The BEST fieldtrip ... EVER!!

Gabe' preschool had a fieldtrip to the Allouette Fish Hatchery today. Faith and Declan had a Pro-D day so they were able to come long too. Gabe has been waiting weeks for this fieldtrip! First, they got to paint wooden fish in the shape of salmon. Faith's came out looking pretty close to the colours of a salmon, Declan's was close but he decided his salmon needed some blue too. Gabe's is very colourful. After painting they sat down with the guide and she told them the life cycle of the salmon.

We then went down to the tanks where they keep the salmon fry and the guide fed them so the kids could see them jumping up at the food. There were two rules: don't put your hands in the water and don't bang the tank and believe it or not Gabe did not break the rules!

Then we walked down to the river where they had a pick up truck with a tank of salmon fry and buckets waiting for the kids to release them into the river. This, of course, was the highlight of the trip!

The kids were told to release the salmon very slowly and close to the water. Declan took this quite literally and had the bucket in the river so that the salmon fry would swim out and then right back in again. It took him a good 10 minutes to finish his first bucket of fish!

Gabe did pretty good, only a few salmon received head injuries from hitting the rocks. I chose not to put his gum boots on as that would only be a licence to go further into the river - however, he was wet up to his knees by the time we left.

We hung their painted wooden fish on our fence in the backyard and they are already looking forward to next year!

Pictures at Allouette Lake

I'm not sure but I think she was trying to catch a fish with her bare hands.

Aftering being told "Gabriel for the tenth time stay out of the water!", he found himself a puddle of clay.

It took two trips down to the lake before Declan figured out to stack smaller rocks so that he could finally conquer the biggest rock on the beach.

This is Gabe and Alex in the water. If you look close enough you can see the water is above his boots.

This is Gabe after being told many, many times to stay out of the water.

Maggie swimming for the first time.

Kate French

This is Katykinz. She is the baby of our group of friends (Keith and Roberta's daughter) but make no mistake ... she can easily keep up with the rest of the kids! Hopefully Roberta doesn't mind that I put her on our blog - but is she not the cutest?

Gabe's Girlfriend

This is Gabe's best friend, Alex. She goes to preschool with him and we occassionally daycare Alex. She is a tomboy at heart who loves Lighning McQueen, dinosaurs, bugs and pretty much everything Gabe likes!

Bocci Ball

We had a first annual Allouette bocci ball tournament which Faith make a trophy for. We had lots of help from kids and dogs and Keith and I won the tournament, although Ian and Deneen were trying to upstage us in the picture!

Raph caught some of the action on camera. Notice Declan in the far background (yellow jacket) practicing soccer.

Our ever competitive Roberta getting ready to be beat by Raph and Joe.

Camping Easter Weekend

So at the beginning of Spring Break I was soooo ready for the chance just to stay home with the kids and sleep in and hang out with nothing to do but the occassional swim lesson .... That lasted until Thursday when I had had enough of Gabe and his unending energy so I called Raph at work and asked if we could pack the trailer that night and go camping with our friends. Keep in mind that Raph is so busy at work right now that he had to work Good Friday and he wasn't getting home until late in the evenings. I was fully aware of this and knew that calling him in the middle of the day at work when he was not completely able to shift gears as fast as I could talk, that I would get my way! :) So pack up we did and headed to Allouette for the weekend with our friends and a few neighbours. We had a blast and Gabe burned some of that energy!

Soccer Jamboree

Declan's soccer Jamboree was this weekend. He played 2 games on Saturday and 2 games on Sunday. His team played really hard and you could really see how the kids had improved since September. The all got 2 medals, a plague, a soccer ball and a t-shirt. The Pitt Meadows soccer club is great and he is looking forward to the next season. His team also went to Boston Pizza for dinner on Sunday night.