Poker funshop:
Xboxing
Hoe Downing
Trip to the marina (normally such a peaceful trip, but now includes a stroll through a major construction site - Mary labelled this trek the "RU Frickin Kidding Me" walk):
G.I. Joe funshop w/ Rob:
Pucky and his ladies...
JarJar Finn...
Yogi Bear song (rude/ banned=from-camp version):
Baby holding funshop:
Cooper's "armies" funshop:
MeahRonnie
Aaah... the lure of naughty-worded videos on the internet!
Tent City and campers
Battles
Indoor/outdoor games:
N'Orleans meets Glasgow at the bbq...
More archery with Kyrie
Effie and the freshly named Gabriella (Helen and co's)...
Tramps
Hula making/ hooping
Daisy
The newly dubbed "games room":
Effie and Fearghus:
Wii'ing
Archery with Kyrie:
Cullan showed up for a bit.... yeah!!!
Erich and his self-made backpack:
Communal painting project
Nightime sing-along - woot woot!
Got to meet the baby today... Helen and Adrian's baby girl (name to be determined at a later date):
Happy Canada Day/ Anniversary!!!
The tale of the picnic table fixer and the supervisor...
Aang forts
Headress
Medieval Village week - along with Christmas, Easter and her birthday - is Effie's favorite time of year!!!
This year she had her own tapestry loom made for her:
Boys in period costume:
Sawing, drilling, painting:
Cutting grass:
A break in the clean-up action - Canadian style:
On the non-boring front... took Dad (or at least his behatted head) to an exciting soccer game:
Rock climbing:
Silhouetted at the lake:
Effie's latest passion - painting cakes:
Well he sat on Eff's hand for at least five minutes before flying away but he's out in the wild now. Have good life Ketchup! All 20 days of it!!!
At Matheson Lake last week. We ran into Finn there who was on the look out for frogs. Finn has since boarded a plane for Scotland where he and his Dad are under strict instructions to bring me back Jelly Babies (which I have been longing for since since the Waynforth's visit in May):
My 3 on 3 hockey team won a gold medal in government-worker olympic hockey last week. Which is to say our team was better than all other wanna-be challengers at getting a ping pong type ball across a goal line, on grass and using miniature dollar-store hockey sticks. Picture whack-a-mole but with cheap plastic weaponry and a flurry of co-workers’ ankles. Anyway, boy o boy, was I ever a hero when I got home, medal in hand. So much so that everyone wanted their picture taken with me:
One of Eff's recent projects:
At the ocean:
And for all of Helen and Adrian's South African relations out there... yup, she's still pregnant as of last night. We kept creeping up behind her and scaring her but that didn't work:
Ferg - cleaning and smashing:
This pile took 4 hours to clear out today - our road is great for this sort of thing. We would have gotten rid of it all faster but the stalwart ride-em police car held out for a goodly long time. 
And finally, Ketchup turned into a butterfly today. Yeah Ketchup!!!
Oh and this.... the other day, the local grocery store was pumping out Morrissey’s latest song over the intercom. For a “music snob” like me this is pretty much the equivalent to the end of the world. Could it get any worse than this? Oh yes it could - the clerk was humming the song at the checkout.
A month from now there will be a rather large contingent of unschooly types here for a week of wild, joy-filled frivolity. And naked tree swinging. It is going to be a blast, this pinnacle of summer, but… we have a lot of cleaning, prepping, mowing, clearing, etc. to do in pretty much every waking moment from now ‘til then.
A short checklist:
Purchase of the long coveted/ hard to find Inflatable Palm Tree Cooler: check…
Assorted junk and dead vehicle removal: partial check…
Taming the jungle: hmmm, not quite…
Sun Room clear out: a ways to go…
Crawl Space organization (to store toys and assorted detritus from house): don’t even talk about it…
And the most vital of all…
Septic Tank pumped: check!
Scenes from the second annual homelearners dance... I think the tunes were a little more appropriate for the audience this year as Gillian spent the past six months getting some of the more standard fare out of the library. I remained steadfast in my refusal to play anything with the words "pour", "some", "sugar", "on, or "me" however.
