a day in the life......

On Saturday Nathanael went to dancing school with Supervising Adult, Nicole, and Brennen on the bus.
Daddy and Mommy were away.
This was a BIG adventure right on the tail end of a sleepover with Nicole and Brennen.
The excitement was immense.
Nathanael got to show the other kids how to get on the city bus because they had never done it before and because he's the oldest.
He was very important.
They got on the bus and sat down. They were halfway there. Everything was going well. Supervising adult was serene in the knowledge that all her charges were with her safe and sound. ah!
Then.....

The shriek of dismay!
"WHERE'S MY DANCING BAG?!"

That's when all hell broke loose.

Nathanael realised that he left his dance bag at the bus stop with his ballet and tap stuff. This is the stuff soap operas are made of.
When they got to the ballet school Supervising Adult, who is not so serene anymore, phoned the business near the bus stop.
They hadn't seen the bag.
Poor Nathanael was upset. He had to take his classes in street clothes. How embarrassing!
He felt horrible, the world was about to end. We weren't pleased either because the clothes cost around ninety dollars.
He's been sulking all week.
Supervising Adult felt awful about it.
We phoned the Transit lost and found. Nobody had seen the bag.
Today, Wednesday, Transit phoned back and told Daddy that the bag with contents had been turned in. Nathanael talked to the person on the phone and said "thank you" a lot.
Nathanael phoned Supervising Adult and told them all about the bag being found.
He ran upstairs to tell me the good news.
I now know what the phrase "deleriously happy" looks like.
And they lived happily ever after.

THE END

CBC Manitoba - Southern Manitoba snowed under by first blast of winter

here' s the story from CBC of the snow we got today:

http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/story/mb_storm-20051115.html

Want to see the snow we got? Here's the pictures from CBC - check out the image link:

http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/imagegallery/snow20051115/

I drove to work today - I got stuck 3 times, and dug myself out 3 times. By the time I got home, I was very tired, and quite happy to take ut our neighbour's children on thier offer to clean our walk for $2.

Pluckerbooks - Featured Works

Now that I got a Palm - and have started to explore the various software for it, I've been enjoying the availability of online reading material. Just found this site a while back - Plucker is a web page viewer for Palm (go to www.plkr.org to download it) - but this site has PILES of literature available for free!
http://www.pluckerbooks.com/

Here's the picture of the group! 

Halloween 2005

98 kids

That's how many came by tonight.

Witches, ghouls, lots of princesses and super heros.

A good night.

Here's what our party looked like. The theme is Alice in Wonderland - Can you guess who is who?

picture coming soon.....

Update One

Heh heh.... oops...

Like I said in the last post, I'm teaching Elementary Music - but now I'm in two schools, (one day one, one day the other) and I'm full time until May 15. Needless to say, I'm busy - Christmas concert, Halloween music, Remembrance Day stuff - all needing to be done for two schools. It's going well, though, and I am enjoying it all..

Nathanael has started in French Immersion this year in Grade 1. He is doing really well and is actually talking to us in French! Suzanne is enjoying it, I think. I guess I have to start brushing up as well; Suzanne says I need work on my accent.

There will be another post after this one with tonight's info.
TTYL.

And now for something completely different.....

Just when I thought I had it all firgured out...

When I graduated from University in 96, I had a plan. It included finding a school and a place where I could teach music, either K-12 or 7-12, and build a band program that would last for years. A program that would foster song writing, performance and music appreciation accross the school...

So I 'm idealistic.

Well, it appears that there are other plans in place for me. This fall I accepted a half time position teaching 1-6 general music in inner city Winnipeg - 10% of the school's population is supervised/assisted by some type of EA, and the school is in what is considered one of the poorest sections of Winnipeg.

And I'm excited about being there!

I'm also working at a High Speed Internet support centre (Call centre to those who want an easy label). I'm finding it a relaxing break from teaching - in that I don't have the lesson planning to do, I clock in, clock out, and still get to teach a bit. People phone in wanting to get their computers online, and I get them there, and teach them a little bit about thier machines on the way.

It's amazing to me how God changes our plans for our futures without our being completely aware about it until the change occurs.

More on this later.

Playing catch up!

After spending the summer feeling like I am under a rock - I"m come out for air. So I'm playing catchup with all the things that have been going on..... Check out the previous couple of months in posts!

Chris

Goodbye, Dear Friend

Sandy.

Your friendship was valuable.
Your love unconditional.
Your acceptance amazing.
Your friendliness abounding.

Rest in Peace.

See you in Heaven.

Chris, Suzanne and Nathanael.

Chicago from a boat

We did a boat tour of the architecture of Chicago. Very interesting considering that Chicago had to rebuild after the great fire! Here's the link to the tour company!

http://www.chicagotours.us/tours/tourDetail.cfm/tid/1355

The Sears tower is the Taller one. The smaller is the largest reinforced concrete building.

Union Station

This is the fountain that was built as a new "gate" into Chicago. It actually shoots a stream of water accross the canal. Originally the water was to hit the opposite bank, but too many pedestrians got wet. So they adjusted it to hit the water. Now the boats get wet instead.
This is an apartment building. There's another one quite similar that has parking in the lower levels.


I've forgotten what this building is called. It's neat in that it reflects the opposite bank in it's windows. Apparantly, it's Chicago's favourite building.

Joe's Bebop cafe

This is my favourite place to go so far in Chicago. I just need to get here when they have a group performing. The food is excellent, and the service great. Navy Pier is a great place to go. Check out the link!

http://www.joesbebop.com/

The Wedding

A family wedding is always exciting - Even more so this time.

