Well, I must admit now that as I sit down and type this, that JC is our guy that I was most concerned about and most excited about this year as he was growing and learning. At the end of last year, fourteen year old JC had decided to stop doing gymnastics since starting it at 18 months old. In our experience in watching children as teachers, grade 8 or 9 is not the ideal time to be stopping activities as you have to wonder what will take the place of the activity? He was also getting quieter and quieter as his voice changed and he was our quiet one to begin with. Lastly, he started talking in one syllable words, with the predominate word being “good”. Oh no, what other changes were ahead for us?
This year, JC really grew in so many tremendous ways and it has been so fun to see his passions develop and catch fire. JC developed skills in the media arts, drones, photography, video-making, producing, writing music, pottery, and stunting. JC is now a pro at Adobe Premium Pro, Unreal Engine, 360 degree camera and GarageBand.
After encouragement from people placed in his life at the perfect moment, JC moved from gymnastics to competitive trampoline in September. He had success after success in the gym each week and has been keen to learn new tricks daily (like a half-half and a Rudy-out). In his first in person competition, he stuck all his landings and showed what a ‘gamer’ he is. He won 1st all around for British Columbia (level 1-4) in April and did amazing at Western Canadians in June.
JC continues to really loves hanging out with his brothers and his Winnie, skiing the Prospector Terrain Park, cross country skiing, reading and having time to create! It’s in these in-between moments of time that JC really thrives. His imagination always takes him to interesting and fascinating places. He made a cardboard Ironman mask one day, created a stunt where his younger brother, CC, flew through the air and through garbage bags covering a doorway and also worked alongside his little brother, OC, to make fascinating Lego building another day.
Now that we have made it to the end of grad nine, it is really hard to believe our oldest is going into high school next year, with a hybrid twist! (More to come about the hybrid twist!)
XOXO Joanna
P.S. And yup, no pics again. Anyone know someone that works at WordPress and can give this loyal 10+ year blogger some more storage??
Inspired by my boys love of gymnastics, their awesome team and coach back home đ¨đŚ and their love of having a goal.
Paris, France
Airport Sacre Coeur The Louvre The Eiffel Tower (daytime) The Eiffel Tower (2nd flood)
Subway gymnastics
Arras, France
Brussels, Belgium
Frankfurt, Germany (on a cement pillar)
Pillar handstand…. With a dismount!
In the most expensive parking garage in Europe (29 Euro per day in Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof)
Playground Gymnastics
Rothenberg ob der Tauber, Germany
At night During the day outside the church
Munich, Germany
Marienplatz
Milan, Italy
Castello
And look what they were handstanding on…
Duomo Milano
This one involved a major head bonk by CC.
Duomo Terrace (We did get whistled at for this one!)
Parco Semiano
Climbing with Sexy Neck doing push-ups in the background. Trying to walk around our hotel room on his hands.
Swiss Alps (Rigi), Switzerland
At the top of the Rigi in the Swiss Alps. (Looking North) In hotel Kaltbad hallway. Vitznau Car Park (Yes, we truly are handstanding our way around Europe)
Pure excitement for the screens with movies, tv shows, podcasts, games and music on the seat in front of us.
Plus wifi while flying through the air too!
1 yummy airplane meal.
Copious amounts of water.
Lots of veggies from home, 2 meal replacement vitamin-shakes so no one gets a bungled up but.
3 hours of fitful sleep.
1 lost water bottle.
1 lost hat.
1 Uber drive.
1 random security screening and tears from our eight year old. (It is the second time he has been randomly selected for hand swabbing)
10:05am Arrival in Paris
1 hotel in Montmartre that actually looks exactly like the pictures in the online photos. (Hotel Migny Opera)
Sacre Coeur, the highest point in Paris and very close to our hotel.
Danone pudding cups. Oh man, do I love these delicious things. I would never eat them at home, but the dairy products and bread here are just oh so delicious.
Gotta love parks that have workout equipment. Plus fooseball, two playgrounds, a fenced in soccer/basketball area plus a ton of benches to sit on.
Amazing multi-purpose random parks where Sexy Neck ends up in a âdipâ contest with other dads.
Hot Crepes. Who loves Nutella?
Pain au chocolat. Oh my.
In bed at 5:00pm to get our bodies onto this new time zone.
November 1st, 2019
14 hours of time in bed.
We made a mockery of the incredible French breakfast buffet and showed our boys where our love for jam, ham and cheese on bread came from.
We have the smallest elevator in our hotel! This is an actual real-life photo.
In our travel with our boys, we have realized one event per day is the perfect balance for us.
Todayâs event was a Natural History Museum our eight year old picked out.
From the hotel.
On the metro.
To the Jardin des Plantes.
A misty walk.
A longer line than we are used to.
It was awe. some.
From the garden and zoo surrounding the museum, to the century old building that house the museum, we were in awe.
