It's hard to believe that the winter is over and we are in the middle of Spring, I mean its almost the middle of May and school will be out before you know it, what time warp were we trapped in oh yeah we have kids....
Billy and his class just finished their final field trip as third graders, to Bathurst Glen a Toronto Conservation Authority area of around 200 acres of wetlands, woods and old abandoned cottages.
The kids had planted aquatic plant seedlings in the classroom earlier in the Spring and the trip was to put them into the environment for which they were made. The bus ride was super long and the kids were more than ready to spend the day outside. Fortunately for us it was a super sunny and warm day as this event is a rain or shine kind of thing, we were planting aquatic plants after all.
The TCA staff was ready and had several stations set up for the kids to learn about planting, indigenous plants and animals, as well as tips for going green around the house. I have attended several of the learning type of field trips where the instructor spend most of their talked arming the kids with information they need to take home and tell their parents, insinuation that us parents are the problem, when in reality it is not the case! In any case, one of the tips that was sent home from this event was that you should never ever wash your vehicles at home. That is because all that soap goes down the driveway into the storm sewers and into the local river and then into the lake. Never mind that there is soap available that is biodegradable and made just for this purpose, go to the car wash. One of the kids (who will remain nameless) ask " what if we cant go to the car wash?" The solution: drive your vehicle onto your grass so that the grass will absorb the soap and salt and road grime from your vehicle, see what I'm saying!
Billy and the third graders had a great time, planted their plants, had an awesome picnic lunch with the sunshine and beautiful weather, nice warm breeze and it all came to an abrupt end when one of the boy's yelled " Hey look a snake......
Kay (once again) stepped onto the gymnastics floor and rocked the tournament. She is so focused and determined that a bomb could go off and she wouldn't even know it. School starts everyday at 8:45 and it is a fight to get her out the door on time, gymnastics starts at 7:30 and the meets are usually a half hour or so from the house and she is up and feed and ready to go without batting an eye!
She is continuing to impress and is moving ever so close to hitting a perfect 10.
In this past meet, which lasted forever, she again is the only 10 year old from her academy that is a level 3 so she usually is in the meet by herself, she hit a 9.65 on her floor routine. The bars she has been doing great on as well and scored a 9.55. The beam, which she is usually very confident on she wobbled a bit on her back walk over and score a 9.25. The vault which continues to be her nemesis she scored an 8.8, to which Kay commented, that's my best score yet!
This meet had 3 separate groups of level 3 10 years and a total of about 30 kids. Kay again won 1st overall for her group and she was 1st overall out of all the kids by quite a margin, she posted a 37.3 and there was none else even in the 30's. So three down and 2 more to go.....
If that wasnt enough to wear her out, she also planned a spa day for her and Tracy in her bedroom. 2 types of facials (chocolate, cornstarch and honey mixtures), 2 body scrubs (salt and food coloring spread around the house) a foot bath and I got my hair done. She is a busy busy lady and very creative. It was really fun to have girl time with her - its the clean up afterwards that wore Tracy out:).
Jimmy has just completed what he is calling his 'first' Pro-Bowl. There is a group here called the Ontario Prospect Challenge. There are two teams that are formed from the top 100 kids in central and western Toronto. The purpose behind this event is for the older kids, going into high school and college, to have a venue where the recruiters from the different area schools can come and watch the top kids play and then attempt to recruit them. That is Ok for that age level but the grade 7 kids are no where near being recruited and where sort of added to the mix because, "Hey, since we are getting the parents to pay a ton of money for the older kids, let's take advantage of our captive audience and extract huge sums of money from the same parents for the younger siblings", just saying...
There are no kick offs, no blitzing and no double teaming allowed, Pro-Bowl type of format. The teams had the ability to start practicing in February, the opponents did, Jimmy's team did not. The Central team, which is the team Jimmy was on, had 2 full equipment practices for about 3 hours each and 1 2 hour helmet only walk through. The game was 4, 12 minute quarters, and the Central team had 2 calls against them in the first quarter alone for to many players on the field, which I must point out the first job of the coach is to make sure there are the correct amount of players on the field, out coached to say the least.
The bottom line is, Jimmy made the team, had fun and got to play in a University stadium and see himself on the giant Jumbotron, so all good from that perspective. The final score was 37 to 18 with Central on the loosing end. After the game Jimmy commented ' Well know I know what it must be like playing in the Pro-Bowl and I'm not doing this again", When Tracy asked Jimmy about them game his comment was " We played like a team that only had 3 practices" more to come......
It is referred to in the hood only as " The GRAD" it is only one name like Madonna, Sting or FIFA, same caliber, depending on ones perspective. I mean graduating from 5th Grade, just saying.
The 2 Valedictorians who were chosen by a panel of teachers based on many difficult criteria, then delivered what can only be called ' The Valedictorian Speech"
