Devin Has Met His Match!

Yesterday Devin had his first power skating lesson. It's a small group of 6 (ranging from 9-15 years old) with an incredibly qualified instructor. She was teaching them proper starting and stopping, sprinting, crossovers, backwards techniques, and even had them spinning circles with their heels together (toes 180 degrees apart...try just standing like that in your socks on the floor!)
Devin, being Devin, gave his all to keep up with the older (twice his size) guys, and did quite well. Their last drill was to skate around the rink and then sprint as fast as they could between the blue lines (with the coach yelling Harder!! Faster!!) The first time around, Devin was able to make a slight increase in speed, but the second time he "blue a tire" and fell face first on the blue line. But not one to give up, he picked himself up and continued for a few more rounds.

He dragged himself to the van and when we got home he thought he may need help to unbuckle his seat belt because he simply had nothing left to give. Once inside he drank a gallon of water and raided the fridge for anything that didn't move. At supper he asked if maybe we'd consider just letting him go to the public skating times and skip the power skating idea. This morning he's thinking he'll try it again, but without his hockey equipment...I'm sure that by the next lesson he'll be ready and eager to go.

Is this Exciting Enough?!?

Devin went to Anjo and Kathy's place for a little while after church on Thanksgiving. They arrived home to their (normally) quiet place (at the end of a dead end road) to discover a driveway full of cars (and their back field full of pick-up trucks).
No, they hadn't forgotten that they had invited the neighbours for dinner...a hunter had shot a moose and followed it through the bush until it finally died, right in their back yard!!!!
Devin adds: "It was a Bull moose, and it was HUGE!"

Let's Salsa

So this week I decided that instead of jumping right into the books I’d take it a little easy, just do a bit of school, and use the rest of the time to get my salsa made. Packed up the kids, went to the local farmer’s market to get my tomatoes, onions and peppers. Bought a fancy new pot from Costco. Blended all my ingredients, went to turn the stove on and discovered that the forecast was for a high of 32C for the next 3 days (with increased “feels like” temp due to high humidity) OOOOPS! Our Coleman stove was neatly packed away for the winter in the trailer, so we’ve just been battling the heat. 55 jars later, I’m done and enjoying the fruits of my labour (and sweat!) When we went camping earlier this summer I forgot to bring along a jar for our tacos and bought a jar…I knew I liked my salsa but had forgotten just how much better it is than store bought! Some things are just well worth it.