Brooklyn Gets Down

Today was Brooklyn's dance recital. She's taking a jazz dance class. I'm not sure how "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge is a jazz dance song, but who cares, she was awesome! It was more impressive watching the show live today because all the other young girls had instructors dancing with them...Brooks' group was the first to dance on their own without an instructor. I'm very proud of my little girl.

BTW, she starts in the center and is basically the second in the line for most of the routine, just in case you didn't recognize her!

H-E-L-L-O, It's Showtime!

Oh dear. Camera work by Justin. Performance by Brooklyn. It becomes semi-coherent at about the 25 second mark.

5 Going On 15

Something tells me that when your 5 year old daughter is already straightening her curly hair and dressing in leather and boots, you should be very, very afraid of what's to come.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn!!!

My little girl is now officially 5 years old!!! I can hardly believe it, she is growing up so fast.

What a cutie she has become...and she's the tallest girl in her class! Maybe I have a model on my hands...nah, she says she wants to be a rock star.

Justin, I hope your sister doesn't forget her rude little bro when she's famous!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! My date for the Halloween sock-hop was my sweet darlin' Brooks. Ain't she cute?


Justin is hiding under the Boba Fett mask...last year he was Jango Fett, now Boba Fett. Oh well, at least he didn't want to be Princess Leia!

And speaking of Boba Fett, this freakin' pumpkin took forever to carve!!!

We carved another one quickly at the club Halloween party, where the gym had been converted to a haunted house. They had bowling with skulls, a place to make your own magic potions and fishing for rats and bats out of a witch's cauldron. The kids had fun but were too scared for the haunted house!

This little guy was a quick free form carving by yours truly after Justin decided it was too much work!

Climing At The Boiler Room

Aunt Ellen took us to the local indoor climbing wall in Kingston. Justin proved to be more of a bouldering guy...but Brooklyn was aggressive and fearless and climbed to the ceiling of the former cotton mill.

We also met Rob Chisnall, a local who has a Guiness Book of World Records title for the most two finger and also one finger pullups!!! Insane!!!

End Of Season

Heh, heh, heh! Justin was really having an awkward time smiling with his new front teeth for his baseball photo!!! But Brooks is so sweet she could play for the Angels!

Anyway, school and activities are winding down for the year. The Green Gators had an impressive 7-1-2 record for the short baseball season, and Justin played very well. Brooklyn's t-ball team is also winding down.

The summer is wide open now...if it ever arrives!!! Judie wants to buy new patio furniture and I don't know why. To look at, I guess. We've had one day over 20 degrees and we ate outside once so far. Brrr. I need another trip to Hawaii to warm up!

Go, Go, Go! Busy, Busy, Busy!

Sometimes my faithful readers (who never seem to post comments on the blog) send me snot-o-gram emails wondering when I'm ever going to update my blog. Well, between work, home and kids activities, there isn't much time left in the day to write a proper post. What have we been up to? Well, I've been to New York again, killing a few days of precious time. And the kids have been full on with activities now that the weather is FINALLY getting better.

First of all, a belated congratulations to Justin and Brooklyn, who passed Swim Kids 3 and Whale respectively at the Atlantis swimming program. Brooks is now stuck because she's reached the top level for kids under 6!!! She can't register for Swim Kids 1 or 2 for another year and a half! Both of them were very pleased and swimming better than I remember doing at that age.

Second of all, Justin has been running 3 days a week before school in the "kilometre club", which encourages kids to be active. He hit his goal of an accumulated 100 kilometers last week! Way to go, Justin! As a reward, we bought him some goalie equipment for street hockey that he REALLY wanted.

Justin blocks a shot with his pads.

Justin decked out in his new goalie equipment. He's about as graceful as Luongo (take that comment any way you want!)

Justin catching. The Green Gators are 7-1-1 (with one rainout) this season. Coaching 7 year olds at baseball is like herding cats! Our team seems to be the only team in the league where we have to teach the kids to be less competitive! They are killers! We turned two double plays in a recent victory over the Spitfires.

Brooks is playing t-ball, which is about as exciting as watching paint dry!

