Grade Seven Dance

This year is a scary one for Kerry. After 8 years of working at the same school as Callie, it was time for Callie to graduate. Next year she will be in high school. Kerry is the grade seven teacher so she organizes the grade seven dinner every year but rather than just hearing about it, I got to attend as well. The dinner is billed as an opportunity for the parents to see their kids get their year end diploma and have a celebratory dinner. It certainly is that however part of me thinks the kids would be just as happy without the parents there. Much of the evening is spent with the kids wandering around talking among themselves and admiring their dress up clothes. The girls get to wear pretty dresses and the boys are a mix of dress shirts and full on suits. It was exciting to see Callie go and get her diploma as well as an award for completing a specialized math exam. There is also a great slide show that Kerry puts together each year that shows all the kids baby pictures. This year she was able to sub out much of the work to create it to Callie and her friends. 

The evening ended with the grade seven band performing a number of tunes. Traditionally the only time I've heard the band has been at Christmas. This is after only about 3 months of practice. By waiting until the end of the year the kids are much more polished. I think they did about a half dozen songs and I was even able to recognize most of them. Callie played flute and her skills and dedication have amazed me. She practices nightly and has even signed up to take band in grade eight. This should allow her to travel. Previous classes have been to New Orleans. Congratulations on graduating Callie!

Fort Langley Field Trip

I'm lucky that my work is fairly flexible as it allows me to attend most of the kids field trips. In June Carter and I went to Fort Langley. Callie and I went three years ago and her favorite memory is of me taking a nap at lunch time. That wasn't an option on this trip because it was raining and rather than having lunch at the fort the kids had lunch at school and we left a bit later than normal. Fort Langley is one of only a few original historical locations in BC. We aren't a very old province and most of our historic locations were poorly built and didn't last. The fort is not all original save for one building that is a display for the fur trade.

There are about a dozen staff on hand in traditional clothes and they are quite well organized. There is a main person at the gate that sends everyone out to the various buildings on a treasure hunt. The kids get points for walking in a straight line, listening intently and for generally being good. This certainly helps my job as a chaperone. The buildings I like the best are the fur trade, cooperage (barrel making) and the blacksmith. We got to seem them light the coal forge which was much more technical than I was anticipating. The 'side draft' fire place looked like it was very efficient at heating coal to heat metal.

The last building we went to was the big house which was built for an anniversary in 1958. The kids got to re-enact the creation of British Columbia as a province. Carter got to be the judge and was very animated in his acting. Even the people who worked at the fort were impressed with how passionately he read his lines. The only thing we didn't get a chance to do was to pan for gold. Maybe we'll go back on our own to take in the full experience. 

Carter at Track and Field

Carter tried out for track and field again this year. It's a tryout process and you are grouped with the 3,4 class. This meant it was hard for him to get in last year but easier this year. We spent some time each day doing long jump at the school to prepare him. He successfully made it to the practice team for High Jump, Shot Put and Long Jump and was made a reserve for the Shot Put and Long Jump. They can only take two kids per age group per event so it's not easy to make the team.

Technically he didn't make the official team but he was allowed to be the backup for Long Jump and Shot Put. They say he doesn't have to keep showing up but he decided he wanted to continue and thank goodness he did. One of the boys for Shot Put didn't show up for most practices and Carter was getting better with each throw. They picked him at the last minute to attend and compete against a team mate and 30 other kids from across Surrey. His first throw was average for him but on his last throw he threw it almost two feet farther. This was enough for 7th place for the large elementary schools in Surrey. Way to go Carter!

Callie's Dance Recital

Callie had her annual dance recital at the beginning of June this year. This is a little later than normal which may have been caused by the fact that there were four dance nights instead of just two. Ordinarily we only have to go one night with the other night being for a different studio owned by the same person. This time, depending on what you were in you could have had your kid in all four nights. We were lucky enough to only have to attend two of the nights. We only see Callie once per year so I was going to see which ever show she was in.

Callie started the year in four different dance styles. Lyrical, Ballet, Jazz and Hip-hop. About half way through the year she decided she had had enough of Hip-hop. It's a less structured dance form and I believe Callie wasn't happy with the choice of song they were planning on doing. She dropped out before they started planning the final dance for the recital so no harm to the group and the owner said that most dancers don't stay in hip-hop for ever.

The theme for this year was the Wizard of Oz and my niece Kristen dances at the same studio so she was also in a couple of the dances. She has improved a lot over the past year. Her two dance types were split over the two days so it was good that we went to both recitals that we did. Callie had one dance on one night and all three dances on the other night so we could have just gone to the one show. But as I mentioned, with only one chance to see her per year I was glad we got a bit more dance recital time.

