Rainwater Rambling Archive

Uncle Tak's Opening

We headed downtown today to see Uncle Tak's show at the Mira Godard gallery. We parked at Yorkdale and took the subway down. That's still a good deal, $10.00 for the Day Pass, that would have got Grandpa 2.5 hours of parking. Here are the girls outside the gallery in Yorkville.

It looked like all the paintings were sold. Even the one that the girls recognized from his studio this past summer. We were there before the rush, so we got a chance to visit with Uncle Tak and Anona. He's waiting for Claudia to start growing.

We waited around for Grandma and Grandpa to show up, but there was no sign of them so we headed out. As we walked out the door, they came walking up. It turned out Grandpa couldn't find a parking spot, so he finally broke down and parked in the paid parking. While we were standing outside a couple walked up to Dad and it turned out to be Nori Tanaka, Bobby's daughter.

A couple of galleries down was this sculpture, from the way the Leafs have been playing, he could probably help.

We headed down to Bloor Street in search of a Starbucks.

Found one, but couldn't sit down, so we had to sit in the Winners entrance.

On the way to the gallery we were waiting to cross Bay Street at one of the lights and this old lady started talking to no one in particular, but mainly towards Gillian, about how she should have a hat on and she shouldn't be wearing a spring coat in the middle of winter. It was a red light, so she went on and on about it and was still going at it while we crossed the street. It was pretty funny.

A Quiet Month?

There hasn't been much activity on the blog this month. We have been busy with the usual things, work, school and more work and school. Gillian had her first set of exams last week and she is confident she did well. Angela and Claudia have been working on their speeches for speech arts. It is Claudia's first time doing a speech, her topic is "The World's Fastest Things" and Angela is doing "Genetically Modified Foods".

It would be nice if we had some snow, at least the girls would be out there playing, that's usually good for a few photos.

I have been busy at work with a hiring process, we have been trying to get everything done and offer letters out before the pro-rogued government comes back and puts on a hiring freeze as part of their deficit cutting. An indication of the job market, for an entry level technician position, we had multiple candidates with their Masters degree, one with a double Masters, a PhD, and a double Bachelor's degree . One of the abilities we test is "the ability to assemble and disassemble equipment". This might be the test we use next time.

A reminder that Takao Tanabe: A Work of Art is on Bravo tonight at 8:00 EST.

Did you see the Tanabe's? Takao Tanabe: A Work of Art,

We all watched Uncle Tak's special on Bravo TV tonight. The girls like his special location for all his awards and degrees. We were able to see them this past summer when we were at his place on Vancouver Island. They also liked seeing themselves in the show. If you watch closely at the end you'll see us at the McMichael Art Gallery with Uncle Tak.

If you missed it there is an encore presentation Friday, February 5 at 7e/4p. Download the show by clicking on the link Takao Tanabe: A Work of Art. You can watch the show by clicking on the image below. (114 MB) If you need a Flv standalone player try the FREE Wimpy Desktop FLV Player (for both Windows and Mac).

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Braces: Round 2 and Fractured Fairy Tales

Today we started round two of braces. I took Angela this morning to get braces on her top teeth. She was pretty excited about getting them on. Here she is before we left.

And here she is with them on. She gets her bottom ones on at the beginning of April.

Tonight all three girls were going to Gillian's Pathfinder meeting. Gillian's group was putting on a play for all the area Sparks, Brownie and Guide groups. Gillian and the other third year Pathfinders put the show together as part of ther Canada Cord requirements. That's Gillian in the middle. Their play was called "Fractured Fairy Tales".

It was a good show and they put a lot of hard work into organizing it for the past couple of months.

Guide, Pathfinder, Guide

What's the chair about? At the school we were at, they had boxes of new folding chairs. As Chair of our school council, one of my goals is to do a fundraiser to help purchase new chairs for our school. Our school still has the wood seat and metal leg chairs that most will remember from their days at grade school. They are wobbly, they have cracks and are all round uncomfortable. My idea is to have families donate a chair and then recognize them by creating a plaque with names. Originally I thought we could put the plaque right on the chair, but it probably wouldn't last that long. I'll let you know this goes.

