Tomas' Christmas Card

I bid all 3 of my readers a Happy New Year!

New Years Eve was awesome - we had a fondue fondue fondue... meat, cheese, chocolate. It was Five-Star delicious.

We used to have fondues when I was a child and then we got away from it .... which is what every single person said to me at the gym yesterday. They all went "OH ya, fondues. I loved fondues. We used to fondue when I was a kid but I haven't in years."

Well, let me tell ya - I am a trendsetter (this was our 2nd year for a fondue). Read this article and you'll learn that the Fondue is making a Comeback. Oh ya, baby!

But I digress, the reason I wanted to write this blog today was to tell you about the Christmas Card I found when I was cleaning the house today.

Tomas made this card at school and inside he says:

Merry Christmas

Christmas is haveing (sic) fun fun in the snow. Christmas is putting reindeer food out for Rudolph. Christmas is when the NHL playoffs are close.

Tomas

I'm back....

Yes, I'm back and I bring you....

Parent Night at Hockey



Tomas is in a red Team Canada jersey
Toria is the thing in pink.
.... and yes, I am The Mom out there.

Fun run.

The Thrifty Foods family fun run was held in conjunction the TEN THOUSAND person 10Km run... The 400 kids ran 1.5km (with parents chasing them) . [They were on their own course but crossed the finish line in association with the 10km runners.]

In sequence - here are the photos of the run...

BEFORE... All smiles!


They ran too fast to take pictures during the race but here they are after they crossed the finish line...



After a few glasses of water, an apple, and a yogourt - check out the smiles NOW.


Alas, at the end of the day - we must wash the butterfly face painting off and it makes us very very sad.


Can't wait for next year's race...

Field Trips & 1-year

On Monday I accompanied Toria's class to Swan Lake for a field trip.


On Tuesday, I accompanied Tomas' Class to Butchart Gardens (and what a bunch of posers- Everytime they saw a nice grouping of flowers, or a fancy rock, or a view, or a totem pole, or a fountain, or whatever - they'd all run in front of it and go "Cheese". Do you think they're a digital camera generation???)



On Wednesday I did taxes
then on Thursday the Beavers built Birdhouses!



On Friday I attended a planning meeting for an event I'm involved with but only TWO people out of an expected TEN bothered to show up. Not even the 2 'leaders' were there. Well, phooey on them.

And finally on Saturday - it was the 1-year anniversary of Tomas' diagnoses with Type 1 diabetes. This time a year ago - I wasn't sure how to get through a day let alone a week or a year but with Tomas by my side - we've done great.... He's an awesome kid andI'm very proud of him and how he handles everything.

Nice try Tomas

Scenario: Earth Week and the school has told the kids they're not supposed to watch TV or play video games for the ENTIRE WEEK! (Clearly whoever suggested this did not have kids and a mud puddle for a yard but I digress...)

Tomas: "Can I please watch the hockey game tonight."

Mom: "You know the rules. No TV."
(Never mind that it was a 7pm start time so I was figuring I could watch the third period myself from 9 - 10 because the kids would be fast asleep but gimme a break - No TV for earth week wasn't my bright idea!)

Tomas: "Please. I'll do an extra 30 minutes of printing practice".

Mom: "WHAT?" (30 minutes of printing !!! - This is FANTASTIC!)
Mom: "OK, you can watch ONE period"

Tomas (without blinking an eye): "OK, I'll watch the third period".

Seeking Treasures...

Indiana Tomas and Indy Toria seek treasure in the forest...

Indiana Tomas (complete with ball cap and shades) searches his surrondings looking for trip wires and hidden treasures

Treasure:

1 metal garbage can lid

3 rings from rotted barrel

1 section of downspout

1 broken fire grate

1 loafer (shoe)

1 plastic l'il tikes screw (not ours!)

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Toria does training for her role as Indy Toria by rock climbing... they couldn't find a harness small enough to fit her...

Go Toria!

Tomas Tomas Super Tomas

Like father. Like Son. Tomas got a new bike - a MULTI-SPEED Kona and decided he HAD to ride it home from the bike shop.... in the POURING sideways pelting rain. This picture does not do him justice. He was one wet, muddy mess! But what fun.


Tomas is in the best Beavers ever. They just finished learning about hot air balloons and the science behind them then they built their own hot air balloons (Tomas played with his outside for nearly 2 hours!). Next weekend the Beavers are going to the airport to tour a plane and meet a pilot. The following week their sailing to Sidney Spit for a picnic and the list goes on. And most importantly, he loves it.


How does one get the mud out of the jeans? He has been sliding down the mud hill. LOOK at his pants... and that is only the front - you can't imagine the back!
Though he told me it was my fault because we don't have snow where we live he has to play in the mud.


