Medieval Village

Medieval Village week has begun. One of Eff's favorite times of the year...


Ferg refers to Medieval Village as "Value Village" and prefers the lighthouse, fort and battery.


They say we're related...

Hodge Podge

concoctions and canal boats


in a tree


in a different tree


picnic (with trees in the background!)


hugh the skeleton & fergus (no trees)


next year destroyer of plants bambi won't be so cute

God I love this man!

Long overdue, but you heard a rumour that the Bray Mayer Family Singers debuted at this year's Life Is Good Unschooling Conference Talent Show. Despite having to take Fergus for a pottie break just before we were called to the stage the first time, and then being phoned with a desperate "where ARE you?", then getting freaked out that they were actually really going to call us to the stage, and then downing a fast extra beer to shore up his mettle, he still got up on stage and sang so that the rest of us who really wanted to be there: Martin, Effie, and I, could have our few minutes in the spotlight! God I love this man! He makes my dreams come true.

Click here if the video won't start, to go straight to the You Tube version

Foodies

One day Fergus will ask for 3 bags of gold nuggets (vile tasting gum in the shape of nuggets… nostalgia candy) and the next he’ll ask for 3 cans of chick peas. He likes milk, is not big on chocolate at the moment, loves peanut butter sandwiches and crepes and most anything starch related. Here’s photographic evidence that he recently ate a whole can of chick peas in one sitting:


Effie’s current favourite food, other than her all-too-infrequent-for-her-liking encounters with lamb, is vanilla ice cream. I thought I was the least efficient Costco shopper in Costco history when I went there recently just to get a large tub of ice cream. Until, that is, Tiki arrived home from there the other night with nothing but a super-sized bag of Doritos!?! Effie also likes fruit and prefers waffles and crepes to pancakes. In fact she’s off pancakes altogether.



All this just to highlight that we recently cooked pancakes on the bbq! During our upcoming week-long holiday on saltspring island, we plan to bbq every meal so we needed the practice.

Trendy Boy

This season, all the cool kids are sporting that flannel-bottomed shirtless look...


Self-portrait...


Quote of the week...
Mama: "Fergus, it is one o'clock in the morning and you're four years old"
Fergus: (paused briefly to give his mama a quizzical look then carried on playing with his magnets)

Foolish Man

This is a photo of a man who is...
a. foolishly pulling Broom while the plants still have seed pods on them.
b. foolishly pulling Broom since it makes him sneeze, itch and long to live in a condo in the city.
c. showing off his Father's Day gift (The Broom Extractigator) from Grandma & Grandpa.
d. showing off his massively developed calf muscles.
e. showing off the fact that he no longer sports a mullet.

Hello Summer

...goodbye rain, watch the door doesn't hit you on the way out.

Videos

So there is a 21 thousand plus member cult out there with a fetish for watching santa ride a fire truck and deliver us candy canes! Yup, when I don't understand something I'm pretty quick to slap the ol' "cult" label on it... usually I end up eating my words but don't think I'll have to in this case! Obviously I erred somewhere in the tagging of that movie when I put it up on youtube last December. But 21,000 views in 6 months for 50 of the boringest seconds in video history!?!? That's just freakish, especially considering most of our movies get viewed way less than a hundred times each.

And then I thought I had learned my tagging lessen by really limiting the info provided for subsequent videos - cause after all who wants to encourage another Fire Truck Santa cult? But just last week I youtubed a video for SaltSpring island and tagged it simply "ss". And on came the nazis.

Here's a new sleepy video sans santas and the SS...
Video :: Trip to Portland and environs, May '08

Big Weekend

Sport of the Future :: Bareback Trampoline Bronc Riding (Clifford the Big Red Dog version). A tad bit difficult to photograph in action however:



We joined the B-B’s for an ultra-relaxing day of inner-tube-frolicking hijinx at their Saltspring lair:



We celebrated father’s day with a game of shadow soccer with Grandpa and participated in some serious sprinkler action:

Family Dance

Last weekend we had a home learners family dance and, for entertainment, we arranged for a performance by a groovy marimba band comprised of home learner alumni followed by a performance by an equally groovy, if less animated, iPod. Leading up to the event, we spent many hours perfecting and fine-tuning our DJ set list to ensure a wild night of dancing for everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. But most of those in the “youngest” category had other ideas. Hmmm… decisions, decisions. Crazy Frog or Kapla blocks? ABBA or scaling the outdoor sculptures? Dexys Midnight Runner or romping through the playground? Devo or messing with the disco ball? Groove Armada or self-flagellation?…





Them kids gots their priorities out a whack or what??? One member of our family, at least, did cut several rugs… so much so that walking up and down stairs proved quite a challenge for her the next day!

