Spring Gardening

Spring gardening starts in November with the planting of Spring bulbs. On the south coast you can wait till the very end of the bulb buying season and pick them up for cheap, with plenty of time to get them into the ground. I have various bulb beds that come up every year but this year I decided to add some to our wine barrel planters in the front and back yard. Nothing to extravagant. (I believe Martha uses up to 100 bulbs.) Just enough for a splash of colour in early spring. My memory is just short enough that I forget what I planted so it's a surprise even for me.

The other part of Spring that I really like is all the free plants. I got about 80% of our plants without shelling out a dime. Some were here in some form when we bought the house and others were sourced from fellow gardeners. By splitting up the perennials at this time of year I have additional plants for gifts,  trade or for filling in the blank spots. This  year I've got about a dozen strawberry bushes, a new set of raspberries and at least four hostas. I've still got a few plants that have probably gotten a bit big so I may split them up as well.

I've now prepped all the perennial beds. This is the first year I haven't had to do something major to them like moving plants around or building retaining walls around them. The garden on the right is at our front door and is much nicer than the overgrown junipers that were there previously. I've still got quite a few hardscaping tasks this year including a new fence on at least one side, a new concrete planter in the front yard and perhaps a pond where the shed used to be. All time and money permitting of course.

The Last Game of the Year

After last year's playoff run there were very high hopes for Vancouver's chances at the Cup this year. Five days in, however, things were looking pretty bleak with Vancouver down 0-3. My Dad had attempted to get tickets to one of the earlier games and wasn't able to but one of his contacts managed to score four tickets to game 5. Two of the tickets were for a friend of his so we had two left. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance to go to a game; Although I'm a Habs fan it's still good hockey and fun to watch.  Lately though Callie has been captured by Canucks fever. Virtually her whole school wears Canucks Jersey's on game day which makes it very difficult for me to create a mini Habs fan.

Kerry's a huge Canucks fan as well and considering this was likely the last home game of the year, I decided it made sense for Kerry and Callie to go. A playoff game would be a great experience for anyone and for Callie's first live NHL game you can't get anything better. She was already familiar with the Canucks mascot Fin as her teacher had been sending a stuffed version home with each kid for the past couple weeks. She was very excited when it was her night and thrilled when she found out she would get to see him in person. She made up a sign and we traced images of Fin off the iPad so she could tape them on.

Game day started with Kerry and Callie going to Build-A-Bear at Metrotown to get a Canucks jersey for her bear Emerson. There was almost a disaster when Callie forgot her sign at home but Carter and I bused and Skytrained to Metrotown to bring it in time for them to get to the game. Fin spent much of his time in and around Callie's section and Callie enthusiastically waved her towel the whole game. Despite all the cheering, the game ended quickly in the first overtime. No cup this year. (No riots either.) Better luck next time.

Ballet, Tap and Now Hip Hop?

A couple of weeks ago, Callie had 'Open House' day at dance. This one went much smoother than last years 'Open House' day when we forgot Carter there but I'll leave that for another blog entry. For a typical dance class the parents aren't allowed to watch. This isn't surprising since the kids apparently act very differently when the parents are there. The only other time you get to see her dance is at the year end recital. Callie's first class of the day was Tap. There are only four kids in this class and I can't imagine the noise if there were any more kids.

Callie's second open house of the day was for ballet. Tap is at 9:15a which is good because all Callie has to do is throw on her clothes, carry her tap shoes and   get there. Ballet is at 11:00a and requires much more preparation time for her hair. Getting it pulled back, balled up and sprayed straight takes quite a bit of time. Kerry's getting pretty good at it now that Callie has grown her hair out long enough. I didn't get a chance to go to ballet but Kerry says that Callie is doing excellent. Of the various lessons she's had, Kerry says ballet is the one she feels she should stick with.

Callie's recital is at the end of May and the new dance season starts shortly after. The typical progression for dancing has kids continuing to take on new styles and to increase the time spent in areas where they wish to specialize. This means she'll be doing 4 classes next season. Tap and Hip Hop once a week and Ballet twice a week. It's a good thing Kerry has gone back to work full time. Keeping kids active gets expensive!

The Curse of the Golden Egg

This weekend we're in Oliver and for the past two years we've attended the local Easter Egg Hunt. The rules are simple. The kids get split up by age group and are sent to the 'hunting grounds' where they are allowed to get a certain number of eggs. Once they are done they go and redeem the eggs for a prize. Every prize is the same with the exception of the 'Golden Egg'. There is one per age group and Callie has had her heart set on it for the past several weeks. It took perseverance, luck and a quiet nudge from Mommy but I'm proud to say she captured this grand prize.

Carter on the other hand was not so lucky but there may be a good life lesson here about keeping your eye on the prize. As you can see he was not very focused before the event and during he went for the quickest and easiest eggs while Callie knew to look in the hard places. He was less than impressed to find out Callie had found the golden egg and it took 10 minutes to get him to stop trying to take it from Callie. In the end we convinced him that one of the chocolates from his generic prize package was a 'Golden Egg'. I'm sure he'll do better next year.

This was Callie's day to shine and she spent several minutes after the event getting her picture taken for the local paper. With her painted face and happy smile I'm fairly certain they'll put her front and centre and we made sure to mention Barb and Reg, the local grandparents who signed us up.