Justin takes Trevor's dog, Reggie, for a walk. The kids desperately want a pet but I'm sticking to my allergic-to-dogs-and-cats line.

Justin finally riding his bike. He really should have a proper bike with gears. The "Hummer" bike he's riding must weigh at least twice as much as he does!

Brooks still has her training wheels on, but she looks stylin'!

Justin takes to the fireman pole at the playground.

Brookster smiling down after climbing the wall with the chain.

Monkey bars!

Brooks scales the tower from another angle.

Geez, Justin doesn't even need a push on the swings anymore. When did that happen?

Um, not sure what to say about this picture. Oh, Brooks. She said she was supposed to be a clown...with a bag on her head and a deflated inner tube around her neck. At least she has an imagination!

And this? This is the picture my dear, sweet daughter took of me on the patio yesterday! No respect, I tell ya!

By the way, the picture quality isn't great because I took all of these with my Blackberry, not a proper camera...but at least I was able to capture the moments and give you an idea of what we've been up to!

Recently Heard At Our House...

"When can we go to Hawaii again?"...Brooklyn...Geez, we only came back from Maui less than 30 days ago! Gimme a break!

"Which one is Uncle Bruce? Is he the bald haired uncle?"...Brooklyn...Hahaha. Out of the mouths of babes. I told her yes, Uncle Bruce is the bald uncle who catches frisbees like a ballet dancer.

"NO GOAL! The net was off the morons!"...Justin...One of his many excuses for letting in a goal playing street hockey. And that's "moorings", you little moron!

"NO GOAL! The goalie was itchy!"..."NO GOAL! You chanted U-S-A and you're from Canada!"..."NO GOAL! My fingernails were dirty!"...Justin's many excuses for letting in goals...He has more excuses than Luongo!!!

Jamboree G-O-A-L

Saturday was the end of season soccer jamboree, where the Condors played 4 matches at UBC on the spectacular new artificial turf. These games were 7 on 7, played on a much larger pitch than during the regular season. The larger playing surface meant the boys had to practice the skills they learned during the year and play together as a team. The kids who are used to running end to end on the smaller field quickly tired out, and passing was key.

And wouldn't you know it, Justin dashed up to the side of the net and drilled a pass into the net for the first goal of the jamboree for the Condors. Way to go, Justin! It was an awesome goal, and it got him fired up such that he was in the heat of a lot of action. He took a nasty boot to the shin that took him down awhile, but later on made a great play on defense and booted the ball about a mile up field to his teammate. I've never seen him kick the ball so hard and far before.

But you know what the best part of the soccer jamboree is? It is the END! The last games of a gruelling season that runs from September to March, through the cold, wet days of a Vancouver winter. Thank the good Lord it is finally over!!! With the length of the season, I'm surprised Vancouver isn't turning out more world class soccer players. I'm exhausted. Baseball is up next!

Seattle

We spent a few days in Seattle over March break. It isn't far from Vancouver but we haven't been there with the kids before. I guess because its just a typical dirty American city that pales by comparison to the beauty and cleanliness of Vancouver. Seattle is kind of a bigger, dirtier, more run down, less spectacular version of Vancouver. And with an overcrowded freeway running right through the middle of it. Blech. Whoever it was that decided to shelve the idea of a freeway through downtown Vancouver deserves a medal.

The area around the Space Needle is semi-interesting. There`s a combination museum of music and science fiction...right...hmm...ok then, moving on...there`s some interesting architecture there.

The kids were hiding behind the art, and yes, Justin is there hiding in the background somewhere. Zero cooperation! I`m sure I wasn`t that difficult when I was a kid. That`s Jess and Jamie hanging out with us.

Nonetheless, I managed to get a picture of the little monster.

And speaking of monsters, Justin was swallowed by a whale at the Children`s museum, where we blew off about 4 hours! Sheesh! A good rainy day thing to entertain the rug rats.

Justin did a great job on the rock wall.

The weather finally turned and we took in the zoo. The kids enjoyed a ride on the vintage carousel.

Justin, Jess, Brooks and Jamies take a ride on a komodo dragon.

