An afternoon in Tsawwassen

This past Sunday, the Ronaghan family made an spur-of-the-moment trip to Tsawwassen to visit Josephine, Patrick and their twins Nicolas and Cedrine. The afternoon included plenty of dress-up and a visit to the beach at Boundary Bay. What a happy, relaxing time with good friends!

Nicolas and Cedrine have an awesome Tickle Trunk! Announcing Princess Gwendolyn...

The Pumpkin, the Princess and the Knight clowning around on a big bean bag chair

Down by the calm, calm sea

Recent artwork: drawing with chalk

Gorilla

Kitty

Self portrait

Six-eyed monster

Skating!

Today was a day off from school, so Gwendolyn and some of her preschool friends got together at the Robson Square ice rink for a little skating fun. It was the first time on skates for G., and she took to them right away -- as you'd expect a good Canadian kid to do, yes?

Daddy helped her along for a while, but she soon shooed him away, feeling comfortable enough with the support offered by the skating aid she was using. You could literally feel the happiness and confidence beaming from her as she slowly worked her way around the rink, with Daddy skating near, but not too close.

In her words: "I want to come to this rink every day!"

Go Canada Go! Part Two

You may already know that Canada's women's soccer team qualified for the London Olympics with an exciting 3-1 victory over Mexico on Friday night. That's not the end of things for the CONCACAF tournament, though. We have to determine a tournament champion, and later this afternoon, Canada and the United States will play for that honour. And guess who'll be there? Yup - Gwendolyn, along with Daddy, her official soccer chaperon.

She's having a wee nap right now to make sure she has all the energy she needs to cheer Canada on -- and sing the national anthem, of course!

A magical place

Daddy visited the UBC Botanical Garden on Wednesday afternoon while Gwendolyn was at school. His report of the fun he had, particularly with a particular water sculpture, gave Gwendolyn the bug to go there too. On Friday morning, D. and G. made the trek to UBC together and enjoyed a couple of hours playing and exploring.

Wandering within the Roseline Sturdy Amphitheatre, where "Hypanthium" is located

Even the manhole covers are lovely to look at here

A favourite stone

Jumping in the sun

Walking the labyrinth on the great lawn. Too bad the Minotaur and Hare sculpture has been moved from its sentry post at the labyrinth's opening. Daddy believes it now lives at Van Dusen Botanical Gardens.

And here's a short video clip of the water sculpture. You can't see the sculpture or hear the musical cascading of the water until you are within the amphitheatre's walls, so it's quite the discovery when you first visit.

Watching Canada play...

We are fortunate to have the CONCACAF Women's Olympic qualifying tournament in our neck of the woods, and with the stadium only a few minutes away, it really was a "no-brainer" to attend at least one game. So, on Friday evening, Gwendolyn and Daddy watched Canada play Cuba. What a great opportunity to see women playing sports at a high level! (In case you're not familiar with women's soccer, Canada is currently ranked #7 in the world and has arguably the best all-round player in Christine Sinclair.)

It was a real treat for Gwendolyn, who would normally be getting ready for bed at kick-off time. We nearly made it through the whole game, missing only the last five minutes due to an urgent pee break.

Waiting patiently for the game to start, wearing her Canada colours and clutching her ticket

A view of the pitch just before the players appeared and the national anthems were sung. Singing "Oh Canada" along with 12,000 fellow fans was probably the highlight of Gwendolyn's evening!

Upon returning home, Gwendolyn drew a picture of Canada's best player. Note the maple leaf on the jersey and Sinclair's number 12 (albeit backwards)

By the way, does anyone out there remember Gwendolyn's first women's soccer experience?

Busy, busy morning!

Most mornings, Gwendolyn is raring to go upon waking -- much to the chagrin of her parents, who need to ease themselves into the day (with the help of Mr. Coffee).

Yesterday morning, she was bouncing from activity to activity, and all before eating much of a breakfast:

Plenty of painting

Crushing eggshells: a favourite "work" of the first year Montessori crowd

Mixing her "batter": a bowl full of the snow she stored in the freezer overnight

After breakfast, she danced her version of "The Nutcracker":

Then it was off to Arts Umbrella for Creative Dance class. And finally, it was time for school...

Phew!