This is where the kids were (until I started pumping out the Miley Cyrus that is)...
Meah in a box:
The Helen birthing watch continues. We thought maybe The Macarena had gotten things started but false alarm:
Juniper!!!
Fergus dancing...
We had a busy and wickedly fun weekend of painting, playing and partying... Here's Helen, still to give birth and still serving all the work-party-goers pizza.
A curious sighting: Fergus soaked:
Our pet: Ketchup the caterpillar
Hoe Wheelie with Mitchel
Effie watching Matt performing Guitar Hero Metallica...
A wild game of soccer ensued down at The Lot (our newly evolved name for the school)...
Hoe Wheelie with Noah
Scooting with Matt
Steven's 40th birthday party...
Ferg stayed in the vehicle for the first hour, spitting cherry seeds out the window. This lasted until some girl friends of his came and partied with him in the car and then lured him out. I did not know he had friends that were girls.
Ferg and girls...
Swing (pre-destruction):
Frankie and Effie
Young guy; Old guy
Long suffering Finn...
We’re experiencing a bit of a heat wave at the moment - breaking records for both temperature and number of “man, it’s hot out there eh” comments between strangers. The weather is confusing the heck out of Effie who can’t quite figure out how it can be so hot and not officially be summertime. Ferg, meanwhile, continues to sport long sleeves and pants and often requests the “warm air conditioner” in the vehicle.
Hey, if you’re soon to pop out a baby and it is excessively hot out, why not have a series of fixer-upper parties? Nobody said Helen and co. were sane but we’re all very appreciative that they are allowing us to hang around and make water-breaking/ contraction jokes.
And here’s what I got up to, superior form and all, at the orifice the other day…
”We're not grey people
We're not dirty, we're not mean
We love everybody
but we do as we please
When the weather's fine
We go fishing or go swimming in the sea
We're always happy
Life's for living, yeah, that's our philosophy”
(Mungo Jerry)
The Hoe Wheelie Cycle made its debut to great fanfare this week. For nearly 3 years - ever since we were introduced to RC cars in the back parking lot of The Hotel Albuquerque - Fergus has had his sights set on having something remote controlled. Two wheels is probably not the ideal starting point but the fact that it can do wheelies seems to make up for a lot of the stopping and starting. Now all that’s needed is some serious forest denudement back at our place in order to make way for the huge expanse of asphalt we now require. Oh, and some model glue…. given his tendency to ram into curbs, I’m expecting at some point Hoe is gunna need a wee repair job.
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We had a blast this weekend up-island celebrating Mitch's birthday. The kids made about 130 movies of themselves. The adults spent hours howling out loud at their crazy adventures...
It is at gatherings of unschooling families that kids of all ages are free to express their outward appearance without negative judgement or comment. They are free to be themselves and this happens so organically that it ends up being one of the greatest fringe benefits of attending such a get together.
Of course, our kids know no other way. They wear clothes that make them feel good. They brush their hair when it is no longer comfortable to lie down rather than for the sole purpose of not getting looks and comments in public. They go months without wearing shoes. On the way home from the conference, stopping to get milk, a cashier smiled at Fergus and said that she liked “her bed-head”. The kids reactions were typical - Ferg ignored her and Effie gave me a big knowing grin. Today, they don’t care. In the future, they not only will not care, they will be even more sure of who they are. This is not to say that they won’t take care of themselves - there is a massive gulf between not caring what others think and not giving a shit* about yourself.
Hey, our family gets a tonne of sneery-faced looks out there in the real world. I grew up trying my damnest not to get noticed so this is something I can’t seem to shake from my mind. Not that it bothers me as much as I’m just aware of it and since I sneer with the best of them I often reciprocate anyway. I don’t feel too guilty about this but I do feel guilty for giving sideways glances at, for example, those families dolled up and dressed to the nines and thereby pre-judging strangers the same way people pre-judge us. I shall work on that. The greater public can continue being ignorant, but I shall work on that. Ha!
