With all I said about spring break, I tried to do something with just the kids to make break fun.  The original plan was to ski.  I picked Lona up early from a sleep over on the way to the ski hill.  It wasn't looking good as we driving up.  I thought that if it was icy in the morning it would be OK.  But it was slushy on the hill.  I wasn't going to spend $150 to ski in slush.  Maybe if they had 1/2 price tickets it would have been OK but not full price.  We turned around and headed home.  I hit a robin with the car.  Bummer.  We threw out all different possibilities of what to do with our day.  Job had practice at 5:30 so what ever it was he has to be back by then.  Tulip fields, hiking, swimming, aquarium.  The aquarium won out.  Not with everyone but enough.  We dropped off the skis at home, grabbed some lunch, called John to get a permission slip, found our passports and all the cameras and headed out.  We needed to stop at BP first and on our way, hit a deer.  Hmm, the animals are getting larger, is a sign.  Nope.  Breezed through customs, no need for a permission slip. Took forever to get to the aquarium, we went a round about way but less stop lights then we've done in the past.  Once at the aquarium, we spent at least an hour before we even walked outside looking at the inside animals.  Isaac was the odd man out - no camera.  We saw all kinds of tropical fish.  They had all kinds of creatures from our area as well.  It was pretty neat.  Job is my animal kid.  He reads all the plaques and stores that information in his head.  Wandering outside, we saw the beluga whales, white crest dolphines, sea otters and sea lions.  The kids talked me into staying for the last beluga whale show and found a place front and center in the splash zone.  They were ready to get wet.  I played it say in the no splash zone with all of the cameras.  And they didn't get wet.  They were so disappointed.  However it was better that way.  We left the park at a different point then when we went in and I had to guess how to get back.  I asked one person and his information was "You need to go to Surrey."  Yes, thank you I know that, which street do I take to get to 99.  He wasn't very forth coming with that information.  I did know that I needed to go south and not north.  The map we bought for Vancouver was still in John's truck so that was no help, but we found our streets and headed back.  The border crossing wasn't bad but we were 1/2 hour late to practice.  Good thing I had Job's soccer stuff in the car.  Four hours at the aquarium was a good amount of time.

Spring Break is a little bit hard for me.  I get to this point in the school year and I am so looking forward to the end of school that I don't want to take a break, not with the end in site.  I want to push through and then enjoy the summer starting in May.  I get burnt out, the kids get burnt out and the days get nicer and nicer.  It becomes hard to concentrate on school with nice weather.  About spring break time we take a look at what needs to get done before the end of school and we map out ending dates for various subjects.  Some subjects get done sooner than others and so when one is finished then lessons are doubled for other subjects to cut down even more time until all the subjects are completed and we are done, done, done. However there is spring break and it isn't often that the weather is good enough to do things outside.  I realize that it's a great time to get together with friends and have sleep overs and play dates but it's hard for me.  The play dates I can handle because they are in the afternoons.  It's the sleep overs I have a hard time with.  I just want to be done with the nagging about school work. With sleep overs we don't get in school the next day and so the end drags on and on.  When we take a break, it is just that much harder to get back into the groove of getting up, chores, and school time.  A week break means two weeks of catch up and return to normal routine.  I don't want to say no and cut off time with friends because it is important but spring break for others doesn't mean its spring break for us.  Every year I try to figure this out. Then throw in the fact that all the kids are together because two go to school.  I want to have a day to do something as a family too.  In years past we've participated in soccer camps so it made it that much more hectic.  This year I said no hoping to cut down on the hecticness, but it didn't help it just became crazier because things were unscheduled.  I struggle and end up hating spring break. I don't understand why we have a week of it.  Why not a Friday and Monday and then cut off that much more time at the end of school?  I guess spring break is something that is breaking me.  It's a struggle that I'm working on finding balance. I'm not trying to be a downer just articulate how I feel.  I am trying to be real about my life, it's not all roses and bon bons.  It ups and downs. 


 

I participated in a photography class for the last couple of months and through the class, I met a gal who lives in Vancouver.  We decided to meet for the day and wander around Grainville Island and Gastown.  It was so much fun.  Her photos are amazing.  Mine, well, they were good but not extraordinary.  I think for me it was about connecting with another woman with my particular interests and with a similar background.  Mom of three kids spaced the same apart.  They are just a little older.  She has so much wisdom that I just soaked it up.  It was just what I needed.  Looking forward to another adventure like this.

