Monday, March 28, 2011

UBCO tournament..aka.. how many pony tails can you fit in one gym?

 Hey! I know this may bore some of you, but feel free head along to some other more interesting viewing. The Kaos  (I know-Kelowna starts with a K) girls played again this weekend. They placed 9th which was frustrating for them because the North Calgary team placed 3rd, and we beat them.  Their round robin pool was a 3 way tie for 1st, so they got bumped down just based on points.  Then they lost in the cross over match between tiers, so got shifted out of top 8. It'll make them work harder next weekend - and the one after - it's gettin' busy!
Erin played 13 games.  I let her sleep in today, she woke up at 12:30, and that was with vacuuming.

Our girls in their new red jerseys.  Hopefully some of these will work, they don't always come up... blogger...
A hugely long rally!


Hanging with the Cousins


The miracle of Skype, which the cousins just got hooked up on the weekend, hopefully will make it a little easier to connect on a more regular basis.  The kids can laugh at each other, when they won't really talk on the phone.  So the girls "did each other's hair" and listened (actually...made fun of) Alvin and the Chipmunks sing Justin Bieber.  I think they actually like it.  Morgan you're a hoot! These kids make me laugh! Thanks Uncle Juice for the incognito recording!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Spring Break

2 weeks of bliss!  Stretched out before us!  No homework, no lunch boxes, no getting up early, no routine.  Enjoy your break too if you have one!  Rest it is good for my soul!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Bright Spots

Some bright spots in my week:

1. Could I be any more proud? God was smiling down on her the day He imagined her into my womb, to be blessed with so many amazing talents - and we got to be the recipients of the blessing too. What an amazing surprise she is!  Our girl wrote the Caley math exam and got the highest mark in the school 106/120.  When 2 teachers tell you her name came up at the staff meeting (for good reasons) in a school of 1300, you've got to be proud.  Thought Auntie K. would want to know :)
2. Breakfast with a friend and our Moms
3. Lunch with 2W nurses, what a great group of women to work with!
4. Tulips poking up!!! Spring is breaking out of its icy robes!
5. New photos up on my dining room wall, I love that my husband gets as bored as I do and likes to changes things around now and then... oh ya and takes the amazing shots in the first place.
6. Sleeping in 'til 10am.  Oh it's been so long!  Your turn will come young Moms!!
7. Using part of our youth auction big spend last night on a date.  I just couldn't keep my hand down from bidding up some awesome items!  I "won" Hockey night in Kelowna which included a limo ride from home to the Manhattan Point restaurant, then club seat tickets to the hockey game.  We only used the hockey tickets last night, since they'll let us save the rest for a later date which I have plans for already.  I also won 2 silent auction items - a hair cut at a downtown salon for $20!  And 10 lattes for $10.  What were people thinking not bidding me up on those?
8. Supermoon
9.  I totally love this!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

"the Puberty"

It's hit the house big time!  Oh the mood swings, the tired, achy can't get out of bed mornings for my forever, since birth, 6 am morning boy. The frowned, grumpy, one word answers and emotional melt downs over homework. We're fast approaching the big 13 and it seems that we're into a growth spurt or some sort of major hormonal moment, well pretty much whole week, of course while Gramma was visiting.  She was pleasantly reminded of the joys of the grade 7 boys she raised.  All I can say is spring break was a week too late around here, but Hallelujah that it is finally here, and the weather has that fresh, get outside feeling, so that the street tonight was filled with boys playing basketball and hockey and a group of girls giggling down the road.  A fresh sight to sore eyes that have been hiding for the months huddling up under quilts and eating breakfast sitting on the heat vents. 

I'm praying the break gives a little bounce in the step and lightness of mood, maybe a few trips for ice cream, a day at the wave pool, some evening skiing, some lazy sleep-in mornings, coffee with friends and kids, and NO LUNCHES to be packed!  Yippee!! 
We're babysitting this cutie pie for a few days, she's a lot bigger now, should prove very entertaining.  Time to send the kids out in the yard for a winter's worth of poop pick-up! But, I think maybe we'll wait til Monday.

Friday, March 18, 2011

A Family Affair

With the onset of my girl playing volleyball, the boy has become more interested.  KD promises he isn't purposely influencing his children to play the sports he loves to watch, but it's happening anyways.  With the suspected height in the family, you might as well start with something you'll have potential in. 

Oh it's fun to see the differences between boys and girls (and ages). Girls are so technical and perfect in skill, boys are all about power and the big plays.  Even the way they teach things and name things makes me chuckle.  "Super Spike" for Jacob was last weekend with some serious warm up tunes.  The girls never have music.  But really they should.  We're thinking of making a warm up "tape", OK digital file (what era am I in anyways?)

Jake is #9, oh they are too cute!
I offered to help with score keeping because the team needs volunteers, and really how hard can it be?   I was expecting a few spaces to fill in the score and player names, but got this:
 We even got in trouble for too much chatting at the table from the ref. when we missed one of his calls.  Oops!  What are Moms on the bench for other than cheering and bringing snacks? 

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Indelible... the Heart of a Teenager

I've been thinking a lot lately about being 15 and a half, for obvious reasons... to remember the emotions I had then, the inside thoughts I didn't dare share with anyone, the way life seemed so hard to bear in some of those moments, the joy of feeling alive and young.  How everything was a big deal.  It was like watching everyone stumble around trying to figure out who they were, what they wanted to become.  I want to remember so I can be better able to relate to the 15 year olds in my life.  To remember what things I liked people asking me, and how I wanted to be known and drawn out.  I loved knowing that someone out there thought I was so special, and how even a comment from a teacher or an adult meant so much.