Callie's three dances were very well done. I always like to see how she compares to the other dancers in her group and she always seems to be near the top of her class. Her ballet is progressing nicely and she was allowed to go into Point. This is the ballet style where you spend some time on your tippy toes. It looks quite painful but I watched some of the older girls and they don't spend a lot of time on their toes so I don't think she'll be too damaged. You need to reach a certain skill set to attend this and she went to get her fitting in June and some starter classes as well. I'm very proud of how she has kept up with the dancing. We just thought it was cute when she was little. Who knew she would still be doing it 8 years later!

Jordan and Karla's Visit

In April, my brother Jordan and  his wife Karla paid us a visit from Saskatoon. The first thing on our agenda was taking in a White Caps game. We aren't big soccer fans so we would not typically decide to go on our own but Jordan is a big fan and times his visits to the games. Last time we saw the Women's world cup and this time it was a regular season game. My lack of soccer awareness came to light when it took me 5 minutes to realize I was cheering for the wrong team. In my defense the white caps are supposed to be blue and white and were a dark blue that almost looked back.

Once I figured out which team was which we were somewhat disappointed as the White Caps didn't seem to be having their best game. They lost 2-0. It would have been a much more exciting game for me if I had't figured out which team was which.

On the Saturday we spent some time at the Vancouver art gallery. There was a showing by Takashi Murakami called 'The Octopus Eats It's Own Leg". Another benefit of having people come visit you is that you go to things you wouldn't ordinarily make time to see even though they are in your own town. This artist has some very large scale pieces. I enjoyed seeing the process that goes into creating them. There is an army of assistants meticulously going over each piece in multiple colors and layers.There were also a number of sculptures. The biggest one  was over two stories high. I looked closely to see that it appears to have been created in sections. (I was most interested in how everything was made.)

Once Kerry found out that they were coming she checked the local run schedule to see if there were any events. Jordan plays soccer but hasn't done a formal run before. Karla on the other hand is constantly in events. The run that was available was actually a beer crawl. A large number of craft breweries have opened up in Vancouver in the last decade and this run went from brewery to brewery allowing for sampling along the way. Carter and I dropped them off and spent some time wandering around the area of the final brewery. Another area that we would not ordinarily go to but was fun to explore.

We finished the weekend off with a trip to the Cactus club. We had received a gift card from my parents and we were also able to transfer some PetroPoints into gift cards. I think we've been collecting them for 20 years so it was good to finally have something note worthy to cash them into.

It was a fun weekend being tourists in our own backyard.

Florida 2018 - Our Last Park Day

We started our day with a bit of a change in routine. We had brought breakfast type snacks with us but at this point we were pretty much sick of all of it. We splurged on some breakfast pastries at the hotel which was surprisingly not super expensive. Our plan was to spend most of today at Magic Kingdom. This is the original Disney World park and has the most rides. I think because it's the original Disney park Disney is most worried about bad things happening here so security is much more stringent then the other parks. The kids don't generally have to go through the metal detectors at the other parks and they randomly select Kerry and I but at Magic Kingdom we all have to go through. Once again we felt we were early and tried to go on Seven Dwarfs mine train but by the time we got in line, the wait was already 90 minutes. I'm glad Kerry was on top of getting all our Fast Passes booked. No one wants to spend their holidays in line. Instead we went on Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. A bit early to get wet but it's another hot day.

On our way over to Pirates of the Caribbean I thought perhaps we had gotten lucky and had happened upon a celebrity doing a random show. They had an actor in doing Jack Sparrow and he looked very much like Johnny Depp but perhaps a Johnny Depp of 10 years ago. The accent was pretty close but there were a few phrases that weren't quite right. Still fun to see Jack Sparrow in person. After Pirates we did the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. Even that had a line-up and all you do is walk through it. Very busy here.

Our final pre-booked Fast Pass of the day was Splash Mountain where we got unlucky, really unlucky and then really lucky. The ride broke down and they had to evacuate everyone. This is the unlucky part. The really unlucky part is that we were on the ride but not at a fun evacuation point inside. We were stuck at the entrance and couldn't get out until they unlocked us. The lucky part was they sent us to guest services to have our Fast Pass reset and gave us two Fast Passes good for any ride for the rest of the day for our troubles. Way to go Kerry!

