Girl Power!

There is a new little Gerber baby in town...

On January 25, Chad & Kaitlin bucked the boy trend that has been going on for 9 straight years. They have themselves a sweet little girl named Cheyanne Avigail. She will be much loved by her 6 boy cousins and/or brothers!  :)

We've had quite the interesting winter weather again this year. Yesterday we woke up to a record high temperature of 14 C...it had been raining during the night... all the snow was melted away...

This morning we woke up to howling yowling winds and blustery snow billowing through the streets and yards. I'm more than content to stay home and indoors today...

Now this is what typical winter weather usually looks like around here. A blanketing of snow. And the hot tub in use...

School wise...Max has been busily working on a group project with three other classmates. They are learning about pulley systems so their project consisted of building a castle (out of junk, I think?) and designing a working drawbridge. For the past week, he has been coming home from school with shirts full of black paint. It all makes sense now...

I was very impressed with what they came up with...by twisting the pencil below, the drawbridge lowers and rises at the front of the castle. It is all attached with strings/pulleys. Smart! I don't think I would have come up with that. I should probably go back to school. Would I pass grade 4? YIKES! Scary thought!

Each group had to draw names to see who would take their castle project home. Max was picked for his group. He managed to march home with it, through the blustery snowstorm. and have everything remain intact. Excellent engineering! ;)

Medieval Times

A couple of weekends ago, we met up with Gerry, Magda and Guijay at Medieval Times in Toronto for a most excellent evening together. The one and only time Keith and I have been there was shortly after we were married...so about 12 years ago. We've been wanting to take Max for forever it seems. Just haven't made it there until now. I'd say that Max was at the perfect age for it. HE LOVED IT! It was cute just to sit back and watch him be awed and impressed.

Taking photos was a bit of a nightmare. The lighting was constantly changing. So the photos are the way they are...blurry...colours are off, etc.

Here come the knights...

The Yellow Knight:

The Blue Knight:

The Black & White Knight:

This was our Knight...the Red & Yellow Knight:

(We were cheering machines!)

The Red & Black Knight:

and finally, the Green Knight:

While we watched the show, we were busy eating. Ummm, rather...slurping, our soup. No utensils in this era....

After the various competitions, the winning knights would hand out "roses" to the "Ladies" in their cheering section. Wouldn't you know....Max caught our knights attention with his wild waving and pointing at me and got me a "rose". Max was so impressed. :) 

In addition to tomato soup, we were served garlic bread, chicken, baked potatoes, ribs and a pastry dessert...

It was all very entertaining to watch...

Unfortunately, our knight did not win but he was in the final battle/duel/whatever you call it and lost to the overall winner - the black & white knight. 

***

This past weekend, Gerry, Magda, Guijay and Nico met up with us once again. This time they wanted to check out Max's hockey game. This was the very first hockey game that Magda and Guijay have ever been to since moving to Canada. We tried to act very like well-behaved and respectable parents. ;)  The game was in Caledon. We lost...but it was a very good game and our boys played their hearts out. It's very rare that you get to sit behind the bench. We had a birds eye view of what goes on and could keep our eyes on Mr. Number 4 at all times....

Afterwards we went out for pizza and some silly fun times....