Davenport music festival

Yep we came to the right place!

A little mishap, before the solo, where Kieran fell on the stairs going up to the back room to do some last minute practicing.

His bow stabbed his hand.





But the ladies that organize this are always prepared with bandaids.

Gavotte in G minor by Bach

Luckee Ramen

Where's the Ramen?

Surprise! there is no Ramen!
Happy Birthday
Maddi!

Dinner was great.  It was the perfect amount.

I didn't even notice there were no bowls of steamed rice.

That's like MAGIC!

Karate 25

HPMA 25th year!

We could only stay for the comic they hired to entertain the kids.
He was actually quite funny.  The little asian girl right at the front with the white belt though was hilarious!
She was giggling and laughing at everything!

Samat and Yahvi were there for the whole thing.
It got pretty full just after we arrived and we were about an hour into the celebration.

I'm sure they had some setup time and stuff.  But I'm glad we got to the entertainment.









This bit was funny.
The kid was a bit shy, but it turned out to be a good laugh for all!
I wish I had recorded this set.




Uncle Buck should hire that girl at the front for his shows!

Spring is here at Sir Sam's

This coming Sunday is officially the end of Ski Season at Sir Sam's.  And this second last weekend was a terrific day to ski during March Break.  Perfect temps.  Perfect weather.
You could actually enjoy a pitcher or two on the deck and not get too chilled.

It wasn't too busy at Sir Sams. It's a small hill, and can get crowded quickly.  I even got a prime parking spot usually reserved for the Elan sponsored skiers that are dressed in all green.
One thing I like about this place is that there's a bit of skiing for everyone.

The runs are quite easy,  they even have a border & snow cross, terrain park, some jumps, and tree trails (that the little ones enjoy). And there was still enough snow through the trees so you can still ski the trails.  A snow fall during the week helped.

Other than Horseshoe, I don't know of any other ski hill that has tree trails that you can ski.  If you go through the trees in Mt St Louis/Moonstone, you'll get kicked off the hill. And their trails are nothing compared to Sir Sams.  In the summer time these are the mtb trails, which is why they are distinct.

We spent the half-day skiing with Joe and Simon and his family.  Kieran pretty much knows all the tree trails here.   It's all he's done since see all the little kids skiing them when he was much younger. It was a game of follow the leader.

When you have shorter skis it's easier to manoeuvre through the trees.  Easier to avoid hitting a tree too.

I rode my board for the first time since last year.  And first time in years that I did more than 1 run on it.   And other than wiping out when I was getting of the lift a couple of times, I made it down the hill fine and looking like I never lost a step.   The video below is a clip from the back hill heading back to the chalet, passing by Joe, Simon and Alex, who's ski popped off again.  Joe is swooping in right at the end before it fades to black.



We saw Joe at the top when we first got to the hill.  There is no one else that has that neon green Elan jacket.  Also no one bigger.

And it was Simon and the kids at the top with him.



That's Simon.
It was unfortunate that Katja's boots went missing from the chalet.  Hopefully it was a mistake and someone thought it was their boots.
That's kind of the reason why I change my boots at the car.  Or i put them all in a bag some where so it's not in the open and unless someone wants to take my stinky boots. Then i can't stop them from doing that.

Kieran likes the Hero Session.  It's less dorky than the other camera we have. Plus the battery life is amazing.
We are not sure what he did to get the Session to take a time lapse video, but it's a series of photos of him going through the trees on the front hill, and you'll see the Neon Green Elan Joe ski by.
Then I easily pieced together the photos using Studio and added music with Quik.  I did have to change the speed so that it fit into 60s.
The GoPro stuff is Cool beans!

Where for art thou Imeneo?

It's not a shakespearean show we saw, it was an Italian Opera.
But the title sounded good.

This was a UofT show and one of our Cottage friends' daughter was cast as a lead.

I've never been to an opera.
I've never even really seen an opera.
They are usually in Italian or French and (believe it or not) sometimes in German.  Never thought of German as an operatic language.
But hey.  Who am I to judge.

We had dinner prior with the whole group at EVO OO.
It was amazing dining experience there.
Really enjoyed the company and food.

Sort of glad we had somewhere to go or else we'd be drinking and eating all night.

It was also a full house.  Sold out for ALL the performances.  So glad we were able to get tickets.  Otherwise we probably would gone back home and watched a Netflix movie or the Leafs are on TSN01.  They're in a playoff race you know!

My first photo with the orchestra to the right is a little blurry, but the other is clear.
We are actually sitting on the Stage.  It's quite neat the setup.

You can see the screen where the are translating what the singers are singing into english.  It reminded me of Kieran's violin pieces and how they are repeated.  It's not exactly a script, but they sing and act to articulate the scene and tell the story.

I've heard Sarah sing before.  She has an amazing voice.  And when you hear her on stage it's like a bird.  And when you hear her with other singers, you realize how awesome she really sounds.

I really liked the screen.  Opera snobs would probably consider it tacky, but because I don't understand Italian, it helped me to follow the story and enjoy the performance and able to appreciate the talents of the performers.  Otherwise I know I'd be lost.  And it would make no sense to me.

It was a very cool intro to Opera.
Cool to see someone on a stage that we knew.
I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her on other stages.

Licensed to slide

I've never been on or ridden a snowmobile in my life.
Kieran's one up on me here.
That's him pulling a cottage neighbour Michael on the round toboggan.  I wasn't feeling energetic this past weekend which was also the Spring FWD DST time change.  So my body was rejecting the time change.




The -12 deg C temps didn't help me either.  But as I was watching out the back window of the cottage. I witnessed Kieran sliding around on what I'd compare to as the winter version of tubing in summer.  Seeing his little frame on the disc sled looked like a lot of fun!  So I pulled on my snow pants and headed out into the Great White North.  I never thought of using a snowmobile for this sort of purpose.  I was looking at it more like a motor bike for the winter than like a boat for the winter.

This was a cool eye opener.   Wearing the helmet was great.  No wind burn or snow in the face!  It reminded me of my motor cycle riding days.  I would consider a snowmobile.  Out of all the possible leisure toys.  I think because a jet ski is not enough power to pull a tube, a boat is a lot of mainteance and gas and insurance, and ATV is pretty much just a off road small vehicle.  But a snowmobile, is designed for winter, the others aren't and winter storage can cause mechanical problems in the spring.

Sharon and Mike were up at the cottage and Johnathan had bought a snowmobile with is part time job savings.  And gave us all a ride. It was a blast.  He even showed Kieran how to drive the snowmobile!  I'm glad they trusted him enough to let him drive it alone.

Even their dog was impressed.  Well she was happy to be out in the snow eating ice chunks.

I was unsure how the lake would be since the weather this season has be a little up and down, but it's been well down into the minus' lately so the ice was good and thick.

There had been a hole drilled into the ice for some ice fishing and was clearly at least more than a food thick close to the shore.



Not all the sled rides were successful.   It's not as easy as it looks!   And once you get going staying on isn't so easy either.  Here's the snow plow method of riding the disc.