What Alison ALMOST spent her award money on :-)

The day after grad, Alison was home from school so we headed over to Arnold's to spend some time with this chestnut filly. I finally got a great shot of our friend Arnold.


Arnold is fascinating. He escaped with his family as a refugee from Holland in the 40's, after having been living in a chicken house for a year. His family arrived in Canada after a brief stay in Mexico. He is fluent in several language, but has a hard time writing in any of them. He has dairy farmed, and been a part-time horse dealer, all his grown life in Prince Edward County. He is a colourful character, rough in some ways ... then you hear the strains of Dutch choral music emanating from his cozy farmhouse (yes, the one we tried to buy :-) ...). He is a gifted storyteller, and embellishes those stories shamelessly and with ease. He's 77 this year, and although occasionally talks of retiring (mostly motivated by his "girlfriends") he knows, truly, that he would rot in town or in a senior's home. His desire is to go while out on his tractor, or working with his horses. As brusque as he is sometimes with people (although mellowing with age), he loves his horses profoundly. Check out the look in his eyes for his "pups" (his nickname for the young horses he has). More recently, he has started volunteering for the local food bank.

Here is Alison grooming the chestnut filly. She's probably a quarter horse, and "somehow" came home with Arnold from the last sale. She's quite lovely, and rock-solid calm for a young horse.



And just for the record, Arnold didn't accept Alison's offer of $150 :-).

Alison's graduation ceremony and dance

Before we go any further .... let me reminisce ... here is Alison when she was 4, at our town house in Guelph. It seems like about four years ago :-). She's fourteen now. **sigh**


Okay, I'm back.

The Ceremony: Her grade 8 teacher, Steve O'Brien, presenting her with her diploma. Steve was known for his propensity to break in to one of many accents, occasionally spending whole days teaching in a British, Irish, Southern, etc. fashion. Alison presented one oral book report (on the book David Copperfield) using a cockney accent, just to see if she could do it :-). He was not known for his math abilities, and some conversations were had over the year regarding Alison needing extra work, rather than spending her time teaching the other students ;-/.

Here is Alison receiving her diploma and "hardware" (tee hee, a pen set!)



Here is Madell presenting the French Award, also showing the stage decorated by the grade 8 class.


Here is a member of the Eastern Star presenting the two winners of the STAR award to Tommy Burris and Alison. This was a NON-academic award, presented to students who exemplify a spirit of volunteerism and service to their community. Each student was presented with a cash award of $150! Alison's application essay focused on church activities, all of her 4H involvement, her library stint last summer, and helping out neighbours.


She also received the Language Arts Award, and the award for Overall Academic Achievement. It was quite the evening.

Photos taken after the ceremony:
Sophiasburgh Central School is one of the most beautiful elementary schools I've ever seen. The landscaping in the yard is truly beautiful. Here is Alison underneath one of the Catalpa trees ...


With Mr. O'Brien ...


... and here are both Alison and Claire with Miss Bell. This is a poignant photo because Miss Bell was transferred to a school in Trenton for next school year after five years at SCS. Her transfer signifies not only the loss of an inspired teacher, who loved challenging the students in the grade 7 class to debate, but also the loss of the entire instrumental music program, and very likely the biannual musical as well. She put her heart and soul into "Enchanted Sleeping Beauty"; Claire adores her and she has been an excellent model for Claire who aspires to be a teacher. Both girls were in instrumental band under her tutelage. She will be missed. There are many who are upset with the board's decision ... including Miss Bell.


This is a fun photo. The car belongs to Mr. Vermander, the special education and science teacher. Rumour has it he owns 12 cars :-). Posing in the driver's seat is Brandon Hope, one of the other students also attending PECI in the Venture Program with Alison. Pooky Scott, the school principal, is in the yellow dress on the left. The gentleman on the right is Mr. Scott MacDonald, who was the previous principal and comes back for ... well ... pretty much everything. He is loved.

And a shot of the girls and Angie, who joined us as part of our family :-). We met Angie when the kids went to Sonrise Christian Academy in town. Her family owns the Golden Inn (Chinese food) restaurant in town, and keep a crazy schedule. We "adopted" her a couple of years ago, and make sure she gets out to youth group activities, movies, or whatever. We love her to bits!



