Fergus gets his groove on

Each day continues to be an adventure here in lala land. Fergus really enjoys disneyland but seems to forget this fact by the time the next day roles around and the crazy-fun of "staying in the hotel room" grabs hold of him. So we've been doing a better job of rolling with it and taking our sweet time about things. The park is open later Thursdays through Sundays which suits us best since it's well into mid-afternoon by the time we get over there (all the way across the street!). Tonight we had the honour of shutting down the Peter Pan ride and crawled out of the park close to midnight.

At the hotel pool - Fergus the Lounge Lizard Turtle:


Whirligigs:


I'm starting to get the impression that Fergus is not your average looking park guest. His unruly hair generates constant stares and whispers and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone else wearing the rubber boots in this heat. Nothing new then - just on a grander scale. But hey, the cast members (park workers) still manage to refer to him as "princess" so he's got that going for him.


You know, we love the Disneyland. It's syrupy and over-run with the "clean-cut", conforming types but whatever happy drug they shoot into the air seems to work for us. A daily dose of watching Fergus light up on the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster doesn't hurt either:

In the heat at disneyland

Chillin' on the mickey bench:


Woody and Jessie get up to their usual hijinx:


Hanging out at the gas n' sip!?!??!


We don't have the most watery of kids, but when you stay at the coolest hotel ever...


This shocked us... turns out the kiddos all of a sudden like zooming roller coasters. Ferg and I even did Space Mountain - a first for both of us:


Splashdown Effie and Roller Coastering:

California and Caramel Candy Corn

Does it get any better?

Nine

Effie got to spend her birthday doing two of her favorite activities at one of her favorite places: princess hunting and autopia driving at Disneyland...

Teacups



Hey, I recognize that driving squint...


Effie and Ariel


Ferg goofin' on the carousel

Happy Birthday Effie!

Effie and Minnie (not to be confused with cousin Mini):

James

So here's the real reason we dragged Fergus away from his comfort zone and flew him south to California - so I could selfishly fulfill a twenty year obsession and see James play live. This was hands-down the most amazing musical experience EVER. Two hours of full-on bliss! And Ferg seemed pretty excited that I had a good time - so there you go.


James, House of Blues, Anaheim, CA


Obsessive James fan number 1b and 1a (this was Mary's 4th concert in 5 nights!):


And just to complete that thought from yesterday's airplane adventure, here's James singing "I wanna go home" amongst some other short song clips. As amazing, and loud, as the sound at the concert was, the sound in this youtube video is horrendous - I'll never be mistaken for a soundguy with my wee little camera...

James at HOB


Despite being shut out of the after-party festivities, there was one added bit of excitement for Mary that happened in the parking lot (just after I left her!). I'll let her gush about it when she gets a chance. And boy will she gush!

Ferg bests Tim Booth

So far on their current North American tour, James (the band) have played their new song "I wanna go home" at every one of their 15 concerts. Given that singer Tim Booth repeats the words "I wanna go home" no less than twenty times throughout the song, that's a minimum 300 times that he has expressed this desire to go home within the past 3 weeks.

Big deal! Fergus SHOUTED the words "I wanna go home" well over 300 times in the span of an only one HOUR. Unfortunately for the stress levels of his three traveling companions, he chose to commence this repetitive pronouncement just as we got to our seats near the back of the plane for our scheduled flight from Seattle to Long Beach, CA.

Leading up to our vacation, Fergus had certainly given enough hints that such a reaction was possible (perhaps the strongest hint being "I'm not going"!!!). And some people out there familiar with what's been going on will be a bit curious as to whether we actually made it to our destination or not. So yes, we did make it - barely. Fergus was going along just fine the last few days, right up until we got to our row of seats in fact and he was told that the window seat that he coveted did not belong to us. This was when the "I wanna go homes" and the refusal to get buckled in his seat started up.

