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Catch up day

It's the Family Day weekend, along with reading week so I had time to upload some videos I meant to put up over Christmas.  Theo's Christmas concert band , then Stasha's piano recital again, with yet another sad movie theme song, from Harry Potter.

Metrics, CHS Concert band from sophia verzosa on Vimeo.

Window to the past from sophia verzosa on Vimeo.

Thirteen

Although it's felt like I've had teenagers in the house for a while, now it's official, now that Stasha turned really, truly, thirteen.

Many recitals!

Now that I have a little time on my hands, I'm finally uploading some videos. It didn't take long to reach my weekly limit on Vimeo, unfortunately, so I'll have to add a few a week. So here's three: first of all, Stasha's piano recital. For some reason, she has a preference for movie theme songs. I was a little disconcerted (haha) to find out the title of this one, but it's really quite pretty.

 

and of course, it is the season for Christmas band recitals - this is Stasha's grade 7 concert band, where she plays french horn.

 

and finally, one of Theo's stage band numbers. He's hidden behind all the other band members and you can't see him at all, but you can hear him. Because his high school is so new, this is only the second year the band has been together, and he is the only grade 9 student in this 9-12 band. All the other guys (and girls) seem so old and big!

 

I'll upload more music stuff as the site allows me, and keep this updated with more performances. 

When I became a man, I put away childish things

A bit of a poignant milestone this weekend. We needed to make room in the basement for an electronic drum set, and this necessitates cleaning out the toy cupboards and saying farewell to some well-loved toys. Bionicles, in this case, but there are more. It's always hard to see these go.

 

Even the boy showed a moment of uncharacteristic sentiment.

But all to this end: This was driving us nuts, day after day.  The boy is actually a great drummer, but the sheer volume and duration (drumming is actually an endurance event! ask Neal Peart) was making us crazy and he was restricted to practicing when the rest of us were either out of the house or closeted upstairs with the dooor closed. 

So the idea of an electronic drum set, which can be played with headphones so only the drummer can hear it at volume, sounded better and better all the time. But we needed to make room for it.

He can actually pull it out and have a bit more elbow room, but so far we all think it is pretty sweet. He can wake up at 3:45 in the morning and play it and the rest of us will be none the wiser. Happiness is restored.

Thanksgiving

we had enough of a break in the wind over the weekend to get outside for a Thanksgiving walk, although Theo stayed home with an upset stomach. I think he inherited my stomach, and therefore my dad's stomach, with a tendencey towards queasiness from rich foods like sausage stuffing and gravy.

 

it was still very pretty. The dogs liked it. 

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Looking back on summer

It's our last week of summer. The kids start school again before Labour Day, so classes begin next Wednesday. I'm consoling myself with the images if summer in Langley, always the highlight of our year.

Familiar, with a fresh coat of blue, and even more shaded by trees

Theo on the beach at Spanish Banks

the girls getting Gleeful at the old CN station on the way to the Seabus

The office

Although I've been in the paid workforce before, this is the first time I've had my name on a door. I guess it is to make it easy for first year students to find me without having to remember yet another set of letters and numbers.  I was astonished at how quickly they did this - it was up the day I started.  

It's nothing special, but it is big enough that is can park my bike indoors.  I do not have nearly enough books to fill the shelves. So I use it for drying coffee cups.

 

Also, people find it strange that I've arranged furniture so my back is towards the door.  But having the floor space to roll around and do yoga makes up for that.

To that end,  I have a shelf full of yoga stuff including comfy blankets and bolsters. I need a little more atmosphere, though.  I need to get some yoga decor in here and a decorative lamp. Ott lighting is way too functional for yoga atmosphere.

summer of internet memes

Theo asked me what "planking" meant, and in an attempt to explain I sent him this link: http://socialtimes.com/planking-alternatives_b71228 which set off a wave of memes among the Langley cousins.

Owling:

 

I'm not sure what the name for this is, but obviously it involves drama of some sort:

There's always room for the classic - here in front of Main library at UBC:

a whole assortment - planking, pillaring, owling, teapotting and bouldering:

and Cris's version of owling: 

and yet another pillar,  plank, and teapot at a different venue, this time at Canada place:

and this one in front of the Olympic cauldron not only gets the thumbs up from Emma, but a couple of Asian kids in the background cracking up.

not a meme as far as I know, just Ana's prediliction for being squashed by giant landmarks.  This, the giant rain drop at Canada place.

 

Spam free Canada Day

Fresh, natural, no preservatives. A walk in the coulees on Canada Day.

 

Spamada Day

Since coming back from Hawaii, the kids have been bemoaning the lack of spam cuisine. Stasha took things into her own hands and made up a bunch of spam sushi.

not to be outdone, Tim decided it was time for some good old fried spam on fried rice.

Canada style. Um. Yeah.

we can dance if we want to

no real good reason for the outbreak of dancing

or the Vogue moment

or the Zoolander moment. Let's put it down to the long winter and the long spring.

Signs of summer

It's been a long, cold, wet spring. Finally a little payoff with green, growing grass, and some sunshine.

Stasha with the pushmower. We still have a regular power mower, but this is good for trimming - and sometimes to do a first cut if the grass is really long and chokes the power mower.

at last, the bleeding hearts are finally blooming

and a few apple blossoms, too. 

Convocation

I was actually excited to convocate this time - actually, the first time I've attended a convocation ceremony since when I graduated from UBC, I was already in Alberta working by the time convocation occured.

Also, I had won the Medal of Merit for the M.Sc. program, pretty much  for being a smarty pants, and excellent, and all that. However, as my kids observed "it's not even as big as a judo medal!" And it didn't even come with a ribbon to hang around your neck. 

I didn't know my name was going to be in the paper, but everyone kept telling me about it so Tim got a copy so we could see it was not merely a rumour.

Even without the extra fancy recognition (and getting to walk across the stage running the gauntlet of handshakes twice) it was a happy day. It has been a long 2.5 years and I think the children are even happier than I am that it is done at last. 

a little hitch in plans

 honestly, if you have to miss a flight, it's a lot better to miss one due to mechanical stuff, since at least they give you a hotel to stay in. If it were weather, we'd be SOL.  The midnight flight out of Honolulu was cancelled due to mechanical problems, so United had to bus 258 some passengers back into town and give them vouchers for a night at the Ala moana hotel.

since we knew we had a night flight ahead of us, we tried to get as much rest as we could. Anyway, you can't really relax when you're waiting for a flight out.  Poor Tim spent a crazy-making amount of time on the phone and computer trying to rebook flights back to Calgary, as the newly-wed Royal couple look on disapprovingly. I'm not sure why Stasha had this on TV in the first place. 

you know how you put two mirrors opposite each other and you get this cool blue hallway that looks like it goes to infinity? that's how the halls in this hotel looked (the Ala Moana, for reference)

However, another hitch was waiting at the LA airport - we were bumped off the connecting flight to Calgary, or more accurately, the United agents failed to save our seats on the Air Canada connector. Again, Tim spent a crazy-making amount of time on the phone till we finally got a connection to Las Vegas, then Calgary. I was at least thankful that the children were old enough not to melt down into a tantrum, as we grown-ups very nearly were ourselves - and were able to at least entertain themselves with their various electronic devices. Which, I'm sorry to say, we had plenty of time to recharge at the nearby wall outlets.

So we got to see Las Vegas through the airport windows. Though the pyramid (and fake Empire State building, etc) shimmered enticingly in the background, we were stuck firmly in terminal 2, gate 5, did not go there.

Two countries, three states, four airports and 30 hours later, we were home. And I was reminded why we waited so long to travel overseas with our kids.