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On Tuesday Katy played at the Dartmouth Ferry Terminal in the All-City Senior Concert Band's last concert of the year. The rest of us all went down to watch the show. Then on Wednesday there was another concert at Dartmouth High; David played in the Grade 10 Concert Band and Katy played in the Grade 11/12 Concert Band, the Flute Ensemble (which she and her friend Alison were responsible for organizing) and the Woodwind Ensemble. The rest of us were there cheering as usual. Then on Friday Katy was at it again; the Dartmouth High bands played concerts at three of the Junior Highs. She has one more concert next Wednesday before it is all over for the year.
On Thursday David left to attend Youth Forum at the United Church Maritime Conference at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Several other members of the church Youth Group also attended. He arrived back home again this afternoon quite worn out, but having had a lot of fun (he wants to go back next year). Apparently the facilitators for the Youth Forum were an exuberant bunch who kept them all busy and entertained for the whole weekend.
Yesterday, while Emily and I handed out sweaters to the members of my Under 8 soccer team, the Sidewinders, Ann and James joined the Beavers for an end-of-year trip to the Fisheries Museum in Lunenburg.
Today is Ann's birthday (hint: her age, now prime, has not been prime for three years and a day; after this year it won't be prime again for five years and a day). As it is Sunday we had time to make her breakfast in bed: our traditional Eggs Benedict. This afternoon Ingrid, Mike and Alex came over to share her birthday dinner.
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On Wednesday James and I went with the Beavers to the Halifax waterfront. The idea was to spend some time playing at the ship playground near the Maritime Museum, but unfortunately it was roped off due to some construction. Instead we just wandered along the docks and looked at the ships. On the ferry ride over ands back the Beavers got to go up to the bridge and talk to the captain.
We have had another busy weekend despite its extra day. On Friday David and Katy went rock-climbing at Ground Zero, a climbing gym in Dartmouth. This was partly for David to complete a requirement for his Physically Active Lifestyles course, one of the required courses in Grade 10.
On Sunday Emily, James and I went swimming at the Sportsplex in the early afternoon before Kim, Ashley and Brett came over for dinner. Ashley and Brett ended up staying for a sleepover. Meanwhile I took David to another soccer game in horrendously bad weather (see my account of his last game a couple of weeks ago). This time the game wasn't cancelled, probably because the other team had come all the way from Antigonish. David's team had the wind in their faces for the first half but managed to hold Antigonish scoreless. Then with the wind in their favour they scored quickly in the second half and ended up winning 2-0. I felt sorry for the Antigonish team driving for 2½ hours to get here, freezing to death for a couple of hours only to lose, then driving home again in the dark and the rain at 11 PM.
This morning Emily's friend Leona and her brother James also came over to play, so for a while we had six young kids charging around the house (it was another miserable day, so there was no chance of sending them outside). David and I escaped by going with his friend Graham and Graham's Dad (another David) to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was lots of fun but it is probably best if you have read the books first (as we all had done). When we arrived home Leona's Dad had taken James and Emily swimming at the Sportsplex so we had some peace and quiet for a while. This evening Alison Chapman joined us for dinner.
I spent a good part of Saturday and Sunday watching the US Bridge Federation Trials on the Internet. This is a competition to pick a team to send to the next Bermuda Bowl (the World Cup of bridge). I was backing one team in particular which won its semi-final match in "overtime" since there was a tie after 120 hands (this is very rare). Then it won the final after being considerably behind at the half way point. It's not often that I back two winning teams in a single weekend.
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On Saturday morning James and Emily's school had their Spring Fair. Ann, Emily, James and I went. The kids jumped in the inflatable playground, fished in the fish pond, played the ring toss, and bought candy and hot dogs. Ann and I contented ourselves with the hot dogs.
On Friday David went with a bunch of his friends to see a special drive-in movie in the high school parking lot. Despite a pretty cold evening, they watched it from the back of a pick-up truck and apparently had lots of fun. On Saturday he was out again at the birthday party of one of the girls in one of his classes at school. The rest of us have not been so socially active, being content to stay at home, for the most part, with brief forays to the Sportsplex for gymnastics classes and swimming.
Ann was called up for jury duty a couple of weeks ago (I forgot to mention it when writing the Web page for that week) but did not get picked for either of the trials for which they needed jurors (a murder and a sexual assault). She has to go again tomorrow, so there is still the possibility that she will be out of action on the home front for several weeks.
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Last fall, when we had the gas furnace installed, we were told that we would need to have the chimney repaired. That was finally done this week: repointing all over, some of the brickwork near the top replaced, and a new cap; see the picture.
David had his first soccer game of the season on Friday evening on the artifical turf field at Saint Mary's. They played a very evenly matched game against Halifax City Wanderers. It was one all at the end of the first half, but the team had a breakdown for the first five minutes of the second and allowed two quick goals (David was on the bench at the time). In the end they lost 4-2.
There was another game, against Cole Harbour, this afternoon at 5 PM on the All-Weather Field in the north end of Halifax. It was a cold and wet and the field is high on a hill where the wind is always howling. It was absolutely miserable. At one point one of the Cole Harbour players was trying to take a free kick but the ball kept blowing away before he could take it. Eventually the referee had to come and hold the ball with his foot while the player ran up to kick it. Another of the Cole Harbour players got so fed up with the weather that he just walked off the field and went home; the referee gave him a yellow card. In the end they played for about twenty minutes, scoreless, Dartmouth United struggling upwind the whole time, before the referee finally agreed to pack it in and call it a draw.
Today being Mother's Day, Emily, James and I treated Ann to breakfast in bed: blueberry and apple-cinnamon pancakes. After church and lunch we all went to see the Rodin exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Just after we arrived we joined a guided tour that had started about a half hour before; it discussed The Burgers of Calais, The Three Shades and The Thinker, as well as a number of smaller works. Emily and James seemed very interested both in the sculptures themselves and what was being said about them.
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David turned sixteen on Thursday. Since Friday was a day off from school, he had several of his friends over for a sleepover. They stayed up to about 2 AM playing with David's new effects pedal for his guitar and watching movies.
This weekend David and Alex took a two-day course on how to be a soccer referee. They are now qualified to referee games for the Under 12 and Under 14 leagues. Hopefully that will will let them make a bit of extra money this summer. On Sunday afternoon, when it was all over, we all convened at Ingrid, Mike and Alex's for a Chinese dinner in honour of Alex's birthday.
On Saturday night Ann, Katy and I went to dinner at East Side Mario's with our usual pre-theatre crowd, then to Neptune to see Chicago, their end of season musical extravaganza. The show was very good but the dinner suffered from a drafty table and an incompetent waiter.
Katy, after much soul searching, has decided what she wants to do next year. She will be going to Acadia to study physics (I exerted no influence, except by example). One of her best friends, Krista, is also going to Acadia to study physics, so there will be some continuity for them both.
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