Week in Review...June 9-15

This week T went to the dentist for some dental work. He was a real trooper. He had a couple sealants put in and one small filling. No freezing, no laughing gas.

 I know T likes his dentist. He is really good with kids (thank goodness, because he IS a paediatric dentist), but I also think that the dentist really likes T. As we left, T said that next time we go we should take a Ninjago gift for the dentist's son, who we know is about the same age as T and loves Ninjago.

The boys did some personal banking with their new bank cards at the bank machine.

We are doing a little bit of house purging as we are having a community garage sale in a couple of weeks. Our little pile is growing.

I found a free twin bed for Elijah as he dislikes his double loft bed and refuses to sleep in it. On the weekend we did some moving of things, setting up of things, taking down of things, and reorganizing. I also found a free computer desk and bookshelf, and Cris modified the desk so we can change the living room around. The way it was really disrupted my fung shui and I can't concentrate / think / function properly in this chaos and clutter.

We did some history, talked about the feudal system, knights and samurai, English castles, and The Crusades and Saladin. This included some map work, and then Elijah got really into colouring pictures of knights from our Dover "Knight" colouring book.

We spent an evening at our friends's house and the boys were introduced to the original Batman cartoon, He-Man, She-Ra, and the likes.

We went to a playground and played in the rain.

We did a bit of math this week. Elijah really only played math games a couple of times. Toviel is learning how to mentally add 2 digit numbers together, as well as some geometry work with geoboards and working with symmetry.

Elijah has been very keen on getting goldfish. We checked out some library material to research and learn about them first. Then, using my wicked Kijiji skills, we scored a 15 gallon tank (we actually measured the tank and found the area in square centimetres, then in cubic centimetres, then we did the conversion to gallons to figure this out...more math, with real life application). We got the tank, gravel, accessories, a pump and filtration system, fluorescent lighting, some chemicals, and a net for $15. We set the tank up.  (Elijah said this work was fun.) The next day we bought 2 special goldfish. Well, we actually bought 1 and got 1 free because Little Guy is missing a fin. So we were asked if we'd just take him and give him a good home.

 It's hard to get a good picture of them. Our house is warm, so the water is on the warmer side for them, so they are very active. Zeus is the bigger one, Little Guy is the smaller one.

Both seem happy and Elijah loves them. He sits and watches them and sometimes I hear him laughing while he's alone watching them.

We all learned about housing and caring for goldfish properly, how to set up a tank with the proper start up bacteria, water purifiers, dechlorinaters, and such.

We are planning to get 1 more fish in the near future. Our family is growing!!!!!

Week in Review: June 2-8

Well, this week was full.

On Tuesday we hopped on the LRT and took it downtown to Churchill Square. During the lunch hour they had 6 performers from Circ du Solieil roaming / flipping / unicycling throughout the square. They also had a small petting zoo (I hesitate to call it that, but that is what they call themselves) with a rabbit, pig, snake, and lizard.

We walked around the square, sat and ate some berries, enjoyed the sunshine and the crazy performers and then hopped back on the LRT and headed home.

I cannot for the life of me remember what else we did that day!

On Wednesday we went to Fort Edmonton. We met some friends there. For the first time ever, we saw a show in the old Capital Theatre, and I must say it was pretty neat and not what I expected.

 It was about the history of Edmonton, but with some flair. Real snow fell from the ceiling. The chairs shook with the rumble of the thunder. The screen was layered to give a 3D effect. Actually, there were 3 screens that were layered, with a nice wrap-around effect.

We looked in a couple of farm houses, looked at some 1920's toys, played in the playground and actually didn't get too far in exploring the areas in the 3 hours we were there before they closed.

On Thursday we made "Viking Bread" in the morning at Elijah's request. He loves it!

In the afternoon we went to the library and the John Jansen Nature Centre. The boys played a lot in the Tegler discovery area while I watched the honeybees do weird things in their plexiglass hive. Bees are weird. I watched one bee carry a dead bee all over the hive for about half an hour before I lost her. I couldn't figure out why she was doing that.

We visited the pond, did some pond dipping and caught a few strange or fascinating pond crawlies. We went into the discovery zone for a few minutes too.

Then we headed to Toviel's eye appointment. Last month his vision with his glasses on were 20/50 in his right eye. Today it was 20/30 with his glasses on. The drastic improvement was due to patching. I'm glad it's working! Next month we may have to shell out another $400 for a change (decrease) in prescription, which is something I am happy to dish out money for.

In the evening we measured on the sidewalk how long a Bowhead Whale is (18-20m) and how long a female Blue Whale is (33m) and then the boys played with sidewalk chalk and water guns while I pulled out 400+ dandelion plants.

 Above the boys are modeling how long a Blue Whale is.

We met Cris at Big Al's Aquarium so Elijah could pick out a betta fish. He prepared the fish bowl a couple of days ago and has been waiting patiently to pick up a fish. They were low on bettas, so we skipped over to Petsmart, where they have a ton of them. It turns out Elijah does not want a betta. He wants a goldfish, which requires a pump / filter. So he left disappointed, but Toviel left with a pretty male betta.

We are on the hunt for a good, inexpensive second-hand small fish tank with a pump now.

Before bed we watched a short video about the life of Marie Curie. Then we crawled into bed and read our Valuetale story of her. We looked on the map to find her hometown of Warsaw, Polland, Toviel brought up the fact that her love for learning and for her work ultimately killed her, but how that was okay because her work benefited a lot of people.

On Friday we went to a friend's house for the afternoon, and spent a wonderful few hours enjoying the fresh air.

In the evening we watched "The Lightning Thief". Elijah read the book aloud to Toviel and I. I much prefered the book. When I asked Elijah if he liked the book or the movie better, he said that they were different from each other, but both good in their own ways, so it wasn't worth comparing them.

Saturday involved some Pokemon games, Bang games, math games (Elijah and I played 3's Corners), and a trip to Birch Bay Ranch where we all tried out our archery skills a couple of times, enjoyed some pony rides, and horse-drawn wagon rides.

At night we watched "Big Miracle", a movie based on a true story about 3 Grey Whales getting trapped in the ice near Barrow, Alaska. It was a nice story all around. The movie ended at 12:30am, and we all crawled into bed exhausted.

Good week!!!

Back to Reality

Well, today is our first day back home from Vancouver. Back to the regular everyday life.

We made a trip to the mall to meet a tenant to pick up some very, very late rent. While we were there we picked up some science kits. Elijah chose a mammoth skeleton to build. He had it built in no time at all.

Toviel chose a build-your-own transforming solar powered robot. The skill level was ages 10 and up. I had to help him with some of the snapping together of parts as well as punching out some pieces. His fingers simply tired after a while.

The robot is almost finished:

Now, the test. And it works perfectly! Here is the robot walking, powered by the sunlight:

Here it is transformed into the scorpion, walking around:

It has one more mode; a tank mode, which we didn't get around to building today.

Both the boys did a math lesson today, jumped on the trampoline, played some games (mainly Pirate's Cove), built with Lego, and played together.

At bedtime, Toviel climbed I to bed with his Magformers and built several things. His last creation was "The Solar Beam"...

Elijah climbed into bed with his book about whales and dolphins and a notebook. After a while he came running out telling me how fascinating Bowhead Whales were, along with all sorts of interesting facts. He started making notes in a notebook:

I asked him if he would teach me some of the things he was learning. "Oh, totally!" He exclaimed. So tomorrow, I get to learn about Bowhead Whales!

Sometimes, the most learning occurs when they are wearing only their underwear, at 12:30am, when kids "should" be sleeping.