Early birthday present...

I am not growing super fast, but I am still growing and my bike was suddenly beginning to look quite small. So, as we are 3 weeks away from the start of the Summer break, it was time to investigate and look into the best option.
And today, my new bike arrived...
This is already my 4th bike!

2 years old, bike 1

4 years old, bike 2

5 years old, bike 3

not quite 7 years old, bike 4!

Cool isn't it? It has 6 speed and hand brakes! It's going to take a little bit of practice to get comfortable with it but it was sure nice being able to put it on the lowest gear to climb half of the hill to get home.

It was nice day to try it too. And this morning I helped Papa clean up the outdoor furniture. Papa had cleaned and put a new protection coat on the deck last week so this evening, May 31st, we had our first dinner on the deck... Ok, not super warm but comfortable.

 And look at the backyard: Papa has worked hard planting new native plants and it is starting to look quite good...

Happy June to all!

May, le joli mois de mai...

We just came back from San Diego and Boum! It's the end of May! How did that happen?

A few things happened in May: first, Maman turned 50 and here is the picture show to prove it. And yes, I was in on the action because, well, it's not fair that she was getting all the attention and not me, right?

Maman was sure spoiled and she thanks all who spoiled her with gifts and words.

In May, it's also the annual PPP in Bend; I was quite excited about that week-end. It was good in a lot of ways but different also. The big kids have grown... too much to be interested in me; the little kids... well, they are little kids, so I did not quite find my place this time and played quite a bit on my own. Growing up makes my head spin sometimes... and my legs hurt: they say there is no such thing as growing pains but I have had on and off pain in my calves for about 3 years now and sometimes it is certainly painful.

Papa has this grown up thing all figured out though and his team won 1st place in their age group. Go Papa! They are quite competitive!

And while Papa and his team work hard...

 

I try to keep myself busy while rushing from one exchange to the other

 Some of the crowd enjoying, hum... sharknado!

The end

On dirait le sud...

It's April, it's April... wait... only for a few more days I guess.

And guess what happened in April?
It was time for Spring Break and on Saturday evening, I went to bed after story time and asked Maman if we could go to OMSI on Sunday. Sure, she said. So to sleep land I went.
On Sunday morning, at barely 6:00am, the lights came on in my bedroom and I was ready to whine about it when Maman said: "Get dressed, we are leaving for the airport in 10 minutes."
Wh..wha...whaaat? Airport? Now? I have never been dressed faster.
"Don't you want to know where we are going?" Nope, I just want to get to the airport and then you can tell me.

Papa and Maman had decided to wait to tell me because they knew I might get a little bit too excited about going to... Legoland! Youhou! Youpi!
And they were right about not telling me ahead of time because I ended up being quite a pain for the few days leading to the Legoland day. Out of 5 days in San Diego, they could only handle one day in an amusement park and they made the mistake of not choosing the first day to go there.
I was quite a handful (make it two!) for the first few days but after Legoland, I was much better.

The Ps insisted on going outdoors every day; they seemed to think that because it was sunny and beautiful out there, that's what we had to do; Me? I 'd rather stay inside reading and playing video games. In video number2, you will get to see how miserable I was whenever they dragged me outside. 

So, without further ado, here are the pics and the videos about the trip down South.

It's a winter break

In a few hours, actually when i go to bed, it will be the end of our Winter break... so it's time for me to tell you what we have been up to!

One of my best-est activity of all, the one I wake up at 6:00am for, even when I could sleep in: READING! I logged in about 2 to 3 hours of reading per day on busy days and probably more when it was wet and rainy out there!

My first experiment of the week was with colloids. I had been bugging Maman to try it since i learned all about the properties of liquids and solids at school.
So on Sunday, we made the most delicious Mousse au Chocolat for which you need to beat the whites from the eggs. And for those of you who do not know, a colloid is a liquid that can transform into solid if you add air to it. With the beater on at full speed, I got that liquid egg white to soon turn into mountain peaks. Quite cool!
I had done it before but since I did not quite understand how it happened, it was not as impressive.

On Tuesday, Maman and I drove to see Tina and my little sis. I can tell you that Lilian is shaking her head in disbelief when she sees me; when she can speak in my language ( because I quite don't get hers yet), she will probably say: "What a goofy brother I have."
To tell you the truth, she does look more mature than me already. And Maman tells me that I better train for wrestling matches with her because, at nearly 6 months old, she is super strong and just wants to stand on her legs or roll around.
I am very, hum, shy around her but I did give her a kiss this time!
I also got to play a great game of checkers with Tina and she showed me cool magic card tricks!
She also told me a knock knock joke that got me rolling on the floor: it had poop in it, so, of course...