Also, I've been thinking these things because it was then that my whole life turned upside down.  I was exactly Erin's age when all this happened, my younger brother not even yet as old as my boy. We got the Friday afternoon phone call about "the accident".  The moment all life as I had known it stopped and turned to something else, the day the lives of 4 families were forever changed, ours the only one without a funeral to attend.. not that week.  I remember the waiting at the house, the pacing up and down with my little brother while Mom and my older brother had raced away to find out more news.  Then a few hours later, Mom's neighbor friend coming to the door to be with us, til they returned.  She obviously knew something I didn't.

Life events change you, suffering makes you rely on Someone bigger than yourself, but when these things happen as a teen, there's something more indelible imprinted on the way your mind is still growing up that seems to make huge life events as a teenager seem so much more huge, than if they happened as an adult.  Like a big rubber stamp crushes your heart and takes the breath away, and it takes so much retraining of the mind for your heart to pump back to full size again.

I see Rick Hansen a lot these days because his daughter plays U-16 volleyball and it always brings me back. To the day he met my Dad on his tour and to encourage him for a moment, yet not really, because he still had his hands, his big muscly arms.  To all those hours beside the hospital bed, to all those days of every breath maybe being the last because breathing wasn't even his own for sometime.  All the burdens my Mom carried that I didn't know about because we still had to go to school and try to live normal life on one hand and life out of control on the other side.  And I remember the Christmas my little brother bought "hands" for Daddy, and the first day, after more than 3 years in acute care, that he came home for an afternoon.



So indelible... printed on my heart.  The very reasons I turned from my life long desire to teach, to becoming a nurse.

How could a crush, or a silly fight with girlfriends, or the stress of a science exam, or the worry about your future fit onto the backdrop of so much trauma?  And yet, all these things are vital for our teenagers now, they are big things for them, the world is right before them staring them down like a blizzard choking out the wind.

So I realized one thing this weekend.  One of the reasons I am so loving everything, well almost everything, about having teenagers, is that I missed some of it.  Life is so fun and full and anxiety- enducing and open to opportunities, and I want for mine to embrace each one!  To not have to grow up quite yet.  Even though Erin was always older and wiser than her age, she can stay young and play for awhile longer.  And it's her life to live, so I'll try to watch and enjoy it through her, and keep my controlling tendencies to the side.  And my heart aches for girls who don't have a Dad who walks through the threshold of their front door for all of high school, emotionally or physically. At least I know my Dad wanted to, but what about those Dads who don't even know what they are missing?  The beauty they aren't seeing in their own ones.  I want to see each irresistible drop of that!!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Legoman Chess

I got my brain severely challenged in this game of chess... read.... I totally lost.  I think mostly it was because I couldn't remember who was who, and which guy moved like a bishop,  which one was the rook.  The pawns, King (Darth Vader) and Queen I could keep straight.  Seems he has a better grasp of each of the characters and where he put them.  He wanted to introduce some "new" moves for players, but I said I'd quit if that happened.   I call for a re-match!

Monday, March 7, 2011

A few more amazing Gifts

I've been deliquent in my gratitude and list of thankfulness.  On paper anyways..

251. safe driving in a freak Coquihalla blizzard
252. new connections with new parents
253. big, pretty, white snow flakes, I'm trying to be thankful for them in MARCH!
254.  the upswing of health for all
255. a clean kitchen floor
256. Darwin's Black Box and the interesting quotes KD keeps reading me, oh the intricacies of life, structure of the cell, and protein biochemistry, the obvious glory of an Amazing Biochemist.  Did you know that antibodies that react to an antigen in the human body actually continually revise themselves to work better and better the longer the infection remains in the human body?  The details of a flagellum- a marvel to an engineer's mind who works on mechanical functionalities all day.
257. almost done with organizing soccer tryouts
258. the sliver of moon and the crispness of its edges
259.  Mom in laws who come to visit
260. blonde haired, blue eyed babies in line at Costco
261. Ikea cinnamon buns

Sunday, March 6, 2011

4th Place

I watched 14 sets of volleyball this weekend from a hard seat.  My butt is killing, but to find something I am thankful for in that, it's my extra padding and the fact that I don't have to watch either of my kids play hockey in a cold arena!  Our team was ranked 14th going into the weekend, and came out 4th place out of 34 teams.  That is a shocking victory!  And well deserved. We ended up matched against the Kelowna "A team" after the round robin, which is too bad, except we creamed them 25-14 in the first set, and 25-22 in the 2nd.  Who says we're the "B" team. That was the sweet victory, there's some pretty healthy competition between the 2 teams.  We were down 2 strong players with sickness and injury, so the girls died in the bronze medal match at the end of day 2.  So forgive me if I go a little crazy on the video clips for the Grammas (and KK) OK maybe for myself.  Erin is #7, middle blocker, here's a sweet block and dainty little tip.

The first one our team is on the far side, the 2nd one, on this side of the net.  They have the same uniforms, go figure. Kelowna vs. Kelowna

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Chaos... Kaos and Protein Shakes

The week was chaos.  Thursday I was home for 45 minutes between work and running soccer tryouts, which were every night this week.  Trying to slow down and talk with palliative clients, not cough on them, while my mind was racing in a million other directions. We drove to Burnaby yesterday afternoon with the volleyball team - Kelowna Kaos, had the most amazing sushi dinner box in Chilliwack, if you're ever passing through - amazing, best I've had, definitely you need to SHARE it.  One of the girls Dad's is some sort of karate master and whipped up protein, vitamin shakes for them all for breakfast. 
So I'll be sitting in a gym and cheering all day.  I'll keep you posted!!  Looking forward to some down time later, reading this and this.  I find it a little strange staying in a hotel room alone.  My boys aren't here and the girls are all staying together giggling and overflowing the hot tub.