A Winning Weekend

Memorial Day weekend turned out to be a GREAT weekend for our family!  We traveled to Gloucester, Ontario so Scott could compete in his first BBQ Competition.  Tyler eagerly agreed to serve as assistant cook.  Together they would prepare four meats:  chicken, ribs, brisket and pork shoulder.  They began cooking around 8 p.m. on Friday night . . . and their biggest obstacle ended up being the weather.  It rained throughout the night!

Scott and Tyler's cook site . . . inside are two tables, some coolers, and lots of cooking utensils.
The smokers were placed behind the tent.  Scott & Tyler slept in Scott's truck.

Jennifer, Hannah and Alex showed up Saturday morning around 11 a.m.  Food turn-ins began at noon.  Chicken had to be turned in at 12 p.m., ribs at 12:30 p.m., pork shoulder at 1 p.m. and brisket at 1:30 p.m.  As you can imagine, balancing cooking times was a HUGE challenge!

Scott's Brisket

Once all the food was turned in, it was time to WAIT and WAIT and WAIT for the results.  Since the BBQ competition was held at a small-town fair, everyone found ways to keep busy.  The kids enjoyed the carnival rides and monster truck ride.

Jennifer enjoyed taking photos of the fair.

Around 6 p.m., they finally announced the winners.  We were pretty excited to learn that Scott won 2nd place for his brisket!  He got a cool trophy and a check for $500!

So, the weekend was a success on all accounts!  We continue to be blessed as a family to have opportunities to spend time together, explore new places and have exciting adventures!

Yeah! The Ballet Photos are Good!

I have a poor track record with school photos, church photos, ballet photos . . . basically any photo that I am not personally there to supervise.  (Yes, I have control issues).  I have to say though, I am 100% satisfied with Hannah's ballet photos.  No complaints.  Nada.

An Evening at the Ballet

Ballet Pointe Shoes:  $70
Ticket to the Bayview School of Ballet's 2011 Gala:  $34
Flowers for Hannah after the show:  $5
Ballet Lessons:  I don't really even want to calculate this figure.

Getting to see my daughter dance for five minutes in a theatre full of people:  PRICELESS

Below is a poorly shot video of Hannah's dance.  Videography was prohibited (so we would all pay $50 for the DVD) so everyone in the theatre was forced to take videos with camera phones and flip cameras (everyone seems to justify the "no videography" rule by pretending that it only applies to full-fledged video recorders).  Hannah is the girl at the front stage right . . . or if you are looking at the computer, she is the girl at the very front to the very left of the computer screen.  At the end of the dance, her class goes to the back row while the rest of the ballet studio comes out for bows, etc.

Ballet Girl

Confession:  I think my daughter is absolutely beautiful.

You Are My Sunshine

So . . . Alex is about four months into his guitar lessons and he FINALLY agreed to let me take a video of him playing a song (You Are My Sunshine).  He is proud of his guitar skills . . . he told me awhile back that when he is a "famous guitarist" that he will "play one country song for his mom and the rest of his songs will be rock n' roll."  We will probably need a few more lessons . . .

Happy Mother's Day!

I am extremely blessed to get to live in this city

with these people!



Time Capsule

We decided to unpack another box today . . . a box that has been in storage since 2002.  My children were amazed by several items.  Alex was blown away by some 35 mm negatives.  He was convinced that they were from an "old-time movie".  Tyler immediately started a history lesson that began, "Back in the olden days, people did not have digital cameras . . . "  The box also contained about 30 computer disks - the hard square ones.  The kids were all three confused by them.  We spent the better part of 30 minutes destroying them just in case they held "sensitive information" (as if anyone still has a computer that could read them).  We then spent about 45 minutes shredding the carbon copies of every check that I wrote between 1998 and 2000.  Why I saved these is beyond me.  My kids were surprised that I used to write so many checks since the ONLY time I write checks now is when I owe money to their school.  The box contained two treasures . . . one is a picture of me with my mom and sisters.  I look so much like my sister Michelle in this picture that my kids were convinced that it was a picture of her.  The second was a wooden shadow box that used to hold my little figurines, snow globes, etc.  Hannah is using it to build a library for her American Girl dolls.

Hannah's 11th birthday

Is it weird to be sad that it is Hannah's birthday?  She keeps getting older and I'm not ready to give up princessess, dolls or fairy tales yet.  I know there will be new adventures ahead but I'm kind of partial to the old adventures.  I know I'm blessed.  She still is very much a "little girl" . . . for that I am very thankful.  But I can hear the clock ticking.  I know it won't be long before I wake up and find that I have a teenage girl living in my house.  For now though, it is still mostly Barbies and American Girl.  I hope it lasts for at least a little while . . .

I picked up Hannah from school at 3:30 for an early mom/daughter date at Pizza Hut.  We spent most of the dinner planning her Greek Mythology project for school.  We just finished watching a movie together.  Out of all the movies in the world, she chose Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure.  See!  She still is my little girl!

Why Now?

We joined the Foreign Service in 2002.  I didn't start a blog.  We lived in Kyiv, Ukraine from 2002 - 2004 and although, there were about a zillion and one things I could have written about, I did not start a blog.  Our next move took us to Manila, Philippines.  No blog.  We lived in Monterrey, Mexico from 2007 - 2010.  We survived the Swine Flu and the drug cartels.  Did I write about it?  No.  Last year, in August 2010, I moved to the exciting, exotic, dangerous city of . . . . Toronto, Canada.  And yes, now I have decided to begin a blog.  So basically I moved six times in ten years and don't have any "words" to show for it.  Photos?  YES!  About a zillion.  But no words.  So here is to a new start, a new hobby, a new attempt to document what it is that we do after the boxes are unpacked . . .