Light Saber Skills

The boys had some fun recording their light saber skills. It is a bit hard to hear so turn up the volume.

Grade 7 Vancouver Trip

This is a post about my (James) Vancouver trip. I just recently got back from a 3 day Vancouver trip with my class. Here is a complete and detailed story about my journey. The first day I got up at 6:48 AM and packed up all my belongings. I got to the school at 7:39 AM and departed for Vancouver by bus at 7:45 AM. On the way there we watched a couple of movies RV and Sahara and played card games NO ELECTRONICS other than movies. Our first stop was at the rest place in Merritt. Then we went to Othello Tunnels and we go to get up and stretch our legs and anything else that might have needed stretching. The class stopped here for a thirty minute walk. From here we went to East Hastings and handed out hygiene packages and oranges it was a really dirty place. In East Hastings 8 out of 10 people were living on the street. At first I thought the worst and that we would be going down some alleyway and handing out packages to people who were high, but most people were so grateful for their stuff. It was funny because i thought i would only hand a couple but after one or two people came The rest just came flocking in. In all I handed 9 hygiene packs and countless oranges. A few stories form my trip in East Hastings; I was handing out oranges on the corner of Main and East Hastings and a guy came up to me and didn't ask for oranges but instead he "stole" them and started running away I yelled out to him that they were for free and the guy just started walking. As i was heading down the street looking for more people I came across an alley where there were two people shooting each other up with needles from who knows where, it is gross talking about but seeing it ramps it up to a whole new level. After handing out packages to the homeless we headed to the police museum when you walk in there is a room with guns of all sorts of stunguns, M-16 assault rifles grenade launchers you name it they've got it. You then walk into a room of variety in there was confiscated weapons, counterfeit money and narcotics. Then comes the autopsy wall where there were human body parts of many. After the police museum we walked from there in East Hastings to the Vancouver Aquarium on the way we walked through Stanley Park when we arrived at 8:50 PM we got to explore a bit and then set up our sleeping bags. Yes we got to sleep in the Vancouver Aquarium and beside the belugas. But before that a staff member there got to lead us through behind the scenes and it was kind of like a lesson but better. We ended up going to bed at 12:00 AM. In the morning we packed up our stuff and got to explore and interact with the animals. We then left for Telus World of Science, here, we got to fool around in the exhibits and after go to a chemistry class where we got to explode hot packs. Then we got to go to the Omnimax where we watched Ultimate Wave Tahiti. After that we went to the HR Macmillan space center and watched this boring show on geography over 20 people fell asleep including my teacher Mr. Rossi. Then we went to the church where slept overnight I learned a new game called chop we all got to bed at around 11:00, but at two in the morning I woke up and found that my friend had rolled over and was sleeping on the same bed as me (in his own sleeping bag Phew). We left in the morning at 9:34 AM with no time to sleep in. On the way home the bus stopped for lunch and I went to BK with my friends, in the bus we watched the blind side. When we got back we were all very tired and glad to be home

Our Summer Holiday part 2

Well its about time. The second part of our holiday. We had an awesome week at Pioneer Pacific family camp on Thetis Island. Great friends of ours showed us their video from last year and we were sold. We loaded up the minivan and embarked our adventure.

They had so many activites for the boys. Archery was very popularas was the water trampoline. Joel enjoyed the ocean and all the animals he found there.

Josh and James enjoyed tubing and making new friends.

I enjoyed not cooking or doing dishes and relaxing at the late night cafe.

Joe didn't enjoy what happened to our van on the way home. :( but it is all fixed now :)

A great summer holiday!

Well, it's been awhile but finally the update with our summer holiday pictures. We left K'town on July 25th and headed straight for Parksville, BC.

A first trip on the ferries for the boys - not quite as exciting as they had hoped but they made it more fun with silly faces.

And then a first visit to the ocean. Joel was totally impressed - who would have thought one could play with the jellyfish. The next day was spent at the beach collecting small crabs

and skim boarding.

It was Joe's birthday so we finished up the day with a seafood extravaganza dinner (fresh salmon, prawns and scallops purchased at the harbour) followed with blackberries and peaches over angelfood cake - I really should have taken pictures but we were too hungry.

A special tour from Uncle Corey the next day and some more beach combing

and then off to Thetis Island and Pioneer Pacific Family Camp.

And we'll save that for another post.

Sunshine and Rain

Well, we have had quite the weather lately.

Temperatures so hot one felt like hiding inside or at least staying wet outside. We had cousins visit from Alberta and they got to see the sunshine. And now it hasn't stopped raining for 3 days so we got creative

and had fun in the very large puddles around our place.

We are hoping the rain is over now because, although the grass is very green, it is also very long.

Camping

This past week was our first family camping trip.

The scenery was beautiful. The weather was perfect. The wildlife was abundant. The cave exploring was thrilling. The sleep times were refreshing. The bike rides were exciting. The good reads were relaxing. A good time was had by all!!!!

Our Sweet Kitty Tasha

The boys wanted our next post to be about our new kitten. A week after Joel's birthday the families got together to celebrate Emma and Joel's birthday.

We surprised them with a kitten each, one for Joel, one for Emma.

The look on their faces was priceless.

It is our intention for her to be an outdoor cat once she is old enough and for her to catch lots of mice. So far her favorite toy is a stuffed mouse(actually Templeton the Rat from Charlotte's Web) so it bodes well. She also likes to keep a close eye on our pet hamster - Hammy.