Marc and Meredith's wedding in Chicago when really well. Nathanael was the ring bearer's walker - Mandy pulled him down the aisle. We did have quite a few practice sessions with the dog outside Meredith's place.

It's amazing how different people look when they dress up - lots of people commented on Nathanael's appearance. He looks like a little gentleman!


This is Nathanael and Mandy practicing thier walking in the park near Meredith's place. We've also started getting Nathanael used to walking our two beasts. He's getting the idea of heel, although people 30 feet away can hear him scream at the dog he is walking!


This photo of the ceremony shows the wedding party. The construction was unavoidable.


Great Grandmother Budlong came down from Flin Flon for the wedding. Nathanael enjoyed having her around.



The two of us together.


This is the best shot of the wedding. And SUZANNE took it. Digitals cameras rule!

We took piles of pictures at the wedding. These are just the ones that turned out the best.

We're off!

We will be away in the US for my sister's wedding (cool, eh?). Have a great week!

Mary's Ghost

http://www.litgothic.com/Texts/mary_ghost.html

Heard this on late night CBC last week. A bit gruesome, but quite cheeky.

Our trip to Swan

Just some pics from our trip to Swan this weekend. Although there is not a lot of water visible, the crops are behind schedule, and the ground is very wet. The bridge is part of the old highway #10, near Dauphin, MB.

They're fogging the whole city

So it comes to this...

Winnipeg started to be progressive, using natural predators like dragonflies to kill adult mosquitoes and minnows to get the larvae. Of course, this year is rather unique in that we have had so much rain that the river is still flooded, the standing water situation is really bad, and the adult mosquitoes are about to descend. Perfrect conditions for lots of the bloodsucking insects.

So what does the province do? It forced the city to fog with Malathion yesterday. Check out the news release:
http://www.winnipeg.ca/cms/bugline/forcast/NR%20-%2024-Hour%20Notice%20-%20WNV%20Fogging%20Program%20-%20July%2014.pdf

So..... I do a quick search today (this morning) while my kid gets dressed. Here's what I find:
http://www.chem-tox.com/malathion/research/
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/op/malathion.htm
http://www.ncchem.com/malathion.htm

If I'm nervous about this stuff after 10 minutes of skimming these articles, I wonder what an indepth reading will make me feel like?

I'm also wondering if Malathion kills dragonfiles. There are so many right now it seems counter-productive to use the Malathion to kill the mosquitoes if the natural predators that we have worked to hard to produce (and who are all over the city) get killed as well.

We are under seige!

so...

Tuesday, June 28 was Nathanael's last day of school. He got an award for Scripture Memorization (Good job, Nathanael!) Picture of him getting his award is here on the left.

Then it strikes....

By Wednesday Morning he was covered in it. Chickenpox. Everywhere. Even where the sun don't shine... (ouch!)

Proceeded to call all of his classmates - just to let them know that he was sick and to expect the possible appearances of the pox on their children. Suzanne and I confirmed with both our parents that we had already experienced it....

This week was a week of firsts for Nathanael. He went to church last night. He went swimming in the local wading pool yesterday. He went to the library today. He is finally able to enjoy the great Winnipeg outdoors just in time to be eaten alive by the mosquitoes of Winnipeg. (There WILL be a post on this later this week!)

Suzanne started to show the pox yesterday evening after church (sorry to those we sat near, we didn't realise that's what it was) This morning she was covered. Completely. Saw the doctor today at lunch - who confirmed that she has the pox, full-blown, everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

Needless to say, Chris is getting really good at applying calemine lotion!!

History of Worship Music!

I picked up this book at a local bookstore here in Winnipeg, and have found it to be a most revealing treatise on the gospel and CCM music industry and how it got to where it is now. It's almost scary when he starts to describe the way people approach gospel music as composers and performers - he is very clinical and factual when describing how people believe.

This is not part of the worship books I alluded to in the previous post.

Quotes to come later over the summer - I want to read it a second time before I put quotes in.

Until I can figure out how to stick these on the side, I'll put them inside the posts.

This is the first of three books on worship that I'm in the middle of (firgures, eh?), so I can only give a little bit of what he is talking about. The best quote so far is this:

As a worship leader I was replaceable - God could have used anyone for the
events that we'd been priviledged to be a part of. But as a son and as
a child of God, I was indispensable. There could be never be another me -
a child is irreplacable.

The book is The Unquenchable Worshipper by Matt Redman. I'm only in chapter 3 so far..... More to come.

We picked up a man!

We go for a walk last night, and we meet this guy - Ezra turned on her charms, and he walked with us a while. He stayed with us until his owners turned up. "Duke" was a most gentile guest, and only got upset when we turned in for the night. Mojo didn't like him sniffing her....... , but Ezra liked it....
Didn't realize the girls were so alluring to the opposite sex.

SOme pictures....

So....

Now that I can post pictures here, we are going to have more posts - Since we got a digital camera at Christmas, I've been wanting to put pictures on the net, but didn't want to subscribe to another way of doing it.
As you can see, we are all quite pleased with this development...

(sung to the can can)
Na
na na na na
na na
na na na na
na na
na na na na na
na na na na na na na (repeat)

It worked!

Hey - it worked...

That's Ezra - our second oldest "child" - and the one who most often refuses to eat. Right now it's the heat that turns her appitite off, not that I blame her. With the humidity, it's over 40C, and I don't blame her for spending the entire afternoon napping.

I'm trying this for the first time - hopefully this picture gets up here.  

The Zoo

Went to the Assiniboine Zoo Today - Nathanael was all excited, although I think the most exciting thing for him was the playground. He did enjoy watching the Brown Bears swim. We also saw lemurs - to which Nathanael and his friend Evan said "just like Zaboomafoo!!"