Sunday, January 27, 2008

Busy Times!

Well, January is just flying by. Between coaching basketball, the many workshops that I seem to have signed up for, and trying to get to the gym as regularly as possible, the month is rapidly disappearing. Charles is coaching the boys and Kelly and I are coaching the girls so at least one of us has a practice or game pretty much every day of the week. I also attended a workshop on the new Math 7 curriculum and the corresponding resources. The afternoon was informative if not exactly captivating. The second workshop was on teaching reading comprehension strategies for non-fiction writing which was a fantastic presentation - lots of usable and practical ideas that I can use in my classroom right away. On Friday evening, Rina and I went out to see Atonement which I've been dying to see for ages. After battling the crazy line-ups at Colossus (45 minutes - there went our plan to grab a coffee before the movie) the movie was fantastic. It's so nice to see how well a novel can translate into film. On Saturday we went out with Mandy and Kevin to CinCin for their Dine Out menu. We had amazing, attentive (but not overly so) service and we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals. My favourite was the Goat Cheese Ravioli and Roasted Veal Terrine appetizer that all four of us ordered. After dinner we went back to Mandy and Kevin's for some wii. Thanks to Charles's initial attempt at the sandwich delivery game (I forget the name) in Mario Party, I laughed so hard that I cried. I haven't done that in a long, long time! Well, now we're into another week that looks just as busy as this one - if this keeps up I'll really be in need of our two-week Spring Break!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Update


Okay so to summarize, we had a fantastic Christmas break and are now entering into our third week back at school. We worked up until the 21st of December so Christmas really snuck up on us but it was really nice to have the week off after New Year's. We spent a lot of time with family and friends and Caleb had a great time being the 'elf' and opening his own gifts. We did a Christmas Eve brunch at our house as Cristi was leaving the next morning (yes, Christmas Day) for Winnipeg. Then we were at Mom and Dad's for Christmas morning and back again for dinner where we were joined by Uncle Glen, Barb, and Aunt Nan. On Boxing Day (after shopping!) we went to the Jungclaus's for dinner. Later that week we had an Open House for friends where we enjoyed appies, drinks, Cranium and great company! On the 30th we went to see The Nutcracker with Cristi and Chris (a Christmas gift from Mom and Dad) and had dinner at Cru beforehand (Mom and I did the exact same thing last year!) We had a quiet New Year's fondue at home with Kris, Claudine, and Rob. The following week we saw a couple of movies - No Country for Old Men with Kris and Claudine and The Golden Compass with Kelly. It was a very relaxing week following the craziness of Christmas! I've added some photos of Christmas/New Year's and, well, pictures speak louder...
Getting back into work-mode was pretty tough. It was so great to have two weeks of being with Caleb all day, every day that it was quite an adjustment to return to the work day. We're also both coaching basketball this year so we're kept pretty busy with that. Last weekend we went out with Rina, Carl and friends to celebrate Rina's completion of her Master's - what an accomplishment! Then we had Mom, Dad and David over for Mom and Dad's birthday dinner which turned out great. We did beef tenderloin with shallot, bacon and port sauce accompanied by goat cheese souffles and asparagus - definitely a meal I'll make again! This weekend we went to Sip for their Dine Out Vancouver menu with Kris and Claudine. The food was great and I have to say that my favourite course was the dessert - their cheesecake had the most unbelievable texture! Then we headed out to Tinseltown to see Cloverfield. We really enjoyed it, but were left wanting to see what happened next - that would have ruined the whole 'camcorder' effect though. Sometimes it's nice to be left wanting more.
We'll be going out for part two of our Dine Out series this weekend with Mandy and Kevin. We're going to CinCin - none of us have been before although we've wanted to go for quite some time. It should be a lot of fun.