RAINWATER RAMBLING

The only title I could come up with for my pictures from the digital vault. Since today is Claudia's birthday, I thought a look back at her birthdays was in order. The first is from 2000.

From 2001.

Her second birthday.

On her third birthday.

From 2004.

And last years birthday.

Claudia opened her presents today, she waited until Gillian got home.

Okay now everybody smile.

This morning we went to pick up Gillian from Guide camp. Her group spent the weekend at Mountsberg Conservation Area. This was the last guiding activity until the fall. Angela has her final Brownie meeting tomorrow night.

It was a Survivor themed camp, the parents were invited to watch the closing ceremony. Here were the second years.

Gillian receiving a badge.

I saved this guys life. On our way to pick up Gillian, I spotted this turtle making his way across the road, I pulled over and got out to move it. I stopped another car and moved it across, when I put him down I spotted one of his buddies who wasn't so fortunate, he was flat as a pancake.

We celebrated Claudia's birthday a day early.

Watch the video (Warning: 2.4MB) of Claudia blowing out the candles on her cake.

This time it was our junk that we were selling, yesterday was the Guildwood Village annual Garage Sale, most years we are the one's buying the other person's junk. We set up on Carolyn and Danny's driveway and hoped for the best.

The weather was great. Here is Claudia showing Emi the fine art of lifting stones to find bugs.

If Emi had money she would have been our best customer.

Carolyn sold an old entertainment unit, but it wouldn't fit in the person's van so they used a dolly and pushed it home down the road.

Sara displaying some of the fine headwear that was for sale.

While we tried to get rid our stuff, Danny went out find the deals, here he is coming home with one of his treasures. I think the price was right.

After he pulled it out of the bag we realized that it was exactly like the tent we had when we were growing up. The musty smell lingered for most of the afternoon.

Emi and I tried to sell their exercise bike, but there were no takers.

Sara was moving her stuff back home, so I thought I would sneak in an extra passenger in Rick's car.

If you look really close you can see the baby.

In the end we made some money, however we didn't sell as much as we wanted to, the good thing was the only one to buy anything was Angela ($1.50 on 5 books).

Want to know where your name ranked the year you were born? Take a look at the Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager.

This week I was in Westport, Ontario on Tuesday and Wednesday. I stayed in the Chocolate Capital of Ontario Tuesday night. Check out From Here To There.

Gillian was busy with her Ancient Civilization project that was due this week. Tonight she went to Guide camp for the weekend. Sunday is Claudia's birthday, more cake.

Susan and the girls planned a little birthday party for me on Sunday. It wasn't until the 36 hamburger buns came out of the grocery bags that I knew something was up. The girls did a good job of not letting on.

On the inside of the card was "Whoops!". I noticed that on the back of the card when I scanned it, it had "Well at least your not 50". I had a great time spending the day with family and friends.

The kids really enjoyed themselves. Here is Angela waiting for the cake.

Me and Claudia taking our own picture.

Claudia and Kira.

Emi and Claudia sneaking into the picture.

Lori, Rick, Sara and Carolyn in deep conversation.

Alex made me a card and put 16 cents in the envelope for me. He told his Mom "now Uncle Richie will really like me", he wanted to put more in, but Mom put the kibosh on that. I think Angela took this picture.

Another Angela photo credit.

Thanks to everyone who came, I had a really good time, a big thank You to Susan and the girls, I really appreciate the effort you went to to make my 40th a memorable one.

I thought I would try adding some video clips to the blog. A warning to those with dial-up connections, it probably isn't a good idea to try and play these. The file size is 2.5 MB. This video is from the Fun Fair last week, it is Claudia and Angela on the inflatable jousting pit.

I'm still trying to come up with a catchy title for this segment, if you have a suggestion, fire it my way. Where do our old digital photos end up? In most cases they fall into a black hole on our computer hard drives and hopefully we remember to back them up regularly. (Editor's note: One of my projects for this weekend). This week I dig back to May 19, 2001. Gillian was 5 1/2 and Angela 3 years old.

Claudia was almost a year old (9 days shy) and not walking. She use to crawl around the backyard.

