Joshua Says . . .

At a weekend birthday party:

Joshua - "Can you make me another sandwich, please? I'm still hungry."

Me - "Are you sure? Cake is going to be served soon."

Joshua - "Yep. A hockey player's gotta eat, you know."

Back to school

Today is the day! Joshua and Katerina start Grade 3 and Isabella is starting Grade 1. She's a big kid now!

Summer ballet wrap-up

The girls had their summer recital and it was a blast! Isabella was in girly glory because her costume had a tutu.



Katerina had two performances, jazz and ballet. This was her first time taking a jazz class and she loved it. I only have a picture of her jazz costume, though.




She liked jazz so much she wanted to take a jazz class. Unfortunately, her school only offers the classes on the weekends, which conflict with hockey. However, I was able to find some classes that fit in our schedule at another school. She will be taking a jazz class (no performance) and a lyrical class (performance).

With the addition of these classes, she will be dancing almost 3 hours per week. Plus, Isabella and Katerina had auditioned and been accepted to dance in the Edmonton Festival Ballet company. They put on a Christmas show every year for the public. The production is "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and they will rehearse 1 hour per week from the middle of September to the end of November. The show will run December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. So, for a couple of months, Katerina will be dancing 4 hours per week. She really wants to do this, though.

All three kids are in their final week of day camp at the YMCA, this week. They are having an enormous amount of fun this summer and that's what makes it all worth it. The next two weeks, the twins will have hockey skills camp, 1.5 hours per day, but the rest of the time they will have a bit of down time before school starts (September 2).

Busy, busy, busy

These past few weeks have been so busy. The kids have some specialty camps and I have been consumed with them. A couple of weeks ago, the twins were at the Edmonton Oilers Hockey School. My, but they had fun!

At 8:30 am, I dropped Isabella off at the YMCA for her day camp, then I drove out to St. Albert (about 40 minutes, one way) to the hockey school. It started at 9:45 am. After settling the twins in for the day, I went home and did my errands. Then, I picked Isabella up at 4:30 pm and went back out to St. Albert for the twins. Their wrap-up time was 5:45 pm. By the time we got home, it was close to 7 pm.

They had a blast, though. They were on the ice twice a day, and they lived and breathed hockey for 7 days. Their coaches were players from the University league and from the Oil Kings. Two Oilers came by on two separate days and signed autographs and jerseys. The Oilers that visited them were Steve McIntyre and Zack Stortini. Here's a picture of Joshua and Stortini:



After that wrapped up, the girls went into the summer ballet program. They are still in it with the wrap up performance on Saturday. I drop Joshua off at the YMCA day camp at 8:00 am and then head over to the ballet school. Isabella has 1 1/4 hours of ballet, and Katerina has 3 1/2 hours of ballet and jazz. By the time we get home, it is almost 1:30 pm. Then, we pick up Joshua at 4:30 pm.

Next week is the last week of day camps at the YMCA, and then they will start back to school on September 2nd. They have had a great summer so far and they have already told me they want to do the same again next year. LOL

Sync'ing my Blackberry with Thunderbird

I know there are others out there like me that curse and forswear using MS Outlook. I have used Thunderbird since it was still part of the old Netscape Navigator, however it doesn't sync with my blackberry. As much as I dislike my keyboard on my BB Pearl, I love having a blackberry. But, the lack of sync'ing with my computer made me determined to find a work around.

A few months ago, I managed to find how to sync my BB Calendar. I installed an add-on to my Thunderbird called Lightning. Lightning is the the add-on version of the Mozilla Sunbird calendar. Then, I set up a Google Calendar. I installed an add-on to Thunderbird, called Provider for Google Calendar, that would sync Lightning and Google. Lastly, I installed a Google mobile application on my blackberry from Google that would sync the Google Calendar to the blackberry one.

Lightning --> Google --> Blackberry

For the Blackberry Contacts and Tasks to sync with Thunderbird's Contacts and Tasks, I use a free program called Funambol. I registered with them and put in my Blackberry information. Then, I installed an add-on to Thunderbird that created a sync with Funambol.

Thunderbird --> Funambol --> Blackberry

Unfortunately, I have not discovered a sync for Blackberry's MemoPad. In it's place, I use a program called Upvise on my blackberry. It has a nice note feature as well as a Shopping list feature. It will sync with its website so I just created a quicklink on my desktop to the website.

A day of rugby

We had a wonderful day today. It started out this morning with the kids playing their regular game. However, the World Cup made an appearance and all the teams had their pictures taken with it. I managed to get a picture of it, too.



After the kids' games in the morning, we went home for a quick lunch before heading off to the "big game." This was the Canada vs. USA World Cup qualifier, game 2. Game one was held last weekend in North Carolina and Canada lost 12-6. Canada needed to win this game with a minimum of 7 points over USA today to qualify for the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand. They not only won today, they were great! The final score today was 41-18!

The whole family had a fantastic time. The weather was perfect and the crowds were really good.

During half-time, the kids' teams entertained the crowds with a little bit of their kind of rugby. The older kids were at the ends of the field but our crew were right in the middle. The footage is a bit shaky as I was in a really awkward position during filming and I was zoomed in as far as I could.

The first video is of Isabella's group of 4 & 5 year olds. The 2nd and 3rd videos are of the 6 & 7 year olds. In the second video, Joshua is kicking in the ball. In the third video, Katerina is kicking the ball.








Here are some pictures from the day:













James Pritchard


Justin Mensah-Coker


Chauncey O'Toole

Short hair

The girls got their hair cut short today. Katerina's hair was long enough that she was able to donate her hair to Locks of Love.




Isabella's hair was straightened with a flat iron so it could be cut properly. I've never seen my baby with straight hair before!