You know, I just don`t even know where to begin to describe this picture. At some point over the past year, I`m sure Justin was abducted and replaced with an alien clone.

Overall, the kids had fun, we had some great pizza from Serious Pies, the hotel was a super mega deal, the zoo was pretty cool and it was nice to get away. If I had to rank the major cities of the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver is by far number one, and I`d recommend Portland over Seattle without hesitation.

G-O-A-L!

Justin had a great soccer game today. He scored his first goal of the season...a huge power shot on a breakaway destroying the back of the net...he very nearly scored a second...and he made a great sliding defensive play to stop a hard kick while the goalie was down! He played hard from start to finish in the rain, got muddy and trampled on a few times with no tears shed. Way to go mini-dude.

Happy Birthday Nana

So my Mom is getting super old...she just turned, like, 101 or something on December 29.

We tried to call on her birthday but she was out. So I decided to get the kids to sing Happy Birthday to her on video. What a mistake!!! Brooklyn is sick and Justin is 7 going on 17 with all his bloody attitude. So recording a simple Happy Birthday song devolved into slamming of doors, tears, banishment from Wii, etc.

Here are a few of the many outtakes. Sheesh. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Christmas Dinner

Brooks got her hair straightened for Christmas dinner at the Kim's house last night. She was so happy to have "beautiful" hair. Sheesh, if it was straight she'd want to curl it I'm sure.

Mrs. Kim put on a good spread...turkey, stuffing, kimchi, jellyfish salad, tuna sashimi, spicy pork ribs...all washed down with a little Christmas cheer!

The Super Mega One Year Blog Anniversary Post

Can you believe a whole year has passed since I created this blog? The blog with a stupid name about nothing? I surpassed my goal of achieving 72 posts...this is number 93. That works out to one post every 3.92 days, for those of you who criticize me for not posting often enough. And they said it couldn't be done!

In following the Lobster With Kimchi tradition of posting about nothing, I have a monster post with pictures, music and video!

The pictures portray the events of the week at the Lobster household. First I bedazzled the outside of the house with lights and shiny red balls. Judie hates it but everyone stops to look...I think it looks great, and what else matters, really. Now if only I could get an inflatable Santa to stick on the roof....the possibilities are endless! After much debate about getting an artificial tree this year, we ended up with a 7 foot Douglas Fir, and I have to admit there's nothing like the smell of a real tree filling the house...unless you're the poor sap covered in sap from wrestling the damned thing into the stand and into place. I've had squirrels following me around for days now!

The kids did a fine job decorating the tree, and although Judie won the battle of white lights over multi-coloured lights this year, the kids won the battle of homemade decorations, construction paper and all. Bwahahahahahaha. Brooklyn was so excited she decorated the tree with her toy beads and necklaces as garland before I even got the lights on it. If you click on the fourth picture of the kids standing in front of the Christmas tree you'll notice Brooklyn is holding a bottle...it is the "Florida Snowman" melted in a bottle that Mom sent us years ago. The kids finally "got" the joke this year. Sheesh.

Justin also finished up his skating lessons today. Congrats, dude, you really gave it your all this time around.

Seems like the whole city is gearing up for Christmas now, and I guess it's just around the corner. One of my favourite Christmas songs is by the Vancouver band, Payola$. Yes, the same Payola$ that sang "Eyes of a Stranger". As far as I know, this song is out of print, which is a shame. Here is "Christmas is Coming" by the Payola$, a great song that kind of makes me miss my brother Barrie this time of year.

The video is from Brooklyn's dance recital. Ah, watching 4 year old girls dance is just so...so...so painful!!!

Thanks for reading...and hey, if you really want to encourage me to post more often, how about leaving a few comments, would ya?

Merry Christmas,

Brian

Disney On Ice

As if the kids didn't get enough Disney this year already, Brooklyn took in the Disney on Ice spectacular last week. The Little Mermaid seems to be her favourite of the moment, and the show didn't disappoint! The merchandise was even more of a rip off than at Disneyland itself, and that is no small feat!

I didn't think my daughter liked licorice, but there she is in the picture eating it...