Quote of the Day 53

At Sunday school BigE was learning about making God number one in his life. They got to make a craft by gluing the letters to spell this out. He was quite pleased with his art work. After showing us his craft BigE proclaimed

"I like my movies more then God"

Later as BigE started to ask me questions. Then I found out his movies had been supplanted as number one:

"My new Sheriff car (from the Cars movie) is number one. God is number two."

Followed by

"I bet I have more toys then God"

I guess the positive is that God is pulling a solid second place spot for now.

Childhood perspectives.

Subject Lines in Email

I get a fair bit of email without a subject line. So I thought I would pass along

From lifehacker.com comes Yahoo Mail offers Random Subject Line

How do you use it? Using the newer Yahoo Mail interface click the subject button. Normally it looks like its a label on the subject line. But you can click it for a random subject line.

Samples I got were:
"Do me a favor, and don't do me anymore favors"
"Who is Marcello?"
"Workin' like a one-armed paper-hanger with an itch..."

The School Concert

One last school post after Last Day of School. I realized that I hadn't posted the pictures I had taken during BigE's concert at school.

After a little wait the whole class marched into the music room and went up on stage. They performed several little songs.


One of the last things they did was the story of a little frog acted out by a kid in BigE's class. BigE and a few friends had the line "We're possums eating blossums". (And were pretending to hang upside down).


The Ms McMeal (McNeil) put on a video montage showing photos captured over the year.

Last Day of School

This is BigEs last day of school. Way back we started on the first day and the first real full day.

The Day of Visitors

No not aliens.

On Saturday we have a hole bunch of guests. Mama was at some car seat training at the WB Family. So we had their kids. We all went to the soccer practice.

Afterwards we came home and played. After a while the neighbours niece and nephew showed up. There were five kids working over the play structure. Lunch time everyone went home. While BigE and the WB Kids stayed for some special pasta (aka KD).




The kids were back swinging


Later on in the afternoon Mama and the WB parents came over. Then our neighbour came over with her niece and nephew again. This time our neighbour brought here new dogs sasha and owen.



The dogs got along great. Sasha and Arnie played while Owen quietly munched on a bone.


As it got late in the day and super was approaching I figured it would be a good idea to cool the kids down before dinner. Out came the sprinkler and it did its trick



Then finally later in the evening I was all alone on the couch.

Soccer III

Well after Soccer is Back last week I wasn't sure if our luck would hold. But as it turns out our coach was there again. Perhaps the constant coach rotation last year was a one time thing. Anyways...

This week BigE got to break in his new soccer cleats. Perhaps not necessary but somebody was really jonesing for them. If it encourages his enjoyment of sports then what the heck.



It was another good practice. We did more dribbling drills. Instead of last weeks octopus and seaweed games we had sharks this week. On one of the warmup drills I caught BigE working the ball:



I tried to catch some video of the game at the end between the parents and the kids but it was too hard to pick out the action. The kids were too busy working against each other to really get organize and score on us. Heck while they were chasing the ball everywhere I was enlarging our net. Either way they had fun.

Quote of the Day 52

As we're backing into BigE's school for a little show yesterday he looks to the side to see someone parallel parking a SUV.

BigE "Mama that guy is good at backing up but not as good a Mater"

If you need help who Mater is go here.

Computer Support

I'd been meaning to check for the best way to do remote support. I've decided to use CoPilot.com.

How does it work?

1. You decide you need help so you call or email me


2. We get online at the same time.


3. I send an email with a link to download a program and a special code


4. We both download and run a tiny and safe program


5. A pop up window asks you if you want to let me connect (You click yes here!)


6. Next thing you know our computers are connected!

There is no permanent software install and no worries about firewalls, home routers or anything like that.

The download is small (500K) but I'm not sure how well this will work over a dialup connection

BigE the Tennis Nut

We picked up two new sports goods in the last few weeks. One was a baseball glove. Dada plays in a community softball game Friday nights that has peeked BigE's interest. So we both have new gloves. In addition BigE had fun with rackets at a pool party a while ago and wanted to get tennis rackets. He'd played with a neighbours before. Through the power of WalMart's pricing we picked up a racked each for $8.50. Hard to go wrong with that.



So now we are out in the driveway hitting balls back and forth. After a few days we've started to be able to get a couple of hits back to back. Although most balls end up in the street.



And yes I have figure out how to do the action shot turned on the new camera.

No Time Out for You

From AFP comes Court overturns father's grounding of 12-year-old

Well you've got to be freakin' kidding me comes to mind. Boy I hope this was a peice of shoddy journalism. Otherwise how do you explain this?

On what grounds did the girl complain? She filed a complaint to over turn her grounding? Jeeze why didn't I think of that when I was younger. Don't agree with Dad? What about the appellate court of Mom. BUT Should that fail there is always the Provincial Superior court. Heaven help me.

"She's a child," Beaudoin told AFP. "At her age, children test their limits and it's up to their parents to set boundaries."

No Sh*T sherlock! Guess what you just did? You just told her that those boundaries don't really apply.

According to court documents, the girl's Internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.

Let's see twelve years from now will I be saying this to babyX (Charlotte)

"Now you, you've crossed the line so I want you to know in a loving and NON judgemental way that it is okay if you think it is ok. And after you've ok'd it maybe we could go a tatoo, facial peircing or something cool and progressive like that?"