Then another metro ride to the Champs dâElyssee for dinner.
14,862 steps.
3 metro rides.
One where I saw a man watching Steve buy our metro tickets. Then I saw the same man go through a turnstile with a woman, pickpocket her phone out of her jacket then proceed to give it back to her. I have learned that pickpockets use distraction and bumping into people to take things. The women didnât even know he had gone through the turnstile with her. She thought it was just sticky.
5.5 hours of walking, talking, holding hands.
1 museum.
1 French dinner at Alsace restaurant.
1 priceless second day in Paris.
November 2nd
18,971 steps.
3 sweaty subway rides which were a nice reprieve from the cold wind.
1 canal boat ride along the Seine River.
3 bottles or Orangina and hot drinks by the âcontainedâ Notre Dame Cathedral. There were high barriers around the property. We told the boys they will definitely have to go back.
Back to our hotel and 118 steps up a spiralling staircase to our room for a pre-dinner rest. We chose to be on the sixth floor. Steve and I decided that we will choose a place with a ton of stairs when we are 70 years old to keep us active!
Dinner at the highest point of Paris, Montmartre beside the Sacre Coeur.
Another beautiful day in Paris.
Cobblestone under our feet.
A quick pop-in to the LEGO store for the boys and H & M for me.
November 3rd
2 more Metro rides today.
We went to my favourite museum on earth, and it was free because it was the first Sunday of the month. If you love museums, checkout their free days and always note what day they are closed. Itâs usually one weekday.
Off to my pick for this part of the trip: Mussee DâOrsay.
Monet
Two hours in the Museum DâOrsay was a hit. We climbed up to an observation deck on the fifth floor of the old train station and we asked the boys to see if they could recognize any of the artwork as we wandered around. We had a fun treasure hunt. But, I will admit that the biggest hit was the free virtual reality machine that gave the boys a two minute tour of the museum from the train stationâs development over time.
Observation Deck Virtual Reality Machine
16, 673 steps.
Over 700 of those steps straight up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.
Up in the day and down in the night is highly recommended.
Also, instead of accessing the Eiffel Tower from the plazas, come in from the side on Avenue Silvestre de Sacy. My boys found the sellers quite noisy and strange when we came from Pont dâlena yesterday to check out the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower truly was an inspiring and incredible place to visit and I know it will ignite many future conversations with our family.
At 6:30pm, we arrived back home to our hotel for a simple picnic dinner while writing in journals and looking at and sharing photos amongst our devices.
We are very grateful for this day!
We saw concrete evidence of art in action and what a ârough draftâ and âfinal copyâ looks like! Yup, always a teacher!
We discovered a rose placed on a fence below the Eiffel Tower that reminded us of our beloved Nana in heaven:
We stumbled into an obscure Starbucks after a very rainy walk from the Museum DâOrsay to the Eiffel Tower:
The sun came out for our trip up and down the Eiffel Tower and we even saw a rainbowđ:
Steve and I have THE BEST travel partners in the world!! No complaints. Easygoing. Flexible. Great communicators of their needs. And so MUCH FUN!
This Mamaâs heart is overflowing.
âAcceptanceâ posture. What will be will be!
đ Today, we are off to visit the town used to live in in Northern France and also Vimy Ridge. Then Brussels, Belgium tonight for the next three days.
When our first born was wee, Sexy Neck and I made the decision about which physical literacy activities our children would do: swimming, skating (yup, we are Canadian!) and gymnastics were a must.
Building blocks.
Healthy skills.
Lifelong physical movements.
Six years later, we say goodbye to another season of gymnastics.
It ain’t cheap, but it is worth all the five cent. (We don’t have pennies here anymore.).
Watching our three year old gain confidence.
Hearing our five year olds laughter and seeing his amazing flexibility.
Sitting in awe as our eight year old flips through the air with or without a harness.
Daily choices.
Become yearly decisions.
And lifetime habits.
Raising healthy, strong, physically and mentally literate boys.
Sexy Neck and I both have Physical Education/Human Kinetics degrees, so when our poor first child was born we had lengthy conversations about which activities we felt were essential for a North American lad.
We decided that the athletic skills that are a challenge to learn, but provide a solid foundation for other sports had to be first.
The WINNERS ARE:
swimming (plus we didn’t want our children to drown!)
skating (I used to teach adults to skate – yikes, I saw a few broken bones!)
Gymnastics (Don’t we all wish we could fly and one day flip through the air?)
Every year our children will take a lesson, from a “professional” in each of these pursuits. I realized tonight that the boys did all of these things this week! I love being intentional about something and seeing it happen.
I must admit, besides the lessons, there is also an awful lot of living room skating, bedroom gymnastics and tidal waves in the bathtub! I now completely understand the making of Jackass the Movie.
"Be" ENOUGH 