Apart from garnering the attention of the entire cabin, all of the circling flight attendants assured us that we were very close to being booted off for delaying the flight and threats to "call the captain" were flying off their tongues fast and furious. But by the time the captain paid us a visit Gillian had somehow managed to squeeze the extremely unhappy boy into his seat (and this was when she told the captain just to get going - very funny in retrospect).

This was not one of our finer moments. Thankfully we had forgiving fellow travelers - one guy told me, after asking "so where is home anyway?", that I was lucky to have such a patient wife. As well, in the end the crew was very understanding - one of them even offered to buy a stiff drink for a visibly harried Gillian. Once we got up to altitude Ferg settled in to his Bakugan and all was well with the world again. Oh, and of course, no one ever did occupy either of the window seats in our row! So although the whole ordeal made me so stressed that my ears felt like they were going to pop off at any moment, Gillian - for whatever reason - had no sympathy for me over there across the aisle with three seats to myself:


As James sing on their version of "I wanna go home", "this too shall pass". Here's hoping that happens prior to our return flight.

Early BD present

Yes Sireeeeeeee....


It's...........


Make-'em-yourself-slippers!!!


Thanks A.Nut

Succumbed

Looks like we're officially a pokémon household now...

The pancakes are trying to tell us something

...other than "you burned us!" Purely random occurrence:

Recently...

Car picnic (driveway)


Owl


"How Things Work" by Fergus:
1. Get angry
2. Break something (preferably by throwing it)
3. Check out the insides
4. See how things work
5. Attempt to put it back together again

Ferg gets his Honky Tonk on for Lightning McQueen

The plan was to have a wee visual retrospective up and running in time for Fergus’ birthday last weekend but by the time the weekend rolled around, the half-built video required a bit more footage. Not a problem, I thought - we’ve still got gift-opening at home, a party with his main-man Quinton and celebrations with Grandma and Grandpa to document. And in the end, all that was achieved. But plans for the video (including, shockingly, more of Fergus bouncing on the trampoline!) got sidetracked significantly by “Fergus-and-the-case-of-the-Lightning-McQueen- piñata”.

Natural observers at heart, our kiddos have witnessed - from a safe vantage point - many a piñata beaten to a pulp at birthday parties and solstice celebrations alike. Oh sure, they’d get in on the mad-candy-scramble at the end but never have they partaken in the actual stick-wielding, carnage-creating bliss. So we got Fergus a “Cars” themed piñata (and thankfully Gillian and Mom told me you had to actually fill it yourself) and strung it up, only to find out that it was not a whac-a-mole type piñata but rather its gentler, tamer cousin, a ribbon-pull piñata. That made sense, we thought, as this way you get to still have the fun, release the candy, AND preserve that fine cardboard-n-paper, automotive craftsmanship.

Fergus-and-the-case-of-the-Lightning-McQueen- piñata featuring the music of Detektivbyrån (Honky Tonk Wermland)


Fergus said, after watching this video, “I love Lightning McQueen. But I don’t love Lightning McQueen”. A good thought for this day! You can sense his heartfelt, yet confused, adoration in every tortured swing, stomp and toss inflicted upon the defenceless (yet still smiling) beast.

Five

H.B. HFBM

On the day he was born, Fergus laid in the middle of our big bed, quietly soaking up the September sun, and slept.
Still and quiet.
At peace with his journey into this world.

This confused us to no end. We were not prepared for this. What would we do? All we knew about babies, from our experience with Effie four years earlier, was that they screamed and needed us ALL. THE. TIME. Babies did not just lay there and go to sleep by themselves?

How exactly were we supposed to spend 24 hours a day by his side without him, gasp, actually needing us 24 hours a day?

On the day after he was born, Fergus did not lay in the middle of our big bed, he did not quietly soak up the September sun, and he did not sleep. Actually, from that day forward Fergus has wiggled, yelped, sneered, laughed uproariously and stormed his way through life with wild abandon.

What a relief! Thank you, our obstinate little Goose, for being you.
And Happy Birthday!