The Dance:

The very first dance at the grad dance was a father-daughter/mother-son dance. It was so special, and very poignant. This was my other "moment" of the evening; watching Kev and Alison dancing and knowing how very different the whole evening might have been had he not made it in January. I will treasure this photo, and this moment, always. Not to mention how incredibly mature Alison looks dancing on the arm of her dad. There's a song out right now called "Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman, and it speaks of a father teaching his daughter to dance during various seasons of her growing up. It's beautiful; click on the song name to see a Youtube video of the song. (This particular song is made even more significant because not long after it was released, Steven's youngest daughter was killed in a freak car accident in the family driveway.)



The following photos were taken by Kev (unbeknownst to Alison), who chaperoned the evening along with Mr O'Brien, Pooky and one other parent. Alison wasn't sure she would enjoy the dance, but it was a blast! I've never heard of a grade 8 grad dance where significant dancing took place, but this class rocked. They danced the whole night, doing a lot of line dances and group dancing, and quite a number of slower dances as well. Yes, Alison danced with three boys :-). Two were normal polite kids; the other one may have taken advantage of the situation, but he kept nervously eyeing Kevin :-) . The chaperones only had a few cases of boys' hands travelling farther south than necessary, and they were right on it :-). No issues at all with booze, drugs or cigarettes; how I love a rural school!



This photo shows a few of the friends that Alison made this year, as well as Pooky again. The girls in the black and white dress is Sarah Stanton, the other girl from the class that will be in the Venture Program next year with Alison.


And that's it for the evening! Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Alison's grade 8 graduation; preparations :-)

We'll start from the beginning, when I spoke to Vic early in the day and she asked me if I had enough pins and clips. Uh ... I dunno. (My girls have never been that interested in having their hair done!). Naively I ask her how many bobby pins I'd need. About 30????? Seriously????? Realizing that I was a grad hair novice, Vic saved the day by bringing hair things over and giving Alison the gift of beautiful hair. We ordered chinese food for all before grad.


Here's Vic, saying "I had NO idea she had this much hair!"


Finishing up with the curling iron.



I had checked out Youtube for ideas to do Alison's hair. One style was beautiful but it involved tying hair in KNOTS. I decided "no way!". Guess what Vic did? Yup, lots and lots of knots! We decided at the last minute her up-do required some flowers, so I popped down to Arnold's farm with a pair of scissors and cut more gorgeous mock orange flowers. He was promised a photo in return :-).

I believe the last time Alison wore nail polish on her fingers was when she was 4! Between mucking out horses, wrestling sheep, knitting and all her other hands-on hobbies, nail colour has just not been a priority. Toenails, yes! But fingernails, pointless.


Makeup time. I had forgotten, yet again, that Vic is a cosmetologist (hopefully I spelled that correctly!).



This photo had to be taken. This scene had me all verklempt ;-). It foreshadowed to me what it might be like as Alison prepares for a wedding some day. I suppose because Kev and I had three bridesmaids ... ack, how quickly they grow up.



Dad putting on her corsage ...



Here is Alison, with her friend Amy Rutherford, just before leaving for Sophiasburgh Central.

ReFuel '08 Entry No. 2 (still adding video)

Here is the band "... to tell" ... Kev was excited to find out that they are originally from Brockville, which has a UCB repeater station. They are considered a London band because Zach is currently at Fanshawe College doing Broadcast Media or something like that. They have an incredibly fun, innovative sound and do really neat things with timing; haven't heard music with timing changes like this since listening to my dad play old Brubeck tunes on the piano :-).




I'm having problems trying to put up Britt Nicole's video clip :-(. Keep checking back and hopefully I can get it to work.


Casting Crowns ... "If We Are the Body":





Casting Crowns ... "Praise You in This Storm":




It started raining about half way through NewWorldSon ... Kev, the girls and I were busily packing up the UCB display during this time, along with the rest of the ministries and vendors. It continued to rain through the majority of Casting Crowns' set ... and it was AMAZING! I never realized how much storm and rain imagery peppered their lyrics. Standing and singing along with this song in particular was an awesome experience. And although I've heard almost all the songs before, I heard them with new ears at the concert; in particular "The Voice of Truth". Casting Crowns lead singer, Mark Hall, grew up with learning disabilities (dyslexia and ADD) and his testimony was amazing. Really, the most exciting thing about this band is that, first and foremost, they are youth pastors with a HUGE, LOVING heart for youth. The music is only a tool to reach youth. They are truly just an average bunch of people, with a huge love of the Lord and kids.


Likely more to come ...

Beautiful blog entry by my friend Janna ...

who is currently packing up to leave our fair County ... *sniff*.

The entry is "Helping".

