Job Perk

One of the secretaries at MEI schools also works part time in the facilities department.  Part of her big job this past year has been trying to purge out the archives deep in the bowels of the high school.  She mentioned in passing the other day that they were shredding oodles of old, old school files and I asked if perhaps they might still have files from the early 1990's.  She said she'd check and I didn't think of it again.  After lunch I came back to my desk to find my school file which was started in 1978!  Sadly, it didn't have anything particularly juicy or intersting in it.  I think we keep more thorough files these days.  I would have thought for sure there would be record of the speech therapy I received for my lisp.  Nope.  It was mainly report cards (which I already have all neatly filed away in my basement) and Gates scores.  It was still fun to look through it.

 The form below is from my original pre-kindergarten interview.  This is my mom's hand-writing which looks exactly the same today.

This is my kindergarten report.  Funny how it's still a pretty accurate assessment of my grown up self!

Except I really don't draw nice pictures.

My Gates score.  Esentially this means I was reading at a grade 9.8 level in grade 7.  Nathan was reading at a post secondary level in grade 7 so every generation improves!  Funny, I always was frustrated at taking these tests in school. No one would tell you why you were taking them and they never told you your score.  I actually thought they were I.Q. tests at the time.

 And I'll leave you with my fantastic art work.  I don't think I could even replicate that sort of quality now!

Cousins!

Keith - Man of Many Talents

See that little ripple in my washing machine's seal?  That little ripple caused a great amount of water to make it's way across my laundry room floor.  I'm happy my machine is in the basement where there is little chance of damage!
Anyhow, not exactly sure how this happened but I am very happy that my husband was able to put in a new diaphragm (yes, that's what it is called and no he's not hankering to be an OB-GYN!) and therefore avoid a very expensive service call.  The part itself wasn't cheap but I am back to washing clothes and keeping the floor dry.
Whatever did we do before YouTube?!

PS.  Here is the letter from Samsung we received when we email to get the part number for the new seal.  Ha ha...we showed them!


We understand that you want to know the part number of the door boot
diaphragm for this front load for your washer.

We apologize for the inconvenience as the part that you have mentioned is not user replaceable and it needs to be examined by the service technician to fix the issue. However you can get the information of the part number in the service manual of your device.

We recommend you to contact our Samsung Reliable Parts who is our authorized parts dealer at www.reliableparts.ca and the contact information is 1-800-941-9217 to purchase the service manual of your unit.

Return to Camping

I was so reluctant to go camping after my hiatus.  I really dreaded the thought of all the work that goes along with camping.  Lazy girl!
I will admit, now that we are home that it was a very enjoyable experience.  MINUS, dealing with a certain 3 year old who was out of routine and down-right nasty.
The weather could not have been more perfect, the company excellent, the campsite was nice, the water warm and we all didn't get food poisoning from keeping perishables in a cooler for several days.  This my friends is success.
No, I didn't get any decent sleep, my kids got sunburns despite a lot of sunscreen, hubby and I bickered more than usual, etc etc but it was a good trip and I am willing to try again.  Next summer.
I'd love to upload a ton of photos (because I did take a lot of them) but blogger keeps telling me my photo limit is full.  I deleted all of 2005 but I'm still over the limit.  So here are a very very few highlights.  There are more pix on facebook if you are interested.

Child Training

Children do not just turn out well on their own.  Children are born with a selfish streak that defies all logic.  They believe the world is their oyster.  Leave this unchecked and you'll have some nasty toddlers, pre-schoolers, children, tweens, teens and then adults.  I am a very firm believer in getting the majority of my child-rearing intensive training done by age five.  This takes a lot of time, patience, tears and aggravation but it's OH SO WORTH IT!
Liam has been going through a horribly independent streak.  After a few weeks of a lot of pure defiance I have decided to try out a 'behaviour chart' for Liam.  As he is fast approaching four years old I am moving into the intensive phase of getting him to be a good listening sort of boy! 

I found this chart online and he's very keen to earn his stickers.  All he has to do to earn a sticker is show some 'good listening' such as saying 'okay mum' when I give him a direct order instead of crying or ignoring me or running away.  So far he's been very keen and I have a bag of dollar store goodies for him to chose from when he's filled up the page.  I am hoping that listening and obeying starts to become a good habit with him in the next few months.  I'll keep you posted!

Prom 1992

My grad dress got plenty of use.  Since Keith graduated one year after I did, I was able to recycle my dress.  I'll admit it was plenty awkward to go to a graduation at a school where I didn't know anyone but my date but I was willing to do it for Keith.  Look at his skinniness!  I was always on the sturdy side but a strong wind would have blown my boyfriend clear out of the parking lot.

Grade 12

 This time the perm was to straighten the hair!  And I got the 'Sun-In' just right!  Make up was a little more subtle yet if someone would have just told me to pluck my eyebrows.  Grade 12...it was a really good year and one month after grad I met Keith and my dreams came true.

