School Concert

For the first time in YEARS our kid's school put on a school concert - and I must say, the school did a great job! I've rarely seen a concert executed so well: no boring blabbing by teachers to introduce numbers, and no big breaks between numbers. It was quite astounding. Peirce was VERY excited for the whole event and was going crazy from the moment he got home. He wanted to change and get to the school! We put it off as long as we could....ate dinner, got dressed up, warmed up the van, put air in the tires, stopped at the corner store, and drove well under the speed limit to get there....and we were still 40 minutes early. The good news though is that we got the front row!! Front AND center!

Jill's class sang a song about Canada. Jill got to introduce it (only when we were there she said her little blurb at the end because the pianist started playing the song....so they just sang!)




Peirce's class did Mexico. They made sombreros out of newspaper. So cute!!



Feliz Navidad!!



Red, Green and White, the colors of the Mexican flag





Mexican Hat Dance




Every class/grade did a different country. At the end of it all the children all came into the gym and were around the walls and they sang a song about Peace on Earth. It brought tears to my eyes! It made me think of Parvanna and how some children in the world must ache for peace on earth.

Anti-Coalition Rally

Well, today the kids and I decided to go speak up against The Coalition. I've never been to a political rally before and wondered if bringing my kids was a good idea - but in the end I think it was a good experience. It was pretty tame....just a bunch of people waving signs and yelling. Now and then they'd break out in a chant or start singing Oh Canada. J&P thought it was a blast!



Peirce hadn't made a sign but scooped one that someone had abandoned. :0)

Jill's sign said "Coalition Smoalition". Love it!

One of pet peeves in this is that supporters of the coalition keep bringing up that 63% of Canadians did not vote conservative, so really the coalition has the majority vote. This is such a moot point I find it almost laughable. There were 5 choices in the last election (excluding independents), not a choice between conservative and everyone else. People did not vote for a choice of conservative or a coalition of the other 4. To get specific, 62.37% of Canadians did not vote conservative. However, 73.76% did not vote Liberal, 81.8% did not vote NDP, 90.03% did not vote BQ, and 93.2% did not vote Green. I guarantee the results would have been completely different had there only been 2 choices (Conservative or "other") and so there is no way to compare the two scenarios. I realize that the coalition isn't doing anything illegal and that it is part of our system to allow these kinds of things - but it doesn't mean we have to sit back and let anyone think we like it.

Jill wanted to go see the Famous Five statues.



Some people had left their signs there and we had fun taking pictures with the statues. I felt a great sense of gratitude for those women today. I told Jill and Peirce their story and when I told Peirce that women were once not able to vote, to own land, and things like that he said, "That's really dumb." Funny. Sometimes we shake our heads at the sliding morality in our world. Yet our children shake their head's at the systems that used to be accepted as matter of fact.

After we'd had enough of the rally we went over to the library and hung out for a while. Here's how I found Jill:


I guess some good came out of our trip to the rally!

Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli

I LOVED this book. It would be so fun to read this book with kids in Junior High or High School. Jill's teacher read it to their class and Jill raved about it for quite a while. Finally she got it out of the library and gave it to me and insisted that I must read it. I'm so glad she did! It's so refreshing!

The story is about a girl that home to high school after being homeschooled. She's a free spirit that doesn't worry about what other kids think. She dances in the rain, she cheers for the opponents when they score, she plays a ukele in the cafeteria and leaves surprises for everyone in her homeroom class. At the first the kids are horrified. Then they learn to appreciate her. Then they love her...then they turn on her....and her response to it all is inspiring.

Truthfully, I think this is an ageless issue. Women of all ages could probably do well to learn from Star Girl. I think it should be a book read once a year!

Apparently there is another book called Love Star Girl which full of journal entries to give perspective on her side of the story of everything that happened in StarGirl. Got to get that book!