Festivities Galore

Here's a photo journal of all that's happened the week before Christmas.













How deep the snow was after Sunday's snow storm.












The boys' Christmas concert at school - yes, a Christmas concert, not a "holiday" concert.











McMillan's annual Christmas breakfast. This year it included homemade-customized Christmas crackers with personalized fortunes in them.





An impromptu Christmas jam session at the Robertson's. We had two violins, a piano, a keyboard, a guitar, a triangle and the adults sung along. How nice it is to see so many talented kids in one room. They all had great sight reading skills too.

Is it over yet?

Sheldon quickly changed his mind about shovelling and asked to borrow a snowblower from a neighbour.

Below: amount of snow accumlated on the roof of the garage

Oh Canada

The first snowstorm here was exactly two weeks ago and gave us about 30 cm of snow, if I remember correctly. Here's how much snow we've accumulated today during our second snowstorm.

A few hours later...

My Musical Family

Warning: This post contains video clips that probably only grandparents care about.

Presently, Aidan is working on his grade 3 piano and Connor is working on gr. 4/5 violin. Over the last year, Aidan has expressed interest in playing another instrument. The type of instrument changes from time to time. At first, he wanted to play the trumpet. Then it was the picollo. Now he's bent on playing the guitar.

Yesterday after their music lesson, Sheldon took them to the music store to buy Connor a new book his teacher asked him to get. I guess this sparked Aidan's conversation again about wanting to play the guitar. Sheldon started asking the person at the store if it was possible to have only a month's worth of lessons just to see if this is something Aidan wants to really pursue.

When Sheldon got home, he discussed what he learned with me. Then he called the store and asked how much guitar rentals were. All of a sudden, Sheldon and Aidan were out the door to arrange for a guitar rental and to schedule guitar lessons.

Not long after, I get a call and Sheldon says Aidan's first lesson starts in half an hour!

Here'a what Aidan's picked up just after the first lesson.



Needless to say, we've told Aidan this is his Christmas present from us.

Then Sheldon remembered that their music teacher said Connor needed a larger violin.He is currently playing on a half size and needed a three quarter sized violin. I remembered we had a couple of old ones in our closet from when I was younger. However, one was too small and Sheldon's was, well there's no other way to say it, crappy and needed a lot of fixing up. Then we thought maybe Connor could play on my own full sized violin. I think it's a little big but I think it can be done.

Here he is playing on my violin, which used to be my grandfather's. So my grandfather played on it, my cousin played on it, I played on it, my brother played on it, and not it's Connor's turn. It was made in 1952 and will be something I hope will be passed on for many generations to come.

Warning: the song is a little rough because he's not used to playing on a larger violin.



So there you go, mom and dad. The musical family tradition continues through us.

Aidan's 9th Birthday

Here's a few pictures and a video clip from Aidan's birthday party at Laser Quest. Take note of the two girls' reactions after the candles are blown out.