History

I like history best when it is woven into a story.  It's so much more interesting that reading the plain facts!  This book was another random pick from the school library that was a very enjoyable read.  I actually read the entire book in one day! 

Beautiful

I just love it when a random book choice turns out to be one of the best stories I've read all year.

Let me back track to a work day in June when I was heading to the accounting office which is located in the high school.  If you did not already know, the two schools are linked through the libraries.  This means I have to drag myself through TWO libraries and usually never stop to browse books as tempting as it is!  Once school is out the high school librarian, Sheila usually displays 'Summer Reading' books on tables to entice teachers and staff to read over the summer.  As I was walking through she stopped me and 'ordered' me to take out some books!  Wellllll...okay.  Since she twisted my arm.  I perused the choices and randomly selected some with interesting covers.  If you are a book worm you will already know that a good cover does not necessarily made for a good book.  I took my stack home and piled them in the order I was going to read them.  The first was pretty good...a non-fiction book on how to relate to Mormons (yes, I have an on-going fascination with the Mormon faith because it's just SO strange).  The next in the pile was the one you see pictured above.  Again...I was attracted to the cover due to the rosary as I will also admit a deep interest with the Catholic faith.  There is a part of my genetic make up that likes to 'do' and be told what to 'do'.  Evangelical Christianity can make me feel a bit lost in it's freedom of any sort of traditions or the like.  I like the rituals and liturgy of Catholicism and well, that's a whole other post. (please do not leave negative Catholic ramblings in my comments section....not interested)  Back to this book....it's a very well told story about a religious sister (different than a nun) that's written so beautifully that I kept putting the book down to savor the words and I also didn't want the story to end. It's more about the character's deep relationship with Jesus than any particular denomination.  It's a love story on many levels.
I look forward to reading more of Lisa Samson's novels.  I hope they are just as good!

Grade 11

Much better than grade 10.

I lost the rollkuchen weight, grew out my hair, discovered pressed powder for my greasy nose and suddenly things started to look up in the looks department! 

A Reason to Gather

My Dad's side of the family (the Friesen clan) have become somewhat scattered over the past several years.  The regular gatherings have sadly become a thing of the past due to geographic restrictions.  Yet a good portion of the family managed to all gather this past weekend to celebrate my Grandpa's 90th birthday.  We all got together at Ron & Carla's for a BBQ on Saturday night and the next afternoon moved our party to the Menno Home to have cake with Grandpa.  It was wonderful to see everyone!

 Three of my wonderful aunties.  Carla, Chris and Gaye.

 All of us!  Missing three cousins and their families though.

 Feeding us all was quite  feat.  Well done, Kamps crew!

 Some of us show our love in the form of play fighting!

 The Watkin family spend the night at our place and Liam bonded with his two second cousins Lukas and Olivia.  They are as sweet as they look!

Missing quite a few of his grandchildren but we went for the photo-op anyhow! 

My Grandpa has very strong genes.  Most of his siblings are alive and kicking....very healthy folk all in their 90's.  Grandpa is pretty healthy but quite frail.  He mainly lives on chocolate.  True story.

 With some of the great-grands.

And then with four of his five children.

We had a nice visit in the relief of air conditioning.  It was a scorcher yesterday!  So happy to see everyone and hope we can do this again sometime soon.

Found It

I'd been hoarding my Home Sense birthday gift card for the perfect item for my front hall and tonight I found it!  Now I'd like to find a small decorative lamp and it will be just right.

Lucky Me!

Secretaries day came late this year but I'm not complaining!  Flowers, lunch on a sunny patio, being serenaded with a song( with custom lyrics and a talented young guitar player) and Keg gift cards are nothing to sneeze at!
Heather and Jeff both set the fantastic tone of the office and I don't believe that there is any better place to work on this planet.

Grade 10

Bad Perm

Greasy Face

Zits

And too much rollkuchen padding my face.

This made for a yucky grade 10 year.

O Canada

July 1st rolled around once again and it was time to celebrate Canada's birthday.  The A.C.T. group had a circus themed float this year and both boys were a part of the entourage!

 Liam quite enjoyed the parade.  The candy was a highlight as were the police cars, fire trucks and other loud vehicles.  Mind you he did have his fingers in his ears!

 And of course we had our traditional post-parade BBQ with the two families we love!  Everyone contributed and it was quite delicious.  It's a shame it was a rather chilly afternoon.  Basking in the sunshine would have made it just that much better.

 Cheesecake with fresh berries rounded of the meal perfectly.

We went to the fireworks later that evening.  Liam had been looking forward to it all day.  It was even more fun to watch his face rather than the show.  He was entranced! 

Another successful and fun Canada day under our belts.  I love Canada, friends, family and all the blessings in my life!