the interview bit of the evening, so when i got in from school we made some special signs. Ollie and I both made "Go, Giants, Go" banners, and i also made an 'energy champion' sign. One of the ways you can save energy is to "close the door, keep in heat".

My new jersey...just a bit big!

Jock - my host for the evening - and the team van

Outside the team dressing room

Meeting "coach" - going for his 500th win. He offered me a tryout with the Giants in 10 years time...and there were witnesses to that conversation, too.

Backstage, driving the zamboni

The 'shooting' machine backstage before the game began, and during the break between periods. Ollie won a T-shirt.




They have a whole lot of vehicles behind the scenes - this is the 'fanboni' waiting to go out onto the ice.

Waiting for the live interview...

with Jack the Giant

and the dancing girls......


and in all that excitement, there was even some hockey, too:



and the one thing i got to do, that NOBODY else in the whole arena ever gets to do: i got to say 'good luck' and high five every one of the Vancouver players as they left the dressing room.



and the final score....we lost 4:3 :(

Camp Read-a-Lot

Back to school at bedtime with pyjamas, sleeping bags, stuffies, a 'camp fire', tents, hot chocolate, cookies, flashlights,....and books..lots and lots of books. It must be camp read a lot!

 

 

 

Birthday fun

It makes it kind of interesting having a birthday at hallowe'en. On the plus side it means there's plenty of candy around, on the down side it means people want to wear their gross costumes to my birthday party.

We managed to avoid yukky costumes this year by taking everyone out to "Go Bananas" for my party. You can't climb and slide so well when you're dressed up as a skeleton or something, so everyone came in their normal clothes. Phew!

Ollie and i were both pretty tired during the party as the night before we'd been out to the Hallowe'en carnival at church. We thought we were just going to drop in for 20 minutes or so at about 6pm, but when we got there it turned out to be a HUGE event. There was popcorn and candyfloss and a bouncy castle and about 40 different games and activities to do. We dressed up as knights and managed to win a multicolour light saber and a mini basketball game.

 

On my actual birthday i had to stand up in assembly so everyone could sing happy birthday to me which was pretty cool. I took some treats in for everyone to share in class, too. I decided at the last minutes that instead of having spiderman cupcakes for my birthday, what i really wanted was a dinosaur cake with a volcano. I think mom did pretty good, and i really liked the sparkler in the top of the volcano. Ollie wasn't too sure about it though.

 

 

 

 

We even managed to find time for a little beyblades before everyone went home.

 

The best bit of my birthday though was the fireworks we let off in the back garden. Ollie like the first one, but then dad put the others a bit close together so instead of going off one at a time all three went off together. It got a bit loud and smokey and Ollie went running back inside, but i LOVED it. It was definitely the best birthday ever.

more on school

It's been six weeks now that i've been in Grade One, and that means it's time for mom and dad to have their first parent-teacher interview.

Ms Jung spent a few minutes telling them how wonderful i was, and they shared a few funny stories (not about me, i hope) and they were done.

The most enlightening part if the process for mom was that she discovered that i do actually have a timetable of different subjects, and that i don't really do 'nothing' all day. They thought "career planning" might be a little premature for a 5 year old, but were totally impressed by the creative nature of my self-portrait on the classroom wall. It was very different to everyone else's......

 

 

Bike park

A great new place to ride our bikes opened last weekend - a bike park in Vanier Park. It's a shame it wasn't open at the beginning of summer, as you can't really ride on the dirt tracks when they're wet, and it's likely to be wet for the next few months. We missed the opening ceremonies (and the cake) but the sun came out and so we took in a few turns around the course:

 

 

 

 

 

 

of course anything i do, ollie wants to do too. The big kids were kind enough to stay out of the way so that ollie could have a try as well. He needed some help from dad to get up the steep slopes!

 

 

when dad's away...

Dad's off to Ontario for a few days at Muskoka Woods, so on Saturday mom went for the "most activities in one day" approach to distract us from the fact that he wasn't around....or maybe it was to distract herself from the fact that it's their 18th wedding anniversary weekend.

We started early in the morning by checking out a possible venue for my birthday party: Go Bananas in Richmond. It was pretty neat and not too crowded, although they won't let us bring a birthday cake into the venue unless we hire a party room for an hour. Like it would take an hour for six year olds to eat a piece of cake. Really.

Once we started to get hungry mom was finally able to drag us away by promising us a visit to the Que Pasa factory store. That means salsa and corn chips to the uninitiated. Being a gorgeously sunny day, we didn't eat in the cafe there, but headed down to the river for a picnic...and some rock throwing....and some stick collecting...and some dandelion blowing....

What Ollie and I didn't realise was that we were just around the corner from two of our favourite places in Steveston: the bumps and an excellent playground

Being a really hot and sunny day the park was kind-of crowded and we had a bit of a scary moment when we lost Ollie. It was only like about five minutes before we found him, but it felt like a LOT longer. Although it was a bit frightening for everyone, we still wanted to stay and play some more, but mom said we needed to go somewhere a bit quieter. Our very nearly final destination of the day was our most favourite park in Richmond - it has cool water features, excellent climbing stuff. It's just great.


Of course then we didn't want to leave, so our FINAL destination of the day was Wendy's for dinner. A guy's got to eat after all this exertion!

Terry Fox Run

Today was the 30th anniversary of the Terry Fox Run, to raise money for cancer research. I really, really didn't want to do this. I thought we were going to have to run all the way from Jericho beach to Stanley park - which is a LONG way. I did my best to persuade mom and dad to let me stay home today, but it was no good. They did say they'd come with me though, so that was almost a win :)

When the time came my teacher did a really good job of explaining where we go going to run, how long it would take, what we needed to do if we wanted to overtake someone, what to do if we got tired and needed to walk for a bit. In fact after everything had been explained i couldn't wait to get started.

The photo is of me and my friend racing ahead of everyone else during the first lap...after a couple more laps i was in the lead all on my own!

Mom only ran one lap with me because she got busy breaking up a fight between two of the bigger kids, but dad stepped up to do my last lap with me.

Despite my initial misgivings, it was FUN!