This morning, on the way to church, we will be stopping in to see Janna and the children for the last official time on county soil. They have been monumental in our life here since they arrived ... they have been our pastors at PECFMC, part of worship team together, Kev's cohorts-in-crime watching "West Wing" and other shows, purveyors of many seasons of "Gilmore Girls" (spawning a family addiction :-) ...); they have been our neighbours, only a mile away (how many people can you call up in a rural farming community to borrow cumin or turmeric, or REALLY good coffee???); Janna has provided her home as a sanctuary to knitters and other crafters once a month for quite some time. They served us big time when Kevin was hospitalized; our kids got off the bus for over a week on Fry Road, their other home. Janna has been our emergency contact for all things educational since the kids started school. They have supported and encouraged our children, providing references and baseball gloves and adult conversation and input that is not parental (SO important!) and chances to babysit and just help out occasionally. They have been, and are, our friends. 2/3 or their children have been born here, and we adore them all, and watching them grow up has been a delight. Alison has been a lunch buddy for Ben at school this year, and was able to assist his bus buddy many times because Alison knew Ben and what made him tick. Mary has just started to walk, and is talking up a storm, and it's so hard knowing that we won't be able to see that continue. And Eli ... well ... let's just say this is hard. It's hard enough as an adult to say "good-bye" but we've done this before; God moves people on to new things and projects, and it is all good in the end. But my kids are just at the beginning of their journeys, and this won't be easy for them. How do we encourage them that when God moves folks away, it is big-picture good, when little-picture it is so painful.

Here are Janna and I and all the kids on our last County morning ...


We are grateful that Janna blogs, so we will still be privy to Cylka goings-on. And we are thankful for the time that they lived in our community. We are also thrilled that their new home is a mere hop-skip-and-jump from the 401 going through Toronto, and that we already have plans to stop in later this month :-). And of course, as Kev pursues his Free Methodist ordination, he will have many occasions to hang with Steve at events, or in their spare room. So it IS good.

*Sigh*. Bye, Cylka family! We love you all, every single one of us. *Sniff*

ReFuel '08 ... wow. Entry no. 1.

We had a phenomenal time on Friday, working at ReFuel '08. Some background; Delhi, Ontario, has a population of 4,000, about the same size as our nearest town of Picton. Delhi has two elementary schools and a high school, some businesses, and it's plunked in the heart of a truly rural area of south-western Ontario; an area that in the past became wealthy growing tobacco, but is exploring new crops such as ginseng.

A youth pastor in Delhi contacted the agent for "Casting Crowns", outlining his plans for a concert for the unchurched kids in this community. This was a BHAG (a big hairy audacious goal) for Chris, and he was completely blown away when the agent said "Yes, Casting Crowns will come to Delhi! And, so will Britt Nicole." Chris had to scramble to get this event set up, and he did an amazing job. Basically, the population of Delhi doubled last Friday the 13th.

The first thing we saw on our arrival:


Wow. This certainly brought home the magnitude of what Chris and his ministry were able to accomplish!

Here are Alison and Claire standing in front of the stage during set-up and sound check:

We were able to set up a couple of chairs right behind the red line (VIP section) - awesome seats, although we didn't spend too much time in them.

And on a smaller scale ;-) ... setting up the UCB display ...


We were only able to anchor two of the panels ... the winds were high and the panels were responding like sails. This necessitated a quick trip to two stores looking for patio stones, another table and rope to help brace everything! The lovely folks at the Gideon booth next to us lent us some good rope and tent pegs, which helped considerably. Here's Claire:


and the UCB display in-progress (we added a second table for copies of "The Word for You Today"):


I'm not even sure where to start ... the day was fantastic. So many neat moments. I'll try condense it to a few highlight here.

*Kev was able to get in a few interviews. He had his trusty MP3 player with him, and spent some time with Mark Hall (lead singer of "Casting Crowns"), and Joel from NewWorldSon. He also interviewed Zac and Andrew from the up-and-coming band "To Tell". This was their first gig, and they were beyond thrilled to be asked for an interview. I LOVED their sound. They are recording their first demo in the next couple of weeks and will be sending it off to UCB when it's complete.

*Had an amazing conversation with a Jamaican migrant worker who spends 8 months a year up here. Have you ever met someone, and there is this instant connection? It was an honour to have him share his story. I am also feeling a little "pricked", because off and on I have thought that a ministry to migrant workers in the County would be a good thing. (Lona, subject for another time; how could we serve these people who work so hard up here, in a way that would also bless their families back home? So often mom and kids end up losing their husbands and providers in this situation ... hmmm).

