Chicken Adobo vs the World

It was Team Chicken Adobo against a hostile crowd. And we were feeling the pressure. Well I was feeling the pressure from the abdominal problems I'd been having lately. But the pre-tourney eats were fabulous. Thanks Kim!

The warm up was luke warm at best for Chicken Adobo. I think the pressure to repeat was weighing on them. The Middle East-South Korean Westenders were hot like lamb enchiladas with jalapenos and boog-uh-ong. Setting up one timers like they had been practicing all year.


It looked like trouble for the Chicken Adobos.
GAY-MMM ON!
Up early 2 to nothing. It looked like a promising start for the Chicken Adobos.
Then 3 unanswered goals spelled trouble.
But a tying goal made it even. And then the ME-SK Westenders roared to a 5-3 convincing win, earning them a trip to the restroom to relieve some pent up stress. They've got a lot of pressure on them after being blown away last year. There were trade talks all year and rebuilding.

Game 2.
Chicken Adobos down again. The momentum was with the ME-SK's. But with shots even, this was going down to the wire. But the Chicken Adobos held off the charging ME-SK's for a close 3-2 win.
It was all square. This was an even match between the two rivals. It could still go either way.

Game 3 was a shoot out fest. Both goalies were getting bombarded with one timers and interfered with by goons on the opposing teams.
Both benches were fuming. But the ME-SK's came close but it was a tough loss. 5 to 6 for the Adobos.

Game 4 was pivotal. No team had come back from 3 games down. Either the ME-SK's would rebound from a bitter pill in Game 3 or they would be throwing in the towel and looking to next year. Which team would show up from the washroom?

Well, they needed to go back to that washroom to flush whatever was holding them back, because it was a rout. Game 4 convincingly went to the Chicken Adobos 6-4. You could hear the desperation and the defeat in their voices. Complaining of headshots and cheap goals by the Adobos. Now they were facing a historic challenge. Would it be Comeback or Brokeback?

Game 5 was do or lie down with your butt up in the air.
It was another high scoring game that was going to go either way. The ME-SK's were desperate and also wanted to win badly. And some last second heroics by the ME-SK's sent the game into OVERTIME. It was the first time a game or series was going to be decided in OT. At least from what I can remember. It was clutch time! And the gas bubble in my gut was growing.

But at 0:42 of the 1st OT.
Walking in from the corner W.Redden of the Chicken Adobos sent the ME-SK's fudge packing for yet another year. It was a game for the ages. Most ages.
I hope we weren't too loud. Good thing Hong's house is a detach.

Crafted with old age skill using modern and high precision tools and a touch of Vioxx. The Cup was engraved with this year's champions.

Series Summary:
1 games to 4
Game #1
ME-SEA 5 CknAbo 3

Game #2
ME-SK 2 CknAbo 3

Game #3
ME-SK 5 CknAbo 6

Game #4
ME-SK 4 CknAbo 6

Game #5
ME-SK 5 CknAbo 6 OT



Click me for a few more photos

Story time

After trying to decode this story, Kieran finally read it to me.
You don't read it in the conventional way. ie. Left to right and from top down.

He always creates his story first then writes directly above it and continues up the page.

If you cannot determine Kieran's Code this is what each line reads.
From the bottom up, of course:

It is almost
Christmas I like
Christmas
and we get presents
I really like presents
And it is Jesus'
birthday

If you are trying to figure out what the drawing is.
The picture on the bottom is Kieran wearing his jacket and it's snowing.
The picture on the top is Jesus on the cross and two dead guys, or they are passed out.
His very words, describing this picture. Not quite sure where he got that vision, because we've never watched Jesus of Nazareth with him.

Season's Greetings

We got this as a card.
Remember, don't drink and drive.
Unless it's that town where Joe Rozman is from.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Season's Greetings.
Don't complain for a day.
Don't talk shop for a day.
It'll make you feel better.
Whatever.
Enjoy your time with family.
And don't worry about the scale until New Years. :)

Dance Battle to Funky Town

It was Shrek vs Curious George.
Who wins?
hint: the monkey is a swinger!
But the scores were very close and more importantly they kicked the butts of Jay-D, In-D and Ri-N.
Especially Ri-N. He stank. Even I beat him.
Pretty boy was MIA.



I wished I had gotten a video of the little ones. They enjoyed this game too.
All in all I'm impressed with Kinect. It's pretty fun.

Kremlin or FBI

How come passport photos make you look like you could potentially be a double agent? You can't smile, you can't show any bit of your teeth. You can't do anything except look like you are miserable in life.

I guess that travel isn't always the most pleasurable experience anyways. You have to figure out what you need to pack and not go over the weight quota, then you head to the airport 2+ hours in advance to queue up to check in and then queue up again to go through security.

Then you queue up at your gate where you are always behind someone near the front of the plane who can't get their stuff into the overhead cabinet and hold up everyone else getting on.

Then they are the ones holding up the entire plane trying to get their stuff down from the overhead cabinet. Then you hope to God that your luggage arrived.

Then coming back is even more stressful, especially when you are know that you are way over the customs quota when it comes to your purchases. And you are wearing 5 layers of clothing coming across the border and beginning to sweat.