Job is our first child that is involved with band.  He has decided to play the trombone.  He's our smallest child and he just couldn't choose anything smaller.  At least he didn't choose the tuba.  What would we have done.  I wouldn't have been able to carry and neither would he have been able to.  So the trombone it is.  His first band concert I was at home sicker than a dog.  John came home with video for me to watch.  Job came home pumped up and excited.  He thought participating in a band concert was awesome.  Fast forward to a couple of months and he's involved in an all school (every school in the district) concert.  They had all the elementary, middle school and high school band kids present.  It was in the gym which doesn't have the best accoustics.  Then the middle school jazz band  were facing two different directions and the conductor was behind the kids.  How do you conduct when you can't see the conductor?  I thought the elementary kids did great. 
How many photos can you take of a band concert?  Really Job did the same thing - blow into his trombone to create a sound that should be a note.  Actually he did do good and there are notes that come out of his instrument, its just that having a couple hundred elementary school kids playing a couple of songs and never having practiced before as a large group can stretch the listener.  I thought the best part of the concert was not when one of the band members dressed as a Star Trek vulcan complete with ears to introduce the Star Trek theme song or world of war craft song, the best part of the concert was the drum section.  They were awesome.  However the percusions should be enjoyed outside at a football game.

Our trial year of ice skating is done.  I think that in order for Job to get good we would have to devote our life to being at the rink.  We would need to join the figure skating club, take extra lessons and live at the rink.  It was a great experiment though.  He got some things out of it.  He moved up levels from basic 4 to basic 6.  He learned lots of stuff and had fun.  The down side to ice skating is that there is ice and coldness involved.  We once went down right at 2:30 and ice skated until 4:30, then had a break while the Zamboni was out and then had lessons.  At the end he was in tears because he was so cold.  He has no way to keep warm, no fat cells in his body.  That was the last time we did that. I even pack toe warmers for him so he can stay warm.  Even with that he says he loves ice skating.  I don't get that but hey, he's Job.  Another thing that interests him is speed ice skating.  I wonder if we might try that out  next year.

On our way home after church one day, Lona said that she wanted to have a recital for some of her friends.  It turned out that they were taking music lesson for both the piano and the violin but didn't have recitals so there wasn't as much motivation for practicing.  Heck, if I don't have to perform or have a dead line I wouldn't get things done and neither would my kids.  That is totally understandable.  Lona decided though that it couldn't be that hard to put on a recital.  She called the church and scheduled a day.  Then she made a list of her friends who she knew were taking music lessons.  She emailed them about the recital.  She contacted the person in charge of sound who happened to be her dad.  She made a list of everything that needed to get done.  I helped with that part.  She emailed her friends again, and again, and again.  Then she started to call everyone.  She needed definite answers.  She put together a program with names of participants and their instruments, and song titles.  She wrote a speech for both the opening remarks and the closing remarks.  We made a trip into Bellingham to purchase refreshments and cookies for the evening.  Then at the end, she had everyone sing to her friend who's birthday was that day.  Lona was hoping for 30 people but it was just the families of the participants.  Thats ok though.
Here are her speeches:

Job just cracks us up sometimes.

This year Job needed a science project for 6th grade.  His question was does weight affect the speed of a boat?  His hypothesis was the more weight the boat has the faster it will travel down stream because there would be more water pushing on more of the boat.  This was our family's first science fair project.  We had a lot to learn.  It was a project that spanned from November to March.  There were due dates along the way and Job had to turn things in a couple of time to learn what was expected with each deadline.  Over Christmas break, John took Job to the Lynden City Park to run his experiment.  They grabbed everything they needed and headed off down the road only to return a few minutes later to get his "boat", a two-litre coke bottle.  They spent a couple of hours sending his boat down the stream and timing it.  The last part of the experiement was making a display board about his experiment.  John helped with the experiment part by wading in the water and catching the boat,  I helped by purchasing the display board, spell checking and proof reading his work.  Job did everything else.  There were a few tears over the whole project but in the end it worked out even though his hypothesis was proven a bust, which in itself is a great lesson.