For the record our "Conservative" Justice Minister appointed this Judge. And you wonder why people thinking voting for Judges is a good idea.

Buses, Trains and No, No Airplanes

On the weekend while the Mama's were engaged in some car seat instruction BigE said he wanted to ride the bus to the train for an adventure. The WB Family decided it was a good idea and came along.

The lined up patiently waiting for the bus. BigE and his buddy Monkey were taking turns wearing the big backpack.


Here we are riding in the back of the bus. Everybody had divided up the windows so everyone knew where they could look out.


The bus takes us right to the start of the light rail train service. In 10 or so minutes you can go from south to just outside the downtown core. Best part, of course, is that you can turn right around and ride it back. It goes over a river, through a tunnel, and passes the other train.

On the train we learned the important lesson from bigC "Don't drink the dirty water"

After returning to our original train stop we headed through WalMart for a few minor items and then caught the original bus back to the neighbourhood. I almost caught a very good shot here but it turned out a little blurry.



After we returned the kids relaxed with some lemonade Popsicles after all that hard work and excitement.

Thunderstorms and Hail

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH for the neighbourhood. It had briefly knocked power out at work about a fourty minutes earlier. Instead of waiting around for all of the servers to come back I figured I'd knock off the traveling early instead. Especially if traffic lights were out.

On my way home I managed to catch up to the storm. As I got near the neighbourhood a poor soul was on the side waving to cars. At about the same time as I could see him I started to hear the hail hitting the car. It was loud. So I stop the car and picked up the guy. Turns out he lived around the corner and was jogging home.

I could barely talk to him in the car because it was that loud with the hail. As you can see it was collecting up around the house:





After about 20 minutes or so it all subsided. But it was one heck of a storm.

Bouncing Baby

As we were sitting on the couch last night we caught this footage of the bouncing baby. I had laid the foot cream on Mama's belly. Next thing you know it was a rock'n.

Soccer is Back

After Soccer Excitement BigE was very happy to see Soccer return. Probably because of the shin pads he got.

Saturday mornings we're heading to the field behind our house for a program run by a local soccer system. A little pricey but we're hoping for more. So far two practices and they have gone well.

Here's BigE getting ready


Here's BigE, number six, heading to the


Here the coach had them doing something silly to stop the ball. This time it was use your ear to stop the ball. It was a good thing BigE was going slow just waiting for the call.


Here's a six second video of BigE making a save on a Dada kick:


Here's a longer (30 second) video showing the kids playing with one ball. They through in two balls for the next go around.

Thanks Auntie Bevie

for the letter.  It just arrived in the mail today.

The New House

BigE is working on a new house. In our front yard. He`s found a little spot wedged between a couple of bushes. Right around where Mama was smart enough not to plant any flowers. That way the diggers had room to work.



The hard part is when he wants me to come visit. I can`t seem to explain the idea that Dada just doesn`t fit that little space.

I was even told this morning that BigE was going to work on it this afternoon because he had somebody moving in next week. I have no idea where that came from.

The Dinosaur is Painted

It took a few more days to finish BigE's New Dinosaur Room (old post) and a couple of weeks to post the pictures.

Here is the new mural by Auntie Bevie on the wall which is based upon the wallie decorations in the room.



Here's a larger shot:

Gymnastics Day

It was BigE's last gymnastics class for a while. They don't run once a week school programs over the summer. Just summer camps. So it was let the parents participate (and out of the little upstairs room). Mama was able to catch a few pictures.

Here's BigE working the balance beam


A shoulder stand (PS apparently his upper body strength is a little lacking for the chin ups. Go figure)


Some work on the beam



A small achievement in walking part of the parallel bars. The usual thing is to do a monkey crawl across them.


And probably BigE's favorite part, well maybe the giant jump-o-leen, the foam pit. A running action shot as he leaps in!

Gloucester Fair

Well it's been a year since we went to last year's Gloucester Fair. Such memories as the terror of the kids roller coaster, the walk of shame down from the slide and the insane fun BigE found in the mirror maze.

This year we were all ready to go until the thunder storm kicked through in the morning. But by mid afternoon things were looking better. The weather was changing nearly as fast as it does on the rock.


Oddly our Bumble Bee didn't go as high as the others. Later when it was BigE, NoWay and Dada in the Bumble Bee BigE rightly observed that we weren't going very high because there was three people on the ride. (Even if the other two weigh less then a leg each.)





Thought riding the Bumble Bee was bad? At least I didn't have to ride the Trucks.


The the rain came back. And was it ever coming down hard. Buckets, sheets, cats, and dogs all pouring down. We hid out on the top, and covered, floor of the Monkey Mirror house for a while.

Then as I sent the kids down they had a blast riding the water slide. There was so much water coming down that they thought the regular slide was a water slide. Dada's but got very wet.

We waited out that rain storm on the sound idea from Mama that the rain was likely to end shortly. Which it did about 10 minutes later. They dried off some rides. It was fitting that the boat ride was one of the first back in operation.





Finally the rain was too much, the time was getting late, and well frankly I had to stop eating fresh mini-donuts and we left. Then the rain really started to pour. Half a kilometer later at the car I didn't have a single dry spot. Not even my shoes.