And because he is a boy - this is Tomas at Toria's T-Ball game! Ha ha ha.

Spring Break in pictures.

Photos worth sharing

Toria gives her teacher, 'the look', prior to beginning her Science Experiment. Toria demonstrated how an electric current worked by using a battery and electrical cables to run a fan and a light bulb.


Professor Toria responds to questions.


Did you know that Tomas got a hockey trophy?

What a smile! The next NHL All-star.

My son, the Rocket Scientist

Tomas has received his report card and I am proud to say that he is doing awesome!

Tomas' teacher says that he enjoys his friendships and is continuing to work hard in class. He shows self-confidence in Math as he is always raising his hand enthusiastically, to answer questions. (In fact, she verbally told me that he doesn't understand why the other kids can't figure out the answer - to him it is so simple.)

Tomas fully meets expectations of his grade level in Reading (He's up a whopping 16 levels since the beginning of the school year!). He fully meets expectations in the areas covered this term in Math. He selects and applies the appropriate processes to solve simple problems (using 'regrouping' when adding and subtracting double digit numbers.
....
He often omits punctuation and capital letters, or uses capital letters inconsistently. (I laughed when I read this - the fact that Tomas is putting pencil to paper and printing is a huge step for him! I figure if he chooses not to become a rocket scientist but rather a writer ... his editor can figure the details out for him.)

And I learned from the other parents that they study the spelling words each and every night (the kids do a pre-test at school on Monday then bring the words home to study for the actual test on the Friday). Tomas will not practice the words by printing them but he usually spells them out loud on Thursday night. I tried to get him to do (i.e. bribe) the 5 'challenge' words each week (outside the requirements) but he figures he might actually have to study for those so alas, I've had no luck so far. Oh ya, did I mention that the only grades he has gotten on the pre-tests ALL YEAR is either a 9/10 or 10/10.

Tomas' teacher ended her comments with Way to go, Tomas!

Indeed Tomas - Way to go!

Brave Ones

Toria was at her friend S's house when S wound up to throw a ball for the family dog to chase. Unfortunately she threw the ball directly into Toria's cheek. Hard.

S started to cry because she felt bad but Toria was a brave girl and told her friend that it was OK.

S's mom said to Toria "Toria, you are a brave girl. That must've hurt."

Toria responded "Yes, I am brave but my brother is even braver. He gets 3 or 4 needles a day and then he gets lots and lots of finger pokes. He has diabetes and he is really brave."

The mom said "Wow, it sounds like you're both very brave."

Toria added "And sometimes my brother has to get needles in his cheeks. (points to her smiling cheeks) And not these kinda cheeks!!"

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I love those brave kids!

Boys Weekend Away, Girls Party On.

We booted those boys OFF THE ISLAND and over to Vancouver for this past Saturday night. Tomas was the only white-tail Beaver (almost a Cub) that went with the big-kid Cubs to the Planetarium, Bird-Watching and spent the night at Science World (for anyone who went to Expo 86 - it is in the big silver round ball).

This was a well-planned out event as all events are that are planned by men. Yes, it was lights out at midnight but with 400 boys aged 7 - 10 year-old it wasn't actually quiet enough to sleep until 1:00am. Then of course, Science World must get the troops up and out quickly in the morning so they can open to the general public. Yes,wakey wakey was at 6:00 am. Oh ya, and there was a time change. They slept for FOUR HOURS. How do you spell C H E E R Y?

In all seriousness, Tomas had an absolute blast and can't wait to be a full-fledged cub. Tomas is in the bright orange jacket!


With GM Place (go Vancouver Canucks GO) and BC Place (boo to the BC Lions, Go Roughriders Go Roughriders) in the background. (Tomas is on the grounds of Science World)

Science World is in the background - look at that face!


Feeding the ducks at the Bird Sanctuary on Sunday morning. One of the things about getting up at 6:00am is that you can feed the birds by 8:00. Tomas had so much fun that he had Todd buy him an extra bag of bird feed!


I'd love to show you pictures of what us girls did but (a) we didn't have the camera and (b) we had too much fun polishing our nails, doing our hair, and watching princess movies!

Spring is in the air...

I present the final results of the

32nd Annual Victoria Flower Count:

2,437,696,512

Now, before you go "Oh wow" I'll let you into a little secret. Here's the scoring chart:
Small tree full of blossoms : 250,000 blossoms
Medium tree full of blossoms: 500,000
Large tree full of blossoms: 750,000
Small Heather bush: 500
Medium Heather bush: 1,000
Large Heather bush: 2,000
... oh ya, and some trees may be counted once, twice, or 300 times.