In any case, traveling abroad is a chore. To put it nicely.
And to travel you need your documents.
And Kieran's was expiring in 2 months.

So we had to get a new one. We went to Wal-Mart to get it done. We got his haircut but his nose was so red from dried boogers from blowing his forever runny nose into a 1-ply kleenex. I wasn't sure how it would look, so I took him anyways. And it wasn't pretty. So I put some aloe very gel on it and to my surprise the next day it was much better. Man, kids heal fast. Or it was the aloe vera? In any case we re-took them at no charge.
Version 2 was the same result, just no redness.

And no smiles either. Look straight ahead and pretend you are traveling. So you look miserable. Just like his mama's passport photo. Which looks like agent Krause.


All this to make traveling easier and safer.
Yep, believe it or not...this is a picture of Kieran.
Even Kieran couldn't believe it.
Too bad he didn't have the same photo as his 1st year Casa one.
That's the best.

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's the 1 week before christmas and I'm almost recovered from a bout of the flu + strep + plus a nagging cough that's been keeping me up for 2 weeks now.

It's beginning to look more and more like christmas. The house on Brock has been lit up for weeks now.

Even the school is getting into the christmas spirit and the Santa's are getting younger and younger. Kieran's school is so into everything. All the kids really participate.

We even had an assembly line of christmas card. Cutting and drawing and writing and gluing and putting glitter stuff on it.

Now I got our tree. It's way better than last years.
It's waiting in the garage to be brought in.




Check this out. I think this is a new decoration at that house. We didn't see a train last year.
Their hydro bill must be huge.

Click me for more photos

Twila

Auntie Jessie came over to bring Kieran his gift that Santa left for him at their house.
It's directly from his list.
He was pretty excited and could hardly wait to show mama his new pet.



It's a fish. Because he's allergic to cats and dogs.

A betta fish or Siamese fighting fish. Apparently they are low maintenance and don't need much in terms of equipment. Just don't put more than one in the same tank or you'll find one or more missing.

How to take care of a Betta fish
Betta fish forum

I read that the fish will learn to recognize the face of the one that feeds it. So it's great that Kieran is so stoked about his pet and giving it attention. He even got his glow in the dark planets and put it on top of the tank as a night light.
And he named him Twila. Pronounced Tw-eye-Lah. I think he wanted something to take care of. A fish is a pretty good place to start. It's never too early to learn responsibility.

Artworks

Kieran really liked his art class. He liked it so much, he wanted to go when he was not feeling 100%. And he wanted to go to his art class instead of his hockey session. So he missed the first two sessions of hockey so he can finish his art class. We heard good things about Artworks Artschool. This particular class is geared toward 4-6 year olds, but Bronwen does a lot of 3D art. Kieran was really into it and it's made a difference in his creative output. He's been painting cities and planets and the Sun, with very little help from us. In his last week they made muffins, not real ones, but paper mache ones, and he also made a 3D bird. That's it beside the muffin. It's got feathers and two glue on eyes. I think they're meant to be ornaments that we will eventually hang on our christmas tree, that I just picked up. This year I didn't go to IKEA and buy a dead tree that was crushed by the weight of all the other trees in front of it. I got a tree from Tuminos, where we usually get it. Aldo always has great Fraser Firs. I think I got a big tree though. It didn't look THAT big in the garden yard. But it wouldn't fit in my Thule cargo carrier. So I had to tie it directly to the roof rack bars. In any case it's in the garage right now opening up. Can't wait to bring it in. Click me for Artworks photos

Hockey Nation

Kieran finally joined his Timbits Learn to Hockey linemates. All 30 of them. Actually I don't know how many there are. But it's fun to watch. Especially when it's not -20 deg C. It was a balmy +2 deg C on Sat. Great for me who's been recovering from the flu and strep throat.

He was a little hesitant to go, but in the end he enjoyed himself. The skating lessons from the CanSkate program really made a difference. He's not the fastest skater, but he's far from the slowest. Skating with bulky equipment takes some getting used to. But now when he falls, it's like landing on pillows, except your head...that's a little jarring.


They spend most of the 60 minutes, doing skating drills - turns and backward skating and around pylons, then they do puck handling drills. And then they play a game.
Some kids are quite good. Others are just barely skating. But it all looks pretty fun.
And they teach them the important skill of tapping your stick on the ice to acknowledge something good just happened.



He said he liked it, but would like to play a game longer. They usually only play for the last 15 mins. But today they spent 50 mins on drills and 5 or 10 mins on the game. But it was fun to watch. It's like a free for all with 4 pucks.

I can't wait til he's big enough that I can play with him.




I was unsure which way he would hold the stick. So the stick that I got for him has a completely flat blade. But it looks like he's going to be shooting right from his stick handling video. But when he's skating with one hand on the stick, he's holding it with his right. So I'm still not sure.

I have no dreams of him making it to the NHL. But as long as he learns to play and enjoy himself. It's a great way to make friends, have fun, get some fresh air and be healthy.

There's one guy barking out what they have to do. And there's 4 other dad's helping out with the kids. They break them in to 2 groups of Home and Away jerseys. And then into 2 smaller sub-groups as they do the drills.