Connor's Football Season 2019

Connor decided to try out for his high school's junior football team on his first day of high school. Joining the J.P. Rebels was a big commitment: he spent 3-4 hours a day from the first day of school until the end of the season near Halloween, at football practice. On game nights, he often wasn't home until 10 pm. He played as #4, cornerback. Their team made it to city finals but was eliminated early on. He seemed to really enjoy it and now likes watching CFL and NFL games on TV whenever he can. He's hoping to join the team again next year. Maybe by then, I'll understand the rules better. (Although I know a lot more now than I did before he joined the Rebels!)

Connor's 15th Birthday

For Connor's birthday, he invited his friends Mark and Ethan over to play some X-box and then go play a couple hours of virtual reality games at Ctrl V. For his cake, I went with a DnD theme and made a chocolate D20 die. Turned out pretty good even if I did cheat and make it a sphere without any facets. It was still yummy. His gifts were all mostly DnD themed as well.

Connor's Grade Nine Farewell

Connor's three years at Parkview have come to an end. We attended his Grade Nine farewell as well as his final spring band concert in June.

Here he is with Ethan and Mark, his two D&D buddies. They've been spending hours at a time every few weeks at Mark's house all through Grade 8 and 9 playing Dungeons & Dragons with Mark's dad as the Dungeon Master. They're also in band together - Connor plays the trumpet and Mark and Ethan play the trombone.

At the farewell ceremony, Connor was recognized for being on the Honour Roll as well as for winning a bronze medal at the city-wide science fair back in April.

It's off to high school at Jasper Place H.S. for him in the fall!

Back to School 2016

Now that Shae has graduated, we're back down to three kids in school.

Grade 7:

Grade 4:

Grade 2:

Drama Camp

Maira had a blast at the drama camp she did last summer at the Citadel Theatre in downtown Edmonton. So this summer, she asked to go again and Connor asked if he could try it too.

They went to camp all day for five days and then on the final afternoon, they performed their plays for us.

Maira's play was a shipwreck set in the 1920's. She chose "Hazel Hunt" as her character name and their teacher wrote the script. Maira didn't have as many lines as she would have liked but she did an excellent job delivering the ones she had. We could hear her very clearly and she had a lot of expression.

Connor was in an older age category and performed a different play. Instead of being a narrative, it was a series of short skits all based on the theme of language. Connor's fun personality and humour shone through in his performance.

His teacher asked us not to videotape his play (I assume because there was a lot of copyrighted music in it?) but she had the cast make funny faces for their parents at the end so we could take lots of pictures. She'd give them a prompt and then they would react.

"You're cool"

"You're not cool"

"You're lost"

"You're found"

"You're scared of the audience"

"You love the audience"

"You need the audience"

"The audience stinks"

And I don't remember the prompts on these ones:

Jayna was staying with us that day because she was up for Spencer's bar call the night before so she and Brinsley and James came and watched the plays too.

We stopped by Churchill Square after to check out the Street Performers Festival but there had just been a giant rain storm so there was nothing to see.

Connor's Grade 6 Farewell

Connor finished his last year of elementary school at the same elementary school Shae went to, Lymburn School. He actually did two years of playschool here as well so he's been going to school at the same building for eight years now. And I've been attending assemblies, Christmas plays, and volunteering for field trips at this school for thirteen years if you include the years Shae went here. It's been a great place to send my kids and we've gotten to know many friends here but the time has come to move on.

Connor had an excellent teacher this year, Ms. Commance, (which was a relief after a couple years with a sub-par teacher) and she organized an afternoon program as a mini graduation for the kids. I told Connor that all the girls would be dressed up in fancy dresses and that he should at least wear a button down shirt and dress pants but he point blank refused. I decided this wasn't a battle worth fighting and that's why he's so underdressed (although I noticed there were a few other boys who also refused to dress up).

There was a slide show where each student told a little bit about themselves. Here are Connor's slides:

And here is Connor with some of his friends:

Grammy and Grandpa were in town for Shae's high school commencement which was the same day:

Connor will be following Shae's footsteps and attending Parkview Junior High next year. He's a sweet, sensitive boy who loves science and sings like an angel. I'm so glad he's my boy.