My hero

http://www.digitalfieldguide.com/blog/473

Just had to share this photo blog......what a talent. Just beautiful beautiful photography of natures best.....

Breathtaking.....

click on the links by the picture titles to go backwards or forwards through this photographers portfolio.

I have so much to learn.......

As dead as a.........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5113372.stm

You know, I had no idea that dodo's became extinct quite so recently...I thought they had died out thousands of years ago...not a mere few hundred.....I know quite a few Mauritian men....could explain the death of the dodo...maybe they died from boredom or committed suicide because they couldn't face living with Mauritian men any longer........lol I know it's not good to generalise but having lived with several of them during my student nurse days I can honestly say 'they are all the same' lol!!

Some sites about extinction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct

http://www.nature.ca/NOTEBOOKS/ENGLISH/enexpg.htm

I hope we make it down to Drumheller next week to see the dinosaur stuff there. I wonder if we could get tickets to the Passion play down that way too......

The way we live.......

The below is from an email in a yahoo group I belong to. Its really nice to hear that others feel the same as me about children and how childhoods should be:



> When we were home during the school year, we played outside from after
> school till before bedtime in the warmer months, running the neighborhood
> ,playing hide and go seek, and kick the can. I don't remember having
> homework until 5th grade and then it wasn't much, not like kids have now.
>
> I have fond memories of those parts of my childhood and I do think about the
> differences between my childhood and most children's childhood. I am trying
> to replicate the good parts and skip the bad. :)

My childhood was alot like this too. There were a TON of kids on the
street, and we all played together happily. My mom was friends with the
mom of the kids next door. In summer and on weekends, all the kids were
outside playing before the parents even woke up. We stayed outside
until "the streetlights came on"...and played lots of large group
games, many of which we made up (or thought we made up), like "Guns" in
which all the kids were split into two even teams, and we'd hide in the
neighborhood (usually a span of about six houses, on one side of the
street only) and we'd try to shoot the kids on the opposing team. Once
they were shot (by saying "Andy i've shot you" when he's in sight),
they join that team, and the game goes on until everyone is found. Or
"Flashlight Tag" which was just like "Guns" only with flashlights at
night. Or we'd play baseball in the street.

We never left our street, and we rarely played in each other's homes.
Our next door neighbors had "the good yard" meaning they had a sandbox,
and a fort/treehouse thing built inside their garage, and their mom
didnt care if we ran all over the yard. So we spent alot of time there.


Today, there are only a couple of kids on my mom's street, and they
won't play with my son. Kids are generally in school all day, and have
hours of homework when they come home. Kids also have tons of classes
after school, like gymnastics, or martial arts, or dance class. I think
what we had more of was TIME. Time to sit around with our friends and
draw comic books, or come up with new games, or figure out a way to
climb up on the garage without getting caught. School kids today don't
have that kind of time, their lives are scheduled from the time they
wake up until bedtime, and even in summer.


K

When we were in Scotland, my childrens school sent home a questionaire about homework and school......my own thoughts weren't listed as choices so I wrote a letter and atcahed it to the questionaire explaining that I felt the school day was quite long enough and that children should not be given homework.

I don't put my children into many activities - after school hours or in school hours...I want them to have endless time to play, to be bored....to imagine, to dream....to just 'be'. There are very few people like me though these days....most parents just seem to push their kids into football or hockey or gym or soccer...with practices and matches several times a week..music lessons, art lessons, languages, swimming lessons.......it's non-stop go go go! I just don't think this is good for a child let alone a family.

But what really gets me is that I have friends who will say 'we didn't put the kids into any activities last summer and we all agreed that it was so nice - we had time to do things, to relax, to be together.....' so what do they do this year???? They sign up for two sports a piece that practice three times a week.....what for??????

So anyway...the discussion on this yahoo group is very interesting and it's good to know there are some sensible parents out there still!

Fun with Dick and Jane

What a great movie....simple and funny.....easy to watch when you arer tired.......and a feel-good ending too :)

First weekend of summer

Saturday. Typically our errand day...our 'running around' day. We had a lazy morning and then took the kids in to Smittys for brunch. We ran to Walmart for some gifts for the twins - chose two hockey sticks and some street hockey pucks for them as Laurie says they love to play hockey but have to use golf clubs to play! So they should like those. I bought some shorts as its going to be hot this week....and we bought new shoes for Laurie and Sam......and the girls got to pick a toy each so Abby chose a jigsaw and Susie chose a lockable diary. Sam had a Winnie the pooh ball to add to his collection....

We dropped Laurie at the bowling alley, drove over to A's to collect Chris from his sleepover.....then we headed to some RV places to see what they had available....every year around this time we think about buying a trailer...a 5th wheel to be exact......last year we found one we liked but it was too long to fit on our driveway so we decided to look for an acreage first - somewhere we can park the trailer...so we found this house and forgot about the trailer for the year...so summer is here and Lloyd has the week off next week...we'd like to go to Drumheller with the kids or to a lake somewhere but finding accommodation at short notice for 7 of is isn't easy...we don't want to split into two rooms or two cabins.....so we ended up talking about our accommodation issues again which lead us back to considering a trailer again.....which leads us back to the ONLY trailer Lloyd will consider...a Glendale Titanium 36E41:

http://www.glendalerv.com/2006/Titanium/36e41.html

It sleeps 10 and has two bathrooms......It has 3 bedrooms (the double and two bedrooms with a bunk in each).

So we headed back to the dealer and they are trying to find if they have one 'ready to go' at the factory in Ontario or whether we would have to wait 3 months or 6 weeks (it varies) so we will see what they say as to whether we go ahead......it definitely wouldn't be ready for next week so Lloyd is going to try and find something in Drumheller still that can accommodate 7 together...... we also have to trade in my truck for an F350 with the extra seatbelt in the back to make it a 7 seater. Lots to think about......and we will probably change our mind a hundred times and still not get it....but we have our trip in January to fall back on...the trip the kids don't know about yet....woohoo :)

After looking around the trailers we headed home and plan to have a lazy evening at home.....we may see if C and R want to drop by for a few hours tonight......or D and L.......maybe work our way through the last of the alcohol in the fridge ;) we have hot dogs for supper which we plan to cook outside over the firebowl......we'll go for a walk later with the dogs too...they are happier walking when its cooler.

Abigail wants a 'beach party' so maybe we will refill the pool and get the towels out and she can wear Susies grass skirt from the party last week. I emptied the pool earlier as Lloyd had caught three frogs and they put them in the pool to watch for a while......we added some rocks for them......but we put them back in the pond afterwards so I wnated to clean the pool out before we use it again. Susie wants to play barbies on the trampoline.....i'll let them figure it out for themselves...Chris is playing on the computer - tired from his sleepover.