*The girls were pumped to hear Britt Nicole. Britt was actually quite sick, and almost cancelled her appearance. Her choice to continue to perform spoke almost as loudly as her words and her music, and really impacted the listeners. "Set the World on Fire" ... just, wow.

Much more to write, but I must prepare for substitute teaching tomorrow and must go ... look for another post at some point.

One of my all-time favourite artists, the late Keith Green ...

Bill Gates speaks on Life (WOW! This is not Bill Gate's work!!! -- Edited)

Yesterday, June 28, I was at Chapters, and pulled a book off the shelf in the education section. These rules came directly from the book. I have forgotten the author's name, but I will update later. I wonder whether he quoted from the book; I'll have to see if I can determine that.

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.


Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

A visitor we had this morning ...

Look at the size of this moth!


This moth was resting on our back deck this morning. It was just under 6 inches across; I think even bigger than the Luna moth we saw in New Jersey. It is a male polyphemus moth, which is a common kind of giant silk moth. The name comes from Greek mythology; because of the large purple eyespots on the hind wings it was named for the one-eyed giant Polyphemus.

And for those who are wondering how I know it's a male, well thanks to Wikipedia I learned the male has very "plumose" (bushy) antennae, whereas the female does not :-).

The things you learn!

Happiness

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.

-Frederick Keonig

Hot ... busy ... fun!

So much going on right now! We've had extravagant electrical storms at night, and lots of rain (lovely compared to last June when the County was already in drought conditions, HOWEVER impossible to sleep through at night!). I've been getting the house a bit organized since I have a new web maintenance position that starts Monday ... wishing that these jobs would show up in September rather than when the kiddoes are off school. However, the timing is excellent since Iain has a retainer in as of Thursday morning and we are now juggling Alison's brace adjustments and around 8 months of his retainer appointments. Claire will need exposure surgery, but we're praying that she won't be ready until Alison is out of braces.

Yesterday morning I was able to skirt the three fleeces shorn earlier this year. I must apologize to Miss Jasmine, whose fleece I've referred to as carpet brush and even slightly more derogatory terms in the past ;-). Yes, it sticks out like a wire brush, but in fact it was quite fine, decently crimpy, and because it was SOOOO dense it was surprisingly clean, with little vegetative matter. Here it is!


I was able to make it to the spinning guild meeting last week. I took a washed fleece (Billie's from last year) and was able to borrow hand carders from Diane Torney. I still didn't spin, but I was able to start carding and Liese, a local handspinning guru, taught me how to make "rolags" -- small carded rolls that can be spun from easily. Hand carding is quite an art; I must go back to another meeting to make sure I'm doing it correctly!


Hand cards above, and completed "rolag" below:


We have a busy month coming up, and I suspect posts here will be sporadic. June 13 we are going to attend Refuel '08 in Delhi, Ontario. Kevin and I are manning a UCB booth, which means that (hurray!) our gas will be paid, not to mention our tickets. On the bill are Casting Crowns, Britt Nichole, Hello Kelly, NewWorldSon ... oh my goodness ... some of our very favourites. Iain wasn't that interested in such a long day, and will hang with Grandma and Grandpa instead, and likely go for walks with Grandpa and play unlimited computer games much to his delight. Alison graduates from Grade 8 on June 24; I will be decorating, providing snacks for the dance, etc. Claire is headed to Nan and Papa's for a week right after school is out. She has been looking forward to this for months! And then, to cap off the craziness, we will go to pick her up, on our way to six days of camping at Bruce Peninsula National Park!

I called directly to the camp this week ... reservations are now completely done online, but because we only just sorted out our vacation dates, there was very little left. We've been camping at Bon Echo most recently, but Kev's cane makes varied terrain a bit less desirable this year. I got to thinking about the Bruce, and realized that it would be perfect. It has an inland lake/beach with easy access, as well as the tougher hike out to the escarpment. We'll be able to divide and conquer if we have to. Anyway, I spoke with a wonderfully helpful woman, and between her and I we found a WONDERFUL site that is private, level, level trek to the washroom, AND is actually a camp host site and normally unavailable to the public! This, of course, means that it's a pretty nice site. However, the camp hosts will not be arriving until the week after we check out, so it has fallen in to our lap! The site is right on Cypress Lake, but at the far end of the campground. And icing on the cake, wonderful Laura from UCB is going to stay here and animal-sit for us! She has a farming background, and enjoys hanging out with the sheep occasionally.

That's it for now!