Idol worship

See, you can meet your heroes after all! Here I am with James’ singer Tim Booth (who clearly disputes Mary’s claim that I am merely their number 2 fan). Twenty years I have waited for this truly bonding, momentous occasion (insert your own "he was a bit stiff" joke here!).



Yeah, that's Mary in the background... trying to steal my thunder.

Spitting distance to California

We had a great adventure to Sidney Spit yesterday. It nearly indirectly led me to California!?! Can you tell that we started the trip out with a gloomy and wet ride in a wee boat?


How many home schooly types does it take to put up a rain tarp? Several at least. But not as many as it takes to stand around and criticize of course.


We made all the nursing mammas roll large boulders across the sand to help support the structure.


Sport of the future: Off-A-Cliff Disc Golfing.


We collected a few washed up crab traps and hefted/ raced them long distances in an attempt to set up a “proper” disc golf course. But by then the wee ferry had returned and we had to go. Damn wee ferry!


Three posers:


Despite the weather (it's saving the best stuff for July ya know!), it was an awesome day. Peace out dude!
Oh wait... that's not a peace sign Belle's giving me!


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Special Bonus “I-don’t-just-visit-this-blogsite-for-the-pretty-pictures-I-visit-it-to-hear-about-obsure-musical-obsessions-too” Section... Below is visual proof*, via Sam’s iPhone, that I was able to tune into a Santa Monica radio station’s broadcast of James playing their new album live in studio. Mary had given me the heads up so I wanted to document just how dedicated to the cause I was despite being stranded on a remote, far flung beach. I figured that even though she was the one who found out about it, I was the superior fan for going to such lengths.

But dang blast-it, she done gone and proved me inferior yet again (I say again because she’s planning a James-themed tattoo and I’m on the James-themed tattoo fence… a very distant and razor-wire-topped fence). When we returned from our long day out yesterday there was a voice message from a remarkably calm Mary indicating that her powers of persuasion had worked and that James were set to play at a club in L.A. the next night, and oh by the way did I think I could make it because she was sure as hell-fire going. It was just less than two weeks ago, at the conference, that Mary had announced that she was willing (the law of attraction?) James to come play somewhere in her vicinity (James had no plans to leave the UK and their new album is still yet to be released in the States, so I just nodded politely at the fool her). So now, aaaarrrgh yeah, Mary and Diana are in L.A. after driving all night from Oregon like a couple of hepped-up teenaged groupies. And (!) there’s a ticket waiting for me at the door since for a few hours there last night I thought that I might actually be able to get there through a combination of air miles and a complete disregard for familial obligations. Turns out that the ability to use my obviously measly amount of points, seemingly articulated as a definite possibility via aeroplan’s website, was quickly** dismissed by the utterly ineffectual and moronic real-live-person/ non-service agent. And here I am… at home… sitting at the computer for hours and hours and not in any way necessarily responding to familial obligations. Or watching James perform live.

* Actually the iPhone didn’t have the proper player installed so we couldn’t pick up any sound… but hopefully no one reads to the end of this extremely long, boring and not at all self-effacing post anyway.

** Quickly dismissed… after an hour on hold of course.

UPDATE - 5 pm Pacific:

Look, Flat Craig is now there... in Los Angeles... in all his non-receding hair, backward flag waving, daisy necked, already relegated to number 2 fan status glory:

Snow Cone Free Circus

We somehow managed to navigate through a weekend of post-conference let down, complete with colds and grumpiness, and found ourselves tonight at the most entertaining, amazing spectacle ever. Yeah!



The cirque was a bit of a rip off though since we purchased four seats and only used their edges... hardy har har!