Family Fun

Joel's suggestions for Saturday family time:

Go swimming at a fun swimming pool
Do Olympic stuff downtown, like play hockey
Go skiing
Go camping
Ride our bikes on an island, or at the beach or in the woods
Visit parks and playgrounds
Go to Dennys for pancakes
Go to Ikea
Go to the beach when it's sunny
Go hiking somewhere or for a walk in the woods


Today we were planning to visit the art gallery downtown and see some olympic stuff there, but the line up to get in was far too long. We played a little bit of hockey in Robson Square instead, before retiring to starbucks to recover from the exertion. It's not nice being sick. But hey...we managed to do something on my list :)

not such a great spring break :(

mom had made great plans for spring break, but things just kept going wrong!

First of all we were going to go to the Sunshine Coast, because we love it there....but the weather forecast was for rain and snow instead of all the lovely sunshine we've been having. Not really beach weather even for us hardy canadian types.

Plan B was to head up to Whistler....all that lovely snow.....but we weren't allowed to stay in our friend's accommodation because of restrictions due to the paralympics.

Plan C was to head down to Seattle for a few days and check the place out....but by the time we were on to organizing plan C Ollie was sick, mom was sick, I was sick....

and we're still sick......

and now Spring Break is over :(

spring break skiing with dad

cold temperatures, fresh snow, sun shining.....dad and i headed up mount seymour this morning. no photos...dad forgot the camera, or maybe he was too busy trying to keep up with me :)

but i did practice my parallel turns, skied down a flight of stairs and grinded across a table..

not to mention loving skiing twice down a black run that made dad a bit nervous.

maybe we'll go back again tomorrow with the camera?

the longest bike ride ever - 10km

Despite an "earlier than mom and dad would like" start to Spring Break, when Ollie and I both got up at 6.15am feeling sick, we went ahead as a family to explore Barnston Island.

Barnston Island is in the middle of the Fraser River, and is largely made up of farmland. I thought maybe it should be called animal island, dad thought it was smelly island, and mom made the more probable suggestion of barns-on island. Anyway, i was a bit confused as to how we were going to cycle around an island when there's no bridge to get there, but it turns out there's a little ferry you can use to cross the river.




The island was great for riding bikes as it's really flat, and there weren't many cars at all. Ollie had a little nap in the trailer (thanks dad) before climbing on to the back of mom's bike to see the view. He missed seeing the great laundry drying spot, but was awake in time for the donkeys, sheep, cows and llama...or maybe it was an alpaca? There were cranberry fields, too and a herb farm.



Best of all, mom packed an awesome picnic and even included some toys for us to dig on the beach.

All in all, it was the best day out....we're not going to mention how far we drove to find a regular toilet because i wouldn't use the pit toilet on the island, nor how hard it was to find a playground in Surrey. We ended up in our favourite park in Richmond though which was a great outcome, but a long drive on a sunny afternoon!

star of the week

It seems skipping school is the way to go! This week my teacher nominated me as 'star of the week'. I had to stand up in assembly this morning when my name was read out, and everyone clapped. Unfortunately mom missed it, so i don't have a photo to show you, but she did take some photos at lunchtime in the playground.




My class loves their scooters! I don't have one, but Peter likes to ride my bike so we swap most days and race around the yard. I don't really enjoy recess when the big kids are out, but we finish before them at lunchtime so we get a good chance to play then. I've mastered the level monkey bars, but i still can't quite manage the ones that go up and down on various levels. Ollie's getting pretty confident with the climbing frames, too

wow - mom CAN actually ski

Poor mom tripped at the ice rink waaaay back in October on my birthday.

After several visits to the hospital, the doctor and the physiotherapist she's still waiting for an MRI scan to see what she actually did to her knee when she fell, but in the meantime today she was finally brave enough to try skiing for the first time this season.

Several things needed to be organized to make this happen, including changing the date of my parent-teacher interview at school, finding someone to pick up Ollie from preschool and play with him for a while, dad sorting out some work stuff...and of course the weather had to co-operate too.

So here we are - photographic evidence that i have the BEST parents. Sunshine, the mountain virtually to ourselves, our first picnic in the new car (mom remembered the hot chocolate).....and all on a school day :)

I was a bit worried at first that mom was just going to ski around in a circle, as she didn't seem to be turning very well on her bad knee, but after a couple of runs she seemed to get the hang of it. I discovered today that i actually only need one ski at a time as i skied across the slope with one foot in the air. Parallel turns, here i come!

Getting creative

My preschool teacher Jasmina taught me well. Why would anyone want a silly little shop-bought valentine? Any time is a good time to get creative as far as i'm concerned. I wasn't expecting to find blue glitter on my sandwich the next day, though!


generally the messier painting gets done elsewhere....

after we'd done our paint-throwing Jackson Pollock style, Ollie and I did a silk-screen print which we painted with watercolours.



Thanks 4cats art - we had fun

The Olympic torch

I got my Olympic mittens at Kindergarten today, just in time for the olympic torch run tonight.






Fortunately it had just about stopped raining as we waited out on Broadway, so i was able to carry my Canada flag rather than my umbrella. Some huge trucks went by with people singing and dancing on them, and lots and lots of policemen...on bicycles, running, in cars and on motorbikes.


We had a front row spot on the street as the torch went by, and then we chased it for a little while to see if we could catch up and get another look.



Mom lifted me onto a newsstand so i could see better.....i told her i'd like to see the olympic torch again next time the olympics were here.