Last Thursday, at the office, I wore the wonderful combination of dress pants, black socks and white sneakers. Not a look I would normally covet, but the best I could come up with in a pinch given that I spent the first four hours of the day in one black dress shoe and one brown dress shoe. It’s not even dark out in the morning these days when I leave the house so I don’t know what was going on there - like the day a few weeks back when I wore a golf shirt inside out.
I’m no fashion plate - obviously - but over the past few years I have always had this thought in the back of my mind that, when out in public with the kiddos, I had to somehow compensate for their often “natural” look. At the hand of what I guess are my own insecurities and lack of confidence, I thought that if my hair was sort of neat and my clothes matched then perhaps people would not automatically assume we were hobos or a band of gypsies (nothing against hobos or gypsies since I’m positive that they’re good people). I still want to shout out loud “These kids are not neglected. They are the opposite of neglected!!!” But the perhaps-not-so-odd thing is, is that my kids, through their own built-up confidence in who they are, and therefore what they wear and how they look, are slowly influencing how I feel about myself. To the extent that by the end of day Thursday I was quite comfortable in my little white-shoed getup. Perhaps one day I'll be comfortable in mismatched shoes. Can’t wait for the looks when I wear my pj’s to the office.
*Gillian cussed during her conference talk so I’m giving it a go here!
Ferg is having a "hotel room" day today - obviously resting up for the big barefoot boogie dance tonight! More accurately though he is spending some quality private time building legos and playing nintendo while patiently waiting for his friends to get back from their (obviously SELFISH) day in Portland. He and Mitch and Kin have formed quite a team playing their various games (star wars, power rangers, even some soda advertising skits) throughout the hotel. It also helps to have three other families from wee Metchosin, Canada all beside us - this makes for some superior hallway action.
Effie can generally be found wandering the halls with one of her friends, or by herself, and taking in the odd funshop. Today she's taking it a little slower as well, keen to spend time drawing and painting with her new art supplies. Gillian and I, meanwhile, want to get as much unschooly refueling in as possible before everyone goes their separate ways after tomorrow's noon time picnic.
Gillian rocked her talk today, "The Sun Shines Out Of Our Behinds"... a story of her continuing journey with emotionally intense kids - through the mess and the challenges - toward seeing everyone in our family shine. Yeah Hobe!!!
Ferg being terrorized by some crazy Scottish guy:
Now that there are lots of people here at the conference hotel, and using the pool, Ferg is a little reluctant to go swimming. Eff's still keen but Ferg prefers to go up and down the elevator and scoot about the compound, chatting people up...
Eff did well selling her cards tonight:
It is impossible for us to come to this part of the world and not go to Nobb Hill. One day maybe we'll discover some other funky Portland neighborhoods, but for now this place suits us perfectly. Mmmmmm.... Ken's:
Trader Joe's...
I don't know what these will taste like (or smell like!) but couldn't resist these yummy looking freeze dried southeast asian tropical butt cracks:
Ferg was very keen to find the elephants he hung out on last year with Max and Otto. We soon clued in that they were pigs not elephants. Still, we miss Max and Otto and family terribly this year!
We spent the final day before the official start of the conference with just Fergus as Effie went shopping with the Waynforths. Ferg picked out a shiny new scooter.
Yeah, unschoolers:
Effie and Linnaea
SimonFerg
Swimming? Yup, Ferg surprised us by wanting to go in the pool. Later in the week it is supposed to be hot here. It most assuredly was not tonight.
... and they brought their killer robot:
...and their chip butty making skills:
Effie canoeing on the pond at WildKids earlier this week:
We have caterpillars! Hopefully they survive a better fate than the ignored sea monkeys of yore. They are getting a lot of love and attention so far including some very thorough cage cleaning (in an attempt to actually find the tiny buggers). If all goes well, these guys will one day be Painted Ladies...
Gillian’s been sequestering herself a lot lately in order to put the finishing touches on her Life is Good unschooling conference talk (next week!). Yesterday, Eff, Ferg and I spent the evening eating ice cream and pirate packs and basically staying out of her hair... 
Note to anyone wanting to quicken the process in creating that stale gummy bear taste that (apparently) is all the rage with the kiddos... use the fruit leather insert when dehydrating!
Actually, tasting not all bad:
Some Star Wars adventuring and a backyard production of Ben Ten with M & M...