On Wednesday, my friend Ben came over and we spent a day full of a variety of activities. I tried to make him be silly but the kid is super reasonable; after a while, laughing at my own fart and poop jokes gets really old so I end up playing "normal"!
We worked on electrical circuits, used the hammer and glue gun to create some, hum, sculptures?
We ran to the park and plaid tennis for a while. I got tired of it pretty fast but Ben plaid with my mom for quite sometime while I kept cracking jokes from the sidelines.
We crossed the street to the other park where we played real life video games. I got to level 5 and the next level, going through lava... not sure we could have made it. But just listen to us in the video.

Thursday was pouring down rain day. Maman had to work a little bit at school ( I don't quite understand why she goes to school on vacation!) and in the afternoon, to the movie we went.
We saw "The Lego Movie" in 3D. AWESOME! I loved it. Quite funny too!

Friday was the only dry day of the week it seemed so Maman and I took the bikes and rode 9 miles on the waterfront. We did a photo session on the east side and I had fun taking plenty of pictures of Maman on her bike.... you can see it in the video above.

On Saturday, it was time for Maman to lock herself in a room to finally work for more than 10 minutes in a row without me interrupting. To help her, Papa took me for my first skiing experience ever.
Even though I had been talking before about skiing downhill, after seeing the Olympic games and being impressed by the cross country skiers, I decided that it was what I wanted to try out... The Ps seemed quite happy about that since the cost for cross country skiing is way cheaper than downhill.
So, off we went on a rainy day in town and snowy day at the mountain.
Papa has a GPS watch that recorded our every moves and here is what we did below:

We did a mile... in 3 hours! And you know the funny part if you enlarge the pic? You will see that moving time was about 25 minutes out of those 3 hours.
Ok, ok, it takes practice to get good at something and, sure, I fell, quite a bit. But I came back home all pumped up and giving it a two thumbs up when Maman asked me how it was. I actually wanted to go back today!

There. It's bedtime and I think that it was a pretty good week.
Now, back to school where I am definitely enjoying things a lot better. As a matter of fact, when Maman was whining today about having to go back to work, she looked at me and said: "Well, for you it must not feel that way because school is like a big vacation." And you know what I answered? Without skipping a beat I said: YES... Whoaw, that's quite a change from even a few months ago...

I am growing, and maturing I guess; although Maman wonders if the sign I made ( spelling errors and all) and put up on my bedroom door this week, is a sign of things to come! She actually laughed when she saw it... ( the other side says: Ne pas entrer.. which is do not enter in French)

C'est l'hiver!

We have not seen snow stay on the ground for a couple of years but the past 3 days just made up for it.

The snow was teasing us as early as Monday. By Thursday afternoon schools were closed making traffic quite a nightmare ( 1 hour and a 1/2 to make it back home!) and the snow began falling down steadily.

And this Saturday evening, it looks like it is the end of it with freezing rain coming down and temperatures going back up.
It was this perfect light snow with temperatures in the 20s.

Here are pics and a little video about the experience.

Maman and I made a snow fort. You couldn't really make snow balls or snowmen since the snow was really light. So I worked hard at shoveling and piling the snow. It even had windows...
No time to edit the video so it is raw footage. See Papa pulling me on a made up luge at the end!

Judo-ka

I have been doing Judo for 5 months now and you know what? I like it.
I actually signed up for the 2nd semester which is a sure sign that I indeed like it.

Our judo teacher could not make it for one of the classes at school so she offered us a make up session at her judo club.
There will be an Olympian there, she said. You will be observing practice for a while then you will go join, she said.
And you know what I thought? No way am I going to go there. I will get beaten up by the guy. I am good at Judo but, come on.
My mom is stubborn though and every time I said I would not go, she would say "Of course we will go!".
So Saturday morning, with my Gi on, I was dragged to the place. Oh, by the way, did you know that the judo GI used to be what Samourais wore as underwear? Hey, I learned that with Julie, my Judo teacher.
Nothing like a underwear story to get me going!

Anyway, back to Saturday.
It turned out that only 3 students from the school showed up and there were 4 adult Judokas and for a guy that did not want to go, let me tell you that I had a blast!
Maman says that the guys I was throwing down on the mat let themselves fall. I am not buying that. I am just good and she is not seeing it.
Well, see for yourselves on the video!