Crumpled Home

(RJ comes running into the study)

RJ: It’s raining and there’s a leak in my roof!

Mum: What!? Better go check it out!

Dad: Okay.

(moments later, in RJ’s room)

Dad: So where is it? Is it dripping somewhere?

RJ: Well… It’s a bit small.

Dad: That’s okay. Show me where it is and we’ll see what we can do about it.

RJ: It is really, really small.

Dad: Okay. Where is it then?

RJ: It’s so small that… only I can see it.

Dad: Uh huh… I’ll go get you a very small bucket then…

(while doing an art project)

RJ: Do you like mine? It’s a, “Vein Ship!”

Dad: So what can it do?

RJ: It’s full of blood and it can shoot veins and blood out of its guns. It’s great for attacking pirates.

Dad: The pirates hate blood?

RJ: Yeah! When the veins from the vein ship get on the pirates, their ship changes, and then it turns into a vein ship too. It’s really bad.

Dad: What else can it do?

RJ: It has a Cottelator 2-1000.

Dad: Whoah. That sounds dangerous.

RJ: It is. When you shoot pirates with it, it makes them cough.

(while playing together)

LR: Let’s play, “Mums and Dads.”

RJ: No! I want to play, “Trapdoor Spiders!”

A minute later the kids were playing mummy and daddy trapdoor spiders.

Just days after we arrived, we set off on our Yellowstone expedition. After driving about an hour, we entered the foothills and were treated to stunning mountain views, rock walls and cliff faces — but there was no time to stop! We pressed on and entered the park.

Yellowstone was teeming with bizarre and wonderful wildlife of all sorts. We delighted in spotting something new around each corner: bison/buffalo, elk, pronghorn antelope (SPEEDGOAT!), coyotes, foxes, rabbits, marmots, beavers, eagles, black bears and even one grizzly bear (suspiciously, dad was the only one who saw this).

Read the next stage of the adventure!

"Got Bear Spray?" -- Mum makes sure we're totally ready for our Yellowstone adventure.

Every night for the past six weeks, RJ has been telling us about his upcoming art gallery. We could tell it was a big deal, but we had no idea of the actual scale of the thing.

Rather than being five or six paintings that the kids had done, the gallery consisted of about 20 pieces for each child. Each piece focused on a different artistic style, technique or influence by a famous significant artist. Every inch of wall space was covered and several extra partitions were required to accommodate everything. Even the neighbouring classroom was annexed to become the food / wine / snack room!

RJ was excited to have all the important people there… Mum, Dad, LR, Grammy and even Heather and her mum came down. Poppa couldn’t make it because he was overseas.

Thanks so much to RJ’s teachers for all the effort and energy they put into this. It really was quite overwhelming and far beyond anything we expected – a fantastic job all around!

Welcome to RJ's Art Gallery!

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(while working on a castle for LR’s school project)

Dad: I don’t think you’ll be able to fit the archery range and training field in there.

LR: I know! There just isn’t enough room!

Dad: You’re doing okay. You have managed to fit a well, the serf’s houses, a smithy, the marketplace, two veggie patches, an animal pen, store houses, a grain silo, and the main keep in there.

LR: I don’t think they need the archery range during a siege anyway.

Dad: Why’s that?

LR: Because they can just stand on top of the walls and get practice by shooting the bad guys outside!

In July of 2010, we went for a massive adventure to the USA. Four weeks and several thousand photos later, we returned with an incredible number of experiences under our belt. Our first stop was in Cody, Wyoming, where we spent a week with our incredibly gracious hosts. We cannot thank them enough for the sheer number of amazing things we got to see and do while we were there (not to mention letting our unruly mob stay with them in their beautiful house). It is really an amazing part of the country and we only got more jealous with each day we got to stay with them.

Here are the first few days of our adventure… Airports, travelling, and then adventures near our temporary home in Wyoming!

RJ enjoys the view at Denver airport. We're almost there!

It was a huge August and the kids have only gotten more busy, not less. We’ve had birthday parties, sleep-overs, soccer finals, dress-up days at school, martial arts Jedi training and more. Here are some of the highlights!

Dad took LR and RJ on the train into the city to look for a present for Mum's birthday.

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(after spilling his milk and cereal all over himself)

RJ: Arrrrgh! I can’t believe I just did that!

Dad: No big deal, we’ll clean it up.

RJ: (wiping milk off himself) I wish milk was NOT a liquid! Then it would be much easier!

RJ: … And elbows!

Dad: what about elbows?

RJ: I wish we didnt have them! Then I wouldnt bump things all the time.

Dad: I’ll get you some retractable ones that you can switch on and off.

RJ: Thanks dad. That would be great.

We added a pond to our backyard. Everyone helped out!

You must first recruit your team and get your equipment together.