Karate Day Camp

Both Sabrina and Mathieu are in Karate Day Camp. All I can say is wow. They do a lot of sport and really enjoy themselves during the day. Really, really good.

What prompted me to put the kids in the camp was that at one point I saw Mathieu in the school's courtyard being picked for a fight by another kid. While the other boy was trying to pummel him Mathieu was able to block with obvious karate moves and he seemed to be in total control of the encounter. I did of course communicate with the school and heard after a few emails that the aggressor had a lot of "anger" in him that day. Whatever it was, Mathieu handled himself admirably during the encounter and it encouraged me to keep the karate going.

Hence the day camp. The kids are excelling in the sports and having a lot of fun in the process. Today they went to do some indoor climbing. Really cool camp.

Mathieu's medals and Sabrina's "diploma"

Mathieu is playing Hacky Sack with the camp monitor (brown belt) and another kid

Seeds....

I believe in planting seeds. Tonight, a seed that was planted years ago is sprouting.

End of School

What can I say except that the report cards are just out of this world for both Mathieu and Sabrina. 90s all over the place with a few 80s just to bring us back to Earth and direct where we're going to work on next. And except for one item always, always above the class average. So pride is definitely there.

Here are a few pictures that were done during the school year, not to be forgotten.

We're in the pool...

Saturday morning the pool had its own mini ecosystem at the bottom. This afternoon the salt was in, the pool was 98% clean and the kids were swimming while Suzanne and I enjoyed life in our backyard. That's how it goes.

And the parents...

Working on the pool, kids are outside and wine tasting with friends

Today we spent most of the day working around the house while the kids played with Léa and Daphné.

In the evening we were inventing for a dinner - wine tasting at their parent's place, Donna and Sylvain along with best friends Kim, Pascal and family. Here's a list of the excellent wines we had tonight:

Sylvain's meal was delicious, the wines were great (3-2-1-4), the conversations interesting and the ambiance perfect.

Even the kids had a great time. All in all a perfect day.

He finally did it

Tonight Mathieu read on his own before going to bed. I usually read him a few chapters from a book for about 30 minutes but I couldn't so he did, by himself. It's starting.

We took a walk tonight...

...and we saw the ISS. Really cool.

Not home for the first time ever

Sabrina went to a sleepover at school last night organized by the grade 4 teachers. She didn't want to go until yesterday because she was afraid, she had never slept out of the house before. I am so glad she did and I'm so proud of my little girl. It took a lot of courage to face her fears and do it. It was a once in a lifetime experience she'll never be able to do again. I can't wait to see how it went.

The house is empty without her.

Back on the Internet; Math competition

Mathieu asked if he could watch the technician reconnect us to the Net instead of going to bed. Always reward curiosity :) The gentleman was really nice, telling him in a very comprehensible way everything he was doing. Mathieu went to bed at 10:00pm, 2.5 hours pass his bedtime, but he went to bed a bit more knowledgeable.

We're back.

Sabrina participated in a math competition today. In her words it was very professional. They went in the gym and there were tables everywhere. She had to work hard to get it done but looking at the paper I find she did alright. Some of the questions were relatively hard. I took this from the school's FB page. Sabrina is right smack in the middle.

You know...

...when your son is asking you if he can switch class to English because his is too rowdy and he's not doing much in class, you got to ask yourself some questions.

Before Mathieu began pre-K, we started the procedures to see if we could make him skip a year and start kindergarten instead. We have to meet three times with a psychologist (at a cost for each) to determine whether he can or not. While we were told that most kids don't pass the first meeting (IQ testing), he passed with an IQ of 125+ (don't remember the exact number) and we were invited to the next one. He failed the second one because he couldn't hold a pair of scissors correctly (Sabrina still can't but that's another story). We could have continued, and I know he would have passed the next one because it involved physical activities but she told us that because of his fine-motor skills she would not recommend him to jump a grade.

So...

Now he's bored in a class that's not learning because of the troublemakers.

We listened to everyone with respect to having Mathieu jump a grade (he's 12 days too young) and everyone told us it was a monumental mistake.

I feel it was a mistake to listen to everyone and not push for him to jump a grade.

F for effort, A+ for thinking out of the box...

...when I ask Mathieu to pick up his Legos because we could step on them and break them. Instead of complying he just covered them... Clever boy.

 

He's still going to pick them up.

Of clothes design, home protection and St-Patty's Day Preparation

We decided it was time to protect the house so we built Henri to take care of googlies, then ...

Sabrina spent some time at Léa's place to do some haute couture...

and when the time came I celebrated the St-Patrick's day arrival with a Harp (in a Guiness mug, the horror) for we're all a little bit Irish on March 17th, and our family may have some of it in its DNA as well, though my mom think it may actually be Scottish...

it would make sense cause I look real damn hot in a kilt.

*%$#$*% Time Change

"only a government would think that cutting a foot off the top of a blanket and sewing it back onto the bottom of the same blanket makes the blanket longer"

There are still 24 hours in a day, and it will still be the same amount of daylight, whether it starts at 7:00am or at 6:00am. That's a scientific fact.

Sabrina is sick this morning and Mathieu does not want to get out of bed (doesn't happen very often). Of course they couldn't fall asleep at the new time last night. I'll be fair though, Sabrina had a major headache last night so it's probably not because of the time change.

Time should never change.

A new look on the world

The kids and I played some Minecraft and we went out to the Regional Park to have some fun.

The real event occurred when we came back. We received a call from the optometrist to tell us that Sabrina's glasses were ready. Suzanne went to pick them up with her.

It would appear that she giggled all the way back home...

Mont Tremblant

Today we went skiing at Mont-Tremblant. It's hard for us to tell which mountain we prefer between Owl's Head and Tremblant, the first being a bit rustic and so beautiful, the latter more commercial but oh so high. Just going up in the gondola the first time was really fun.

Then we were on the top of the mountain. You know, when you can see the top of the other mountains, some of which have their own ski hills... It's like touching the clouds. The chalet is there right beside the gondola's arrival berth. While everyone was getting ready, I brought in the back pack. And then we skied. And skied. It's so fun to go down for a long time.

We had one of the best places in the house for lunch (I fought for that one). It was really fun. Add to our normal lunch a few hot dogs, some fries and hot chocolate and everyone was happy.

Afterwards it was time for more ski.

When the trails closed it was time to leave. Sabrina however cannot come to Tremblant without some "tire sur la neige" I think they liked it.

We had dinner at the Baton Rouge in Saint-Sauveur. For a non-foodie type of place the food was very good and greatly enjoyed by all.

Funny fact: As soon as the waiter got to us, Mathieu asked, in his cute French: "Est ce que vous avez des Shirley Temples."