Doggone It, People Like Me

So the other evening I was flipping through some channels and came upon something that struck me as really odd. Now I realize that I have been away from the intelligence that is cable television for a few years but still, I was pretty sure that what I was witnessing was not right, even for a reality program. I think the show was called “America’s Next Star” or something (I dunno, I refuse to Google it). And there, standing all alone on this stage in front of a live audience, and - through the miracle of satellite - hundreds of Palin-supporters at home, was this little four year old girl with a microphone in her hand having recently finished singing or dancing or licking ice cream or something. And there she was. All by herself. Taking criticism from a panel of judges! I nearly fell out of bed (luckily the toys piled next to it propped me up). The first judge even spewed out some drivel about the girl being a Princess but not quite ready to be a Queen - to which I thought “what four year old girl wants to be a Queen anyway, they’re old and evil. Princesses is where it’s at”. But the girl just stood there listening to how although she had “won over America”, she didn’t quite have the chops to continue on in this illustrious program. Not a tear was shed. She just starred at the judges with these big eyes, nodding as if to say “yup, I’m not good enough… I shoulda tried harder” (somewhere, off camera, a parent was mouthing “suck it up girlie girl”). The second judge was Ozzy’s wife so she can be forgiven what with her fine pedigree and cool accent and all. But, when they showed the presenter to be Jerry Springer and the last judge to be that has-been Night Rider guy whose last starring role was on Youtube playing a shirtless, hamburger eating drunkard… BAM, it hit me. The whole thing was a prank. Ha! Those kooky SNL guys crack me up every time!!!

Four year olds! What a talented/ potty-trained/ stoic lot they are, eh! Today is the last day of Fergus’ stint at being a four year old. Phew! He can go back to head-butting walls, smashing up toys and peeing on the driveway without someone judging his every performance.

Beef in Wine Sauce

What the heckfire is this girl doing????


Peeling carrots of course...


This Wii thing has gone too far!

Mainlanders invade

We had a super visit with Grannie and Grandad over the weekend (Grandad's first trip back to the island since they abandoned us moved away last Spring).



And we had fun celebrating Grannie's birthday with a piratical theme.


Until, that is, Grannie got her gun out and started shootin the whole place up.

Updated Video

This version seems to work more consistently...

Life is Good Video - Youtube version

Life is Good video

Three months later, here's a video for the May, 2008 Life is Good Unschooling Conference - starring the nine heads of Frank!
Interesting timing, given we're sadly missing the final Live and Learn Conference this week.

Life is Good 2008

Life is Good 2008 from mesmith on Vimeo.

(if the embedded version here isn't playing for you, try clicking on one of the hotlinked "Life is Good 2008" titles above or below it, they'll take you right to the source and should work fine)

NBTS

Yesterday, on the day before not going back to school, Fergus celebrated by watching Scooby Doo all day. The rest of us spent the afternoon preparing for a photo shoot. All of this because Gillian had talked to a reporter for a good hour about unschooling and, under the threat of the newspaper sending out a freelance photographer, we decided we would just rustle up some pics we had taken ourselves. Only problem... the picture was supposed to show us doing something schooly in the woods and after a couple of hours scrolling through the archives we unearthed a lot of "playing" in the woods, but very little in the way of documented "learning". Darn uncooperative unschoolers! In the end, and after everyone put on clothing, we recreated the deer bone photo (this time with fewer pj's):


The article in question was a full page feature in the Vancouver Sun today on one professor's ideas of re-defining schools. His philosophy revolves around kids studying one topic (like dust - his example, not mine) for 12 years. Apparently, "interest is high"! Gillian was sought out as an alternate voice, though she feels she came off as "just a mom" who can not speak proper English in comparison with the erudite professor. But obviously the article was written for a certain purpose, and that purpose obviously had nothing to do with showing a lovely mother and daughter hovering over some bones in the woods and everything to do with an over-powering photo of a professor standing in front of a concrete jungle. Page hog!

Anyway, Gillian got a few words in. You can read the article here.