It was a busy week at work for me, I had to give a training workshop for 4 people. I had a guy from Corner Brook, NL, Dartmouth, NS, Thunder Bay and one from Hamilton. It was a two day course, but multi days just to prepare for it. As always Susan held down the fort, as I had a couple of extended days. My travel schedule gets busy between now and the end of June. As always you'll be able to follow me around the country on From Here To There.

Today another father and I were at the school selling Gourmet Lollipops for the Parent Council. Claudia came around to the classes with us. I made a t-shirt up for her to wear.

Because I couldn't remember all of the flavours I was selling, I used Claudia as my sign.

The whole Sparks, Brownie and Guides thing is winding down for the year, we're getting down to the final meeting for each of them. Gillian has a camp at the end of the month, it is a "Survivor" themed camp, so there will be challenges that they'll have to compete in. We already have Gillian's camp dates for next year.

The weather man was right on today, the rain held off and there was a good mix of sun and cloud.

Angela and Gillian had to get in as much as they could before noon. Today was Angela's Mother-Daughter Brownie Banquet, so her and Susan had to leave early. Gillian was a handful of 2nd year Guides who were asked to help out at the banquet, so she had to leave at 11:30. Here is Gillian in one of the bouncy inflatables.

This one is the Tsunami.

Here is Gillian and Angela riding the wave.

They had an inflatable jousting pit. First up was Gillian and her friend Lyndsey.

Receiving their instructions from the referee.

Battle Begin!

Next up was Angela and Claudia. Angela needed some help to get into the ring.

Claudia did pretty good, I didn't think she would be able to lift the joust let alone move it around.

Angela won the first round.

It was a close battle between them.

There was a basketball shooting inflatable.

And pony rides.

There were lots of games.

And a prize table.

The crowds were large.

There were lots of raffle prizes in the gym.

It wouldn't be a fair without cotton candy, sno-kones and popcorn.

Next time I'll have them stand together and then take the picture.

Our principal, Mr. O'Grady was busy with his mega-phone.

Claudia had too much candy.

This girl was working the candy floss machine. It looks like there is more candy floss on her then on the stick.

At the end of the fair it was time to draw for the raffle prizes. The gym was packed with everyone hoping to hear their name called.

Claudia working on her the second sno-kone.

Can you guess what flavour she had?

In the end we won two of the raffle prizes. Here is Claudia holding up one of them.

It was a good day at the Fun Fair, the parents who volunteered their time to make it happen did an excellent job (Susan was one of them).

I have made Rainwater Rambling the default page for tanabe.ca (password:*****). I had not updated the old site for over a year, so I figured it was time to take it off-line.

I was down in the Eastern Townships this week for work. Check out the work blog, From Here To There. This weekend is the St. Richard School Fun Fair, hopefully the rain holds off long enough. Rain or shine, the fair must go on so check out the photos on the weekend.

Claudia ended getting what Angela and Gillian had. Hopefully that's the end of it for awhile. I was up in Kapuskasing for work, you can see some photos on my work blog From Here To There.

You may have heard or read in the news today about some lady's car being hit by a piece of an airplane in Mississauga. It hit pretty close to home, just north of us across the tracks in an industrial plaza. I have always said, one day some mechanics wrench is going to come falling out of one of the wheel wells as the landing gear opens up. It wasn't a wrench but a piece of a wing. Here is a picture showing how close it came to our house.

The good news is that Angela is out of sick bay, she was still pretty much out of on Sunday and stayed home from school on Monday. However, Gillian has now checked in, she came home from school early today and is showing much of what Angela had. Hopefully it has skipped the rest of us. I'm heading up to Moonbeam, Ontario tomorrow until Friday. I was there in March, but this time I'm driving there. Moonbeam is just east of Kapuskasing.

For the past couple of weeks, Gillian has been spending a lot of time at the school library in preparation for the Mississauga North Family of Schools "Battle of the Books". Last Friday Gillian traveled to St Albert of Jerusalem with her teammates to battle it out. The team consisted of 3 from each of grades 4, 5 and 6. The teams were given questions about a book and they had to come up with the correct title and author of the book.

The goal is to answer as many questions correctly about a pre-selected list of books ranging from picture books to chapter books. In the end, St. Richard School finished in third place out of 12 schools. Here is a picture of Gillian with her Bronze Medal and certificate.

Congratulations Gillian!!!