Chloe Update

It's been awhile since I've done a Chloe update. She is up to 14 lbs, and Susan thinks she has stopped growing, I think she still has a little more to go. She started out in the bed, but she slowly ended up sleeping on the floor.

She loves her bucket, this one has cracked, but she still plays with it everyday. We'll have to look for a new one in the summer.

What little snow we got this winter sure liked to stick to Chloe. She would come in covered in snow.

Glad They're Over...Can't Wait For The Next Ones

The lack of blog updates through the end of February can be squarely blamed on the Olympics. Actually the lack of anything getting done around the house could be blamed on the Olympics. The girls really enjoyed them and were sad to see them go, okay so was I. Gillian wants to try curling next year at school.

March Break

The girls were at Grandma's and Papa's place for a couple of days during March Break. They went to see Alice in Wonderland with Grandma while they were there.

Angela relaxing on Grandma's couch.

Gillian was able to hook into one of Grandma's neighbours wireless signal.

Port Credit Walkabout

We headed down to Port Cedit to walk around. Susan wanted to go shopping at a store down there so she dropped the girls and I off.

The girls and Chloe enjoyed the swans.

Chloe was okay with the swans and ducks, it was the sea gulls hanging around that Chloe was after.

I think Angela was taking a picture of the Toronto skyline.

Claudia brought her bike to ride around and Angela had her roller blades.

There was a guy feeding the swans and ducks some bread, actually he had a loaf of bread. He offered Claudia and Angela a slice, to feed the birds, not eat as Claudia would tell you.

Angela was trying to feed a dirty looking swan and manage to land the piece of bread on its back. We thought all the other birds would attack it, but it wasn't until one tried that the swan shook it off into the water.

Some of the fish painted on the bridge supports.

The lighthouse down in Port Credit.

Not sure if Gillian was pushing or trying to hitch a ride.

Claudia was over at the Canada post.

Gillian trying to keep up with Chloe.

We had a good day, the weather couldn't have been better.

Busy Birthday Week

It's the start of birthday week for Angela and the end for G-ma and G-pa. We headed out to Scarborough for dinner and cake. First up was Grandma's cake.

Then Grandpa's cake.

Emi having a good laugh.

And finally Angela's cake.

Chloe liked looking out Grandma's window.

We'll Miss Them

It was a sad day for the girls and Chloe. Our long time caregiver to both the girls and Chloe was packing up their rental truck on Saturday morning. Karen has been looking after the girls since Claudia was 6 months old, Claudia turns ten in a couple of months. Karen has been coming over to let Chloe out in the mornings since last September, on some days Chloe would go over to her house for the day. Chloe will miss her buddy Hailey who she would bug when she was there.

Who are we going to get our renovation ideas from. Karen and Ken have the same style house as us, and when they would change something, we could picture our house looking the same, kind of like having our own model home.They are moving to Milton, so they won't be that far away. Thanks to Karen, Ken, Stephanie and Ryan for all their help over the years.

Happy Birthday Angela!

The day has finally arrived, after a countdown for the last month, Angela was up early this morning.

This is cake number two, number three will come on the weekend when she has a couple of friends over from guides.

Earth Hour 2010

Did you participate in Earth Hour?

Here's how we spent our hour.

Angela had a couple of friends over from Guides for a sleepover. We actually had the cake before 8:30 pm and they were done before we turned the lights off. I think they played hide n seek in the dark for the hour. There were no bumps or bruises, so I guess it went well.

Crazy Weather!

Hope you got a chance to get out and enjoy the crazy temperatures, Mississauga reached 24.3 °C on Good Friday. Here is Claudia, her friend and Chloe hanging out on the front lawn.

Chloe is enjoying the good weather, she has been especially interested in the birds. It must be the Cocker Spaniel in her.

We headed out to Mom and Dad's place on Good Friday. Chloe travels well in the car, her and Angela are ready to go.

Sara and Brent brought Pretzel with them, so Chloe had someone to play with.

Danny had the kids out at the park playing soccer. Claudia taking a break.

Alex. 

Things were going well until Danny stepped on Alex's foot with his industrial soccer shoes.

Here is Chloe telling Pretzel to wait his turn to look out Grandma's window.

Chloe telling Pretzel to hurry up and look out the window.

Hey wait a minute I think there is enough room on the stool for both of us.