It was getting very busy at the park so we took a bus to the Port Orleans Resort for lunch which is  themed on New Orleans. This hotel was in the same cost block as our hotel but a bit more expensive. The cost difference looks like it would have been worth it with a nicer pool area and better food. If I were a travel agent, this would be a site visit and I think I would recommend hotel this to my customers. We finished our visit with beignets that we planned to eat on our bus ride back but had to wait till we were off the bus because beignets come with a cloud of icing sugar.

After a break in the afternoon at our hotel we took the bus back to Magic Kingdom for our final evening. We had been watching the wait times on the rides and waited till about 7:30p to leave but it was still very busy when we go there. They had effectively shut down Main Street for the fireworks and you had the option of taking a back exit to get in via Tomorrowland. You don't get to see many behind the scenes areas at Disney parks so this was fun. Interestingly enough, when we were exiting the park earlier in the day I said they should have a short cut around Main Street. They were way ahead of me.

We still had our two special Fast Passes so we tried to find a ride that would be fun to be on during the fireworks. The Seven Dwarfs Mine train fit this bill nicely. We timed things perfectly and the fireworks had started just as we got on the train. The ride goes inside and outside and every time we turned a corner outside there was a burst of fireworks. Kerry tried to replicate the feeling on the teacups but was unfortunately disappointed. Teacups at Disneyland are uncovered but at Disney World they are covered. They still got to watch from the lineup.

If you come to Disney parks it's important to get your rides in at the right time. Early morning is great for getting in rides that aren't overly popular. You can walk on most of them. Late in the evening is good for those rides and increasingly better for the big rides as it gets later. We finished our day with Teacups, Barnstormer, Buzz, Peter Pan, Pirates, Big Thunder, Splash and Space Mountain. As long as you are in line at closing you get to ride and Kerry and the kids made it on to Space Mountain at 11:57. A whirlwind final evening for a whirlwind spring break.

Florida 2018 - Park Hopping and Blizzard Beach

We have a six day pass and Disney World has four parks so that meant doubling up a couple of them starting with Animal Kingdom. We got to the park at 6:45a and headed straight for 'Flight of Passage' and we still ended up in a 90 minute line-up. We were backed up all the way to the Asia area of the park. When we did this ride the first time we used a Fast Pass and skipped the  line-up. This is a missed opportunity for Disney parks because no one does line-ups like Disney. Things get better the closer you get to the front including being able to check out the lab with incubating avatars and some real unobtanium!

By the time we got off the ride the line-up was 240 minutes. Yes, that's right, 4 hours. No line-up scenery is worth waiting that long but it was time for us to do our Fast Rides including Expedition Everest, Na'vi River Journey, African Safari and Cali River Rapids. The Na'vi ride is pretty low key with a slow moving boat and lot's of things that glow in the dark. The Cali ride on the other hand can get you very wet. We put our stuff in a locker and this time Kerry bought a rain poncho. I think she's tired of always being the wettest one when we get off a water ride.

We had reservations at the Rain Forrest Cafe and on our way there we saw a flock of odd looking birds flying overhead. As we got closer they flew quite low to the ground and you could tell it was a flock of parrots. I had assumed they were wild but as we got even closer we saw them all perched with their handlers giving a talk. I'm always amazed at people that are able to train birds to fly in the open and come back. It seems like a rather risky hobby. You would only need to lose them once and these don't look like cheap animals to buy.

For our afternoon break we went to Blizzard Beach. This is a fun water park with a winter theme. There are icebergs, ski chairs, snow men and sleds. One thing that was not there was frozen hot chocolate. When we were here three years ago I promised Callie that we could have a frozen hot chocolate on our way out. Unfortunately they closed the concession before we left and she missed out. She still remembers and thought we could rectify the miss but it seems they don't sell it anymore. I will have to figure out how to make it.

We bought a park hopper pass which is more expensive, however it allows you to go to more than one park in a day. So far we hadn't done any park hopping but there are other benefits to the pass including the water parks and some very fun mini-golf courses. We chose to do the summer course which is themed as if Santa was visiting a sunny location on his holidays. Everyone was well behaved on this round. We don't keep score in mini-golf anymore because that only leads to problems. With the two water parks and mini-golf we made the park hopper passes worth our while.

We chose to go back to Magic Kingdom in the evening and we were going to meet up with Callie's friend however they had given up at 6:00p. It seems it is most people's spring break in the US this week and the number of people has increased at least 50%. Most rides have one hour waits and there are people everywhere. I'm goad we get two weeks for Spring break and got here the week before. We did whichever ride had the shortest line-up and were able to see most of the fireworks which I think were longer than previous nights.