A Less Feral Posting

That last post is an outlier, in case anyone thought I was turning this into a UFC/Lord of the Flies kind of thing.

Savage

Well, I won't go into too much detail here, but The Men attended James stag on Saturday. I'm not sure what precipitated the events; maybe one too many vegetarian meals, too much time at Playgroup, or maybe even flashbacks to university where we were forced to listen to the Indigo Girls for years at a time...

John and Harry, post match

John and Rob, grappling.

Rory, first blood (not what you think... Okay, maybe it is.)

Grandma Gill

Grandma (Edith) Gill just died this morning at the climax age of 98. She was the most dignified, respectful, stoic, kind and polite person I knew. Really, this marks the passing of an era; nowadays there aren't many people with the discipline she had for presenting herself and treating everyone around her with kindness and respect.
She came across from England as a girl and was raised in Vancouver, where she met my Grandfather. He was in the city on some judicial business (I think he was on the 'law-abiding' side...) and she was also on some sort of courtly duty with her work. They met and coyly went their seperate ways for a short time before beginning a correspondence. After a lengthy courtship of about six months she moved to Cranbrook where they were married. Shortly after they had twins, Allan (my dad) and Carl. They moved to Kimberley for a spell and then eventually ended up in Princeton where my Grandfather was the game warden for quite a few years. They spent their lives wandering around the bush in Princeton, hunting and fishing (and she tolerated much of my Grandfathers 'prankful' manners). After he died she carried on in her stoic manner fighting gun regulations, sending young shooters to shooting matches and being an active and important member of the local gun club. A lifetime away from her English and lower mainland big city upbringing.
Her classic response to "How are you doing Grandma?" was always, at worst: "not too bad". That was as much complaining as she ever did, even after living alone in her house, losing her sight and becoming less independent, moving into a small extended care facility and then to a higher level care away from her home town of 60+ years. I wish I was as tough as her.
Hopefully right now she's riding around in the Jimmy on a sunny day with Grandpa, shooting at cans with his service revolver.

Yes, that's a target full of holes. Edie = Badass.

Danger!

I'm not sure why, in these videos, I sound like Alvin and The Chipmunks. Unless I always sound like that and no one has told me?







And a delicious piece of corn to finish the day...

Climbing with Deirdre. We hopped out to the crag and dragged mom along to do some child minding. I've been wanting to put something dangerous on here to counteract all the cutsey toddler photos; the best I could come up with was Ann-Marie tying in... Too bad I didn't have the camera yesterday while I was bucking up a tree in the yard in my shorts and flip-flops...

Dignity...

You're not born with it.


And you won't get it while Dad has control of the shampoo.

Super Nan

Tobin's Nan is back to spend the summer in Sicamous, so of course we've been taking advantage of that... Three straight days of one on one!!! Marathon grandparenting! Thanks mom!!!!!!!

Here's one of Tobin with a piece of corn inserted into his ear


And here he is helping me eat breakfast (I think it's time we go on a trip, these photos are getting pretty mundane...)