However, this years total pales in comparison to last year: 3,364,658,680
Or the record-shattering year of 2002: 8,521,514,876

But I don't post this news because I want to gloat. (Me. Gloat. Never.) Although Jack Knox, a local columnist for the newspaper, wrote a great bit on the Flower count that I recommend every Easterner read: Smell 'em and weep, Toronto

No, the reason that I post this is because TOMAS' CLASS counted:

526,005,399 blooms

and won a trip on a luxury coach bus-ride to Butchart Gardens for a guided tour.

Tomas' teacher told me that he did an excellent job of adding the numbers of blooms for the class... Who knew all the carb. counting for diabetes would come in handy?

Congratulations Tomas!

Jack at the Academy Awards

I was watching the Academy Awards tonight but had to dash to the kitchen to make (gasp) supper. I said to the kids (who stayed to watch the Awards) "If you see Jack Nicholson let me know. I really want to see him. You'll know who he is because he always wears sunglasses".

This must have been a cool thought because...

30 seconds later (as I'm standing facing the wall with my hands in the kitchen sink) there is a deep throat clearing behind me. I turn around and see - JACK!

DUDE.

Kids kids kids...

[Background: The capital of the Province of Manitoba is a city called Winnipeg (pronounced Wi-na-peg)].

Driving home from swimming lessons - totally out of the blue...

Tomas "Do you know that in the city of Winnipeg you can Win a Pig?"
Me "No, I didn't know that and by the way, it is pronounced WinniPEG".

Tomas "No, it's PIG and if we go there we can Win a Pig, Mom! Really. True story!"
Me "Tomas, I lived in Winnipeg for 2 years and I never won a pig. And seriously it is pronounced WinniPEG."

At this point we are all laughing so hard at the absurdity of our conversation we're having a hard time continuing the conversation.

Tomas "Mom, I guess you never won a Pig there because you pronounced Winnapig wrong."
Me "Tomas, for love or money, you are cracking me up - but I kid you not - it is pronounced WinniPEG. Oh and furthermore - your father was born there."


Tomas "Oh cool, I wonder if he ever won a Pig."

*****
And so to Todd (father of my children), my in-laws and many friends who live in Winnipeg - why is it called Winnipeg and have you ever won a Peg? Err, dare I ask, a Pig?

POST UPDATE: The name Winnipeg is a transcription of a western Cree word meaning "muddy waters".

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And because Toria doesn't want to be left out of the silliness - she wants me to tell everyone that she has learned to swallow air and burp loud obnoxious burps on cue. Oh joy. I'm so proud!

The boy loves hockey

DISCLAIMER: Tomas wants everyone to know that he is only wearing his spiderman pj's because both pairs of his NHL pj's are in the laundry.

A straight-on shot!


A deke!


A save!

The champion!

North South East West

Tomas to his dad: "Next Christmas I'm going to ask Santa for a trip to Paris so I can see the Great Wall of China."

Huh? (OK, so maybe geography needs a little bit of work but I'll take either destination! PLEASE SANTA! And then Toria had to get her 2 cents in...)

Toria to Tomas: "Tomas, ya know how Santa brings presents, maybe the Easter Bunny does too and you can just ask him for the trip!"

Odds 'n Ends

HAPPY NEW YEAR
- from our family to yours!

(Many Thanks to Uncle G. & Aunt N for the gift certificate to the Keg. Todd & I were planning to use it alone but we ended up visiting Granville Island in Vancouver and they have the great Keg right in the middle- so we used it as a family and had a fantastic time!)

In other news,

On the Christmas blog I forgot to show this classic Christmas picture: Tomas writing the letter to Santa (& Toria supervising)! This is the first year Tomas been able to read/print well enough to write it on his own. They left cookies and milk for Santa and oatmeal, sprinkles, and coconut for the reindeer!... and to write the letter he had to use a red pen, of course! Too cute.

Now - it is time for a science lesson. You've always heard that we lose 80% of our heat through our heads and through the seams on clothes but did you really know???

Well, we went to the Telus World of Science in Vancouver and they have this infra-red camera that shows heat! Way cool! In the first picture Todd is in the middle and he's wearing a big puffy vest. If you look closely you can see the seams on his vest (forming rectangles). The seams show up as hot red lines indicating that is exactly where the heat loss is! On the 2nd photo - he opened up his vest and he's one hot dude!

And finally, Tomas is watching the history channel, Toria is cutting up more Christmas wrapping ribbon decoration and taping them to her bed spread so she can have a bed spread with fringe. Yep, it is a normal relaxing-only-4-more-days-until-school-starts-day in our house.

Christmas excitement!

Wow-Wii. Tomas must've been REALLY GOOD this year.

Toria loves it all!

How much fun we did have this year! The kids are great.