Shannon and Gillian with the luckless job of seeking sun in a forest
Got Mom a do-it-yourself forest bouquet. Happy Mothers Day Mom!
Today, in an orchard and with no one else around, I walked past Courtney Thorne-Smith. She plays the long suffering wife on the thoroughly unwatchable “According to Jim”, but was once, most famously, Alison on the incomparable Melrose Place. In the split second between recognition (me of her, not her of me) and star-struckedness, I thought of asking her why things never worked out between her and the loveable Billy and how she could just leave him at the altar like that and have all those slimy affairs… but, predictably, I pretended not to see her and looked the other way. I walked past her because she’s filming “Sorority Wars” in and around the apparent sorority-esque building where I work. “Sorority Wars”: coming soon, and directly, to a cable tv channel near you.
Later in the day, I ran into Corky from Murphy Brown as she came out of the can. In the "film", she’s playing a woman trying to get her daughter into her sorority. War, then (surely) ensues. I'm well informed about all this cause some gaffer left his casting call/ production notes on top of the toilet. Anyway, with regards to Corky, there was no eye averting this time (though I may have giggled into my hand, turned sharply and ran the other way).
Tomorrow I fully expect to have a sword fight at the urinal with one of the dudes from “Felicity”.
A year ago, an organization that I had volunteered and worked for over the years gave me a generous parting gift - a massive gift certificate to a highly respected local restaurant. The task seemed simple enough: husband and wife enjoy really good food for free. But we’ve never actually gone out for dinner as a twosome, or on any sort of date, since we had the kiddos and it took us a near 12 months - right to the certificate’s expiry date - to get it together enough to make use of the damn albatross of a gift (I suppose we’re a bit odd but only recently has Ferg shown any interest in being left somewhere without us. Procrastination may also have played a part.)
Last night, we finally made it there and had a wonderful meal, celebrating, as it turned out, our 16th anniversary of being together (Gillian rejected the “16 years of kissing” tag that I tried to bestow upon the occasion). Helen and Adrian were kind enough to help us out with the diversion of their kids, pokémon and Ben Ten Wii. Here’s an exciting shot of us picking up take out for the kiddo-minding clan. I then forgot to take the camera to the restaurant where I had planned to document the entire evening… who knows when this will ever happen again!!!
After we got home, I took a picture of the bill and am posting it here for the purpose of showing off our stupendous money management skills. Gillian was determined not to waste a cent of the $150 g.c…
Effie did not seem jealous in the least that her Mom had two different servings of lamb for dinner. She had a jelly bean sandwich for dinner after all.
Our last night with the Penticton crew was an evening of caramel apple making/ munching, followed by some crazy, energetic dancing which was in turn was followed by some Wall-E viewing. I won’t mention the post-apple eating and crazed dancing spewing (from both ends) that felled one of us cause that’s just too gross and embarrassing to mention. Hope you’re feeling better Mini.
Mini showing Effie The Macarena (The Macarena: annoying people the world over since 1996!)
Here’s a photo showing the nifty results of Chad’s two day metal workshop…
Gini refers to the piece, and its possibly violent imagery, as “The Keeper"
Chad prefers the more subdued “Metal Work Sculpture”.
Jeff and Ferg discuss birds eggs:
We've been fortunate to have Tiki's sister's family down for the weekend, just a couple of weeks removed from our trip up to their hometown in the Okanagan. We're having a blast (despite Chad's penchant for rooting for the evil Chicago Blackhawks). They're down because apparently wee little Metchosin is a mecca for all things blacksmithery and Chad's interested in learning how to work with metal.
Phi seeing Chadly-the-Dadly off to metal shop...
Effie and Mini :: buds since birth. They have joyous moments like cousins and crabby fights like sisters. Their way of sorting issues out has evolved over the years however - here's where they're at these days...
"Please come over here."
"I don't want to."
"Please COME HERE!"
"No. I don't like the way you're speaking to me right now."
"Well, I CAN'T FIND my other voice because you're being mean to me."
"Well you need to try."
"Okay, pleeeease come over here."
"Fine."
Phi n' Ferg:
