How to blow one balloon inside another
Ethan’s instructions:
1. Blow both balloons up first (to stretch the balloons)
2. Let the air out of both
3. Blow up the balloon that’s supposed to be bigger (on the outside)
4. While holding the outside balloon put the other balloon inside it
5. Blow up the inside balloon6. Blow up the outside balloon just a bit more
7. Tie them both
Picture:
Skookumchuck Rapids
We’re currently on BC’s Sunshine Coast taking a week’s holiday. A couple of days ago we took a two-hour hike to Skookumchuck Narrows, which is where the tidal flow into a huge basin is constricted through a narrow passage and can exceed 30 km/hr.
Really cool rapids and standing waves … which the kayakers enjoy:
Fun with photobooth
Ethan and Aidan were playing around with Photobooth, Apple’s fun picture-taking software that accompanies the newer iMacs and MacBooks with built-in cameras.
A couple of the results:
And one that they liked better:
The painting you see in the back? It’s Jeroen Vermeulen’s … their uncle (and my brother-in-law).
Tags: ethan, aidan, john koetsier, family, pix, photo
Summer Holidays
(a poem by Gabrielle Koetsier, age 10)
Children sitting, solemn, silent.
Bell rings! Screaming, yelling, violent!
Running, rushing, up the stairs.
“Children, wait!” nobody cares.
School’s out! It’s summer! Time to play!
No more teachers! Run away!
We are going to the pool.
Perfect way to keep us cool.
Let’s go buy some lemonade!
We will drink it in the shade.
Our skin is brown, our feet are bare.
And we are free without a care.
Playing, laughing, summer days,
We’re on summer holidays!
(I typed it all out by myself too!)
Easter egg clues …
This past Easter we, naturally, had an easter egg hunt. Each of the kids had a chance to hide the eggs and let the others find them.
And Gabrielle, being the creative girl she is, had to make it more interesting … with clues. Here they are …
Hrm …. in the library?
Outside?!?
This doesn’t sound too good for chocolate ….
OK, this one’s easy:
But I’m not sure I want to eat this egg:
Tags: easter, eggs, hunt, fun, kids, pictures, john koetsier, gabrielle
delicious and nutritious
I love well-constructed and vivid language. Here’s a snippet I ran across today that inspired some memories:
A few years back, I was struggling to liberate a new Barbie doll from the almost invincible packaging that imprisoned her …
(Seen in an email newsletter from Character Counts … written by Michael Josephson.)
Tags: language, john koetsier, character counts, michael josephson
A day at Mount Baker
I took the day off today and we spent the day at Mount Baker. Tubing, playing, feeding the birds … absolutely gorgeous:
Here’s a short video that I took while tubing … following Gabrielle down the hill:
Tags: mount baker, tubing, john koetsier
Snowboy
Tags: aidan, snowboy, snowman, john koetsier
Snow again
Last year we had snow. This year, we have more:
Tags: snow, vancouver, flickr, john koetsier
Sunglasses
So Aidan wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings.
I said no, it’s too scary for 3-year olds. He disagreed, saying that he would not be scared. “I’m tough!” he declared. Teresa backed me up, telling Aidan that there were lots of parts in LOTR that she was even scared by.
He thought for a second. “But I could wear sunglasses!”
(Gabrielle forced me to blog this.)
Tags: kids, movies, LOTR, john koetsier
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Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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