Kids Day 9 Take 3

I know I have been stretching this out, but it s a record of our life and times.

Danica went to cooking camp for a week this summer. By the sounds of it, they didn't do a whole lot, but they did make spaghetti. Her spaghetti called for turning on the oven on a hot day, and that wasn't going to fly. But adaptations were made and the result was quite good.

And then they returned for day 10.

Kids Day 9 Take 2

After Tims, it was off to the library.

First the door photo although Danica is finding it difficult to fit.

She likes to use the computers to visit ancestry.com. Later, JJ got into the act too.

Once we finished inside the library, we spent some time just outside in the park. They call it or at least part of it Veterans Way. There are two cannons and there is a monument to the fallen. They like to play on these. One wonders about climbing on the monument. Is it disrespectful? I thought about it and decided that they died for freedom and for kids being kids and having fun. Still, I am sure that others might disagree.

Danica is not as agile as Jonathan and needed some help to get down from there, but we managed.

Kids Day 9

These haven't been consecutive days; there were 5 followed by a break, and then 3 with a long weekend before the next one (yesterday). And it hasn't really been 9 days, just 9 scheduled days because 1 was cancelled last week.

There is one more scheduled day to go — on Friday of this week.

Since that first week or 5 days, during which there was much bike riding, we have been thwarted. Mostly it has been too hot, but there have also been other factors. Yesterday, for example, we had hoped to get out very early before the worst of the heat, but it was wet on the trails due to overnight rain.

So we didn't ride — again!

But we did do something new. We introduced them to cribbage.

Cribbage is somewhat of a family tradition, I mean if you look far into the past. Sue's dad and his dad would play for hours, and I have played with both: Sue too as well as other members of the family.

She is 11 and he only 9, and it's a difficult game to get onto, but we played partners and were able to talk them through a game. They seemed to be getting it at the end.

Another tradition is taking them to Tims for a lunch or snack. We usually manage one trip per session. I gave them the choice of McDonalds or Tim Hortons and was a bit surprised when they chose Tims: bagels over burgers and fries for them.

to be continued

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

As the heat continues ferociously and unabated with the feels-like temperature reaching past 40C/100F, we ventured out to the ballpark on the weekend. Sue's nephew and family stayed with us while their son was playing in a nearby tournament, and we took in a game.

I shot a few from beyond the left field fence. What with the lens fully extended plus cropping in post, there were a few keepers.

Above: on the left is my fave photo of the day. I love the expression. If you can capture that peak moment, the result is usually good. In the top right, he is hitting the ball that drove in several runs and ended the game. Bottom left: making a play at second.

Below: four versions of the big swing photo.

A few others.

A Very Early Morning

After one fairly successful shoot fro a rooftop, I was game to try another. But the townhall roof was just too much for me, so I beat a fairly hasty retreat. While I could possibly have managed to stay up there, I was going to ave to stay way way back from the edge, and photos from the centre of the roof would have been almost pointless. And even from the centre, I wasn't going to enjoy myself one tiny little bit.

Two photos of my friends cavorting around up there. We met at 5:30, and yes it was early and still pretty dark.

I wandered about down below taking a few photos while I waited for the boys so we could go out to breakfast together. I mean, getting up at 4 can make a boy geezer hungry.

The Second Stint With The Kids

This week was our second run of the summer with the grandkids, except that it wasn't really. We were to have them for three days — Wednesday, Thursday and Friday — but it didn't quite work out like that.

On Wednesday, Danica came late from a sleepover and then they went out for lunch with a former caregiver. Once lunch was done, she then spent the afternoon with friends from down the street.

JJ and I did play marbles for a little bit.

Come Thursday we drove them in to spend the afternoon with Mom at work. JJ grabbed my camera and took quite a few pictures, mostly of Danica.

And that was it really because Friday didn't happen at all. It turned out that their Dad could mind them, and it was probably a good idea because JJ wasn't feeling all that well.

We will have them for two days next week and hope to do some more biking and maybe go on a picnic.

The Dam and the Barn

When I went out to look for a sunset, I didn't find a good spot or composition. I took a bunch but trashed them all once I saw them on the computer. I took this one in passing from the same spot with kind of a shrug of the shoulders, and it turned out that I liked it.

On the way back home, I was moved to pull into the parking lot of The Barn on the edge of our town. I have often thought that I needed to photograph it at night, but I never remember. This was serendipity and kind of saved my efforts that evening. (The Barn is used for events such as wedding receptions, but I am not sure how much it is used. During our 13 years here, various efforts have not resulted in total entrepreneurial success.)

The second shot above is my preferred one, probably because the sky is a little bluer and brighter. In general, I like blue skies with touches of sunset (or sunrise) orange. While I do tend to saturate a little in post, I don't alter the photos a drastically; they are more or less how I perceived them or how I think I perceived them.