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!!
Angela’s Soccer Season
Angela is also playing soccer this summer. Her season has started, but it is the same night as Guides. She only has one more meeting and then she will start. She tried out and made the Intermediate Co-ed soccer team at school. They didn’t have enough grade 7/8 girls, so they opened it up to the sixes. They had their one-day family of schools tournament on Thursday and they made it to the semi-finals before bowing out. They ended up tied for third out of 12 teams. Congratulations Angela!
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.
Amphibian and Reptile Ramble
I have been spending a lot of time out near Owen Sound for work lately. We are starting a new precipitation monitoring site at the Kinghurst Nature Reserve near Chatsworth. The property is owned by Ontario Nature and this weekend they were having an amphibian and reptile count. As part of our outreach program, I was there to give a demonstration of our equipment and talk about why we are there and what we do. Here I am with the Mark Carabetta, Conservation Science Manager for Ontario Nature waiting for some rain. It turns out his wife works at the ROM with Mom and Dad’s old next door neighbour.
Afterwards I joined the group and went looking for Reptiles and amphibians. One of the Ontario Nature people is currently working on the Ontario Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. Joe Crowley is a wealth of information when it come to snakes and frogs. Here he is with a garter snake.
I spotted a water snake in the water and next thing you know he was in the water catching the snake.
Note the wet sleeve.
This little girl wanted to hold every snake they caught.
Here is a Ribbon Snake having a little swim.
A bigger Water snake, there were lots of Garter, Water and Ribbon snakes around the water’s edge.
The Nature Reserve has a large wetland area and one of the more impressive old growth forests in Ontario.
There were also lots of leopard frogs in the grass.
And some Green Frogs.
This was a Pickerel Frog.
Here is a small Red-bellied snake.
Most of the people there were birders and knew all the calls of the birds.
Some lichen in full bloom.
Another ribbon snake. The cloudy eyes indicate that it will shed its skin soon.
Part of the property is an old farmstead, there is still a well on the site. Mark said if you pump it long enough the water will come.
One last leopard frog before I left for home. The rest of the group were going to look for salamanders and more snakes. They were camping at a nearby conservation area and then they were coming back on the Sunday.
Chloe’s Summer Cut
Chloe got her first summer cut today. Here she is before going to the groomers.
Here she is after the groomers.
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.
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.
Signs of Spring
Some of the signs of spring around the house today. The lilac bush is starting to bud. Temperature got up to 17ºC today.
Claudia playing catch. Look at the concentration on her face.
Ladybug on the boxwood out front.
A little bee in the same shrub.
Claudia relaxing with Chloe out on the front lawn.
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.
Do Good Things Happen in Three’s?
We all know that bad things happen in three’s, what about good things? This week we went to our local Swiss Chalet on Thursday night for dinner. The host dude sat us in our usual big circular booth, and by usual, I mean we always ask for one if they are available. Most of the tables and booths are made for families of four, not five. We sat there with our menus, and we sat, and we sat, it had to be at least five minutes. I counted 6 staff milling around the bar area and not one seemed in too much of a hurry to come and take our order. Finally when one girl did come, she asked how we were doing, and we mentioned that nobody had come over since we sat down, even though there were so many just standing around. She apologized and took our order, when she came back with our drinks, she said she talked to the manager and that we could have free dessert. We ended up with two pieces of lemon meringue pie for free, we took it home with us because we were stuffed (all the fries you can eat special is still on). Plus the last time we were there they gave us a Customer Appreciation card good for 15% off, we saved an additional $7.00 on this meal.
Today, Claudia, Angela an I went to Future Shop, we bought the new Alvin and the Chipmunks DVD. The shelf price said $18.99, when we checked-out it scanned in at $23.99. After paying for it I went back to the shelf just to double check, sure enough it was $18.99, I went back to the cash and told her and she directed me to customer service. The girl there was going to give it to me for the shelf price, but she took awhile and in that time I was reading the Scanning Code of Practice sticker on the side of the cash register. If a product scans in at the checkout at a price higher than the shelf price, or any other displayed price; the product is free – up to $10, or $10 off if the item is more than $10. When I asked about it she asked another guy and he said yes the price should be $8.99 instead of $18.99.
Just waiting for our third deal. Unless you count the Beer Store special, I bought a 24 of Molson Canadian/Coors Light for $29.95. The guy in front of me bought a 12 pack for $20.05, the Beer Store guy told him for another $9.90 he could get 12 more beers. The guy didn’t go for it.