Chloe doing her wet noodle with Melissa.

Happy Easter Everyone!

The girls looking pretty happy for an early morning photo. I took this one before we headed to church.

We had the Swan's over for turkey dinner. Instead of the kids table we added a table at the end, making for one long table with 15 of us.

Patrick checking his phone for the bluetooth lady.

An update photo of the Swan-Tanabe cousins.

What a difference nine years make, or more like where has the nine years gone. I pulled this one out of the vault. This photo is from Claudia's first birthday party in 2001.

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

Angela's most recent project was to build a kite and fly it. She had the choice of making a Scott Sled kite or a Diamond kite. She was being marked not on the actual making of the kite, but the scientific journal documenting the building process and the test trials and her presentation. We started last night cutting out the shape and putting it together.

We used some vapour barrier plastic for the kite, some wooden dowels and some yellow duct tape.

Angela decorated it this afternoon with paint and Sharpies. After dinner we headed over to the test field (school yard) for our flight trials. Here is Angela with her decorated kite.

On the first trial, it got up in the air briefly.

But it needed some adjustments.

Claudia was flying a store bought kite that Susan picked up at Zellers today. It worked pretty well for $6.

After some tweaks, it was on to trial two.

It was staying up a little longer.

It was up in the air and going pretty good.

Angela discovered afterwards that our vent was upside down, the text book instructions were wrong, but I don't think it would make much difference.

I don't think it was as high in the sky as it looks in the picture.

A nice picture of Gillian.

Gillian and her friend Sarah jumping.

Haircuts and Badminton

The girls got their haircut this month. Here are the three of them showing their do's.

Chloe enjoys playing with Loki and Lily from next door.

The girls playing badminton.

Soccer Season Begins

Soccer season started last night with Claudia's first game. After some initial confusion with her uniform and coach-less team, things came together for her first game.

Here is Claudia in some action shots.

Claudia is playing in the U10 age group, as you can see she is on the smaller size, but she wasn't afraid of the ball.

This is Claudia's first time playing organized soccer. She enjoyed it and played well.

Happy Birthday Susan!

We were up at the cottage for Susan's birthday, and not wanting to bring cake home the next day, we decided to have it when we got back. The girls made her cake and it turned out well. Happy Birthday!!

Back to Blogging

I am finally getting around to updating the blog for this summer, it's not that we haven't been doing things, if anything, we have been doing too much. It will take a while to get this complete, I've taken close to 2000 photos since the last post back in May. Last night we watched "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" outside in the backyard with the Carr's. This has been our 4th or 5th movie this summer that we have done outside. Last Sunday we watched "Get Smart". I've gotten the set-up to the point where it only takes 10-15 minutes and we now have four locations we can mount or makeshift screen between our house and our neighbours.

On Friday morning, Angela, Claudia, Chloe and I were up early to head over to the Leash-free dog park. It is about five minutes from the house. Claudia and I went last Saturday morning, but it was after 9:00 am when we got there and there had to be over 30 dogs at the park. Chloe has quite figured out what she is suppose to do. She barks at the big dogs, sometimes running towards them, but as soon as they turn, she high tails it back to us. Friday she would run under one of the picnic tables. Here is Angela doing some scooping after Chloe did her business.

The girls managed to find a caterpillar while they were in the woods with Chloe.

The girls have been looking after Lily and Loki, the two pugs that live next door, for the past couple of weeks. They have been feeding, playing and walking them while our neighbours are away. Their oldest is home, but not always around. They have been watering the plants and veggies as well. Here is Lily trying to get in our house.

Chloe has been playing with the pugs everyday, her and Loki run laps around the backyards. By the evening she is pooped. Here she is kind of in and out of her bed.

Happy Birthday Carolyn!

We headed out to Lori and Dale's place on Saturday for Carolyn's birthday party. It was a sorta surprise party, but the gig was up when she saw her cousin walking down Lori's street as they arrived. The weather held out and the kids enjoyed the pool.

Angela doing her frog imitation.

Claudia is finally tall enough that she can stand in the pool.

Chloe and Mickey.

Alex.

Angela and Gillian smiling for the camera, Brad looking at the lemon tarts.

Happy Birthday Carolyn!