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Today David left for a week long trip to Cuba with the high school band. A good part of the last few days has been spent getting him ready to go (with a certain amount of acrimony between him and Ann as they have different packing styles; 'nuff said). Ann drove him out to the airport this afternoon to catch a filght at 8:30 PM. They will arrive in Havana early tommorrow morning, have the first day to recover from the late night, then play four concerts with Cuban students during the next four days. On Saturday they are going on a bus tour through the countryside before the flight home on Sunday. There will also be a fair amount of time left over for enjoying the beach or shopping. If trips from previous years can be used as a guide, they should all have lot of fun.
On Friday David turned seventeen. Being a school day, there was not much fanfare other than the usual birthday breakfast with presents and Eggs Benedict. He had a party on Saturday afternoon and early evening with about fifteen of his buddies. They hung out at our house for a while, then went off to play games at the local school playground, came back for chicken wings, pizza and ice-cream cake, then went outside again. The party finished early at 9 PM because we didn't want David, or the other other kids that are also going to Cuba, to be worn out before the late flight today.
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On Wednesday evening Dave Chapman and I went to the Holiday Inn in Halifax to see the Alison Brown Quartet, a jazzy acoustic ensemble based around Alison Brown's banjo. They have the unusual instrumental line-up of banjo, piano, bass and drums. I have had one of her albums for several years, and she appears on two or three other albums that I have (but usually in a bluegrass setting), but I had never seen her live. The concert was very good with the whole band extremely tight, but I'll admit that I prefer tunes just a little bit closer to the traditional.
On Thursday Ann went up to Wolfville to bring Katy back for the summer. Katy claims to have had a good year but won't know her official marks for another week or two. Unfortunately the job she thought she had lined up has fallen through, so she will be job hunting again next week.
Ann arrived back in time to pick me up and take me to the puppet show performed by James's class. James played a snake which attacks two young girls making a journey alone in Africa; the snake ends up getting pummeled.
Around supper time Ann was off again to pick up our friend Nancy from the airport. On Friday Nancy, Ann and Ingrid went for a jaunt down the South Shore to Ingrid's cottage outside Lunenburg. When they returned they dropped Nancy off at Kim's where she stayed for the rest of the weekend before returning home on Monday. Kim had a party for her on Saturday evening to which Ann, Emily, James and myself went. David stayed at home while Katy and her beau Ben took advantage of our tickets to the play Tuesdays with Morrie at the Neptune Studio. After we left Kim's at about 9 PM, Ann and I dropped Emily and James at home and headed to another party, this one a birthday party for our friend Susan. We eventually got home around midnight quite worn out.
The weekend has been gorgeous (a real contrast to last weekend) so on Saturday afternoon I took the opportunity to do a little gardening before we went out partying. This morning I went for a ride down the Lake Charles trail while Ann, David, Emily and James were at church (Katy didn't arise until noon). After lunch Ann and I went to Dartmouth High to see David perform with the Concert Band. This was a dress rehearsal prior to their trip to Cuba which begins next weekend.
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On Monday David left bright and early to travel by bus to Glace Bay with the All-City Senior Jazz Band to partipate in Musicfest, an annual music festival. They arrived in the afternoon, played their pieces — getting a silver — then stayed overnight in a hotel. On Tuesday they watched the performances of the other three All-City bands that also went, then made the long trip home again (about five hours), arriving at about 8 PM.
Wednesday was a busy day at Emily and James's school. In the morning they hosted a citizenship ceremony. The gym was all decked out in Canadian flags that the kids had made. The older classes all went to watch and the choir, including James, sang. Ann also went along to watch and said that it was quite moving. The kids had the afternoon off to make way for parent-reacher interviews. The High School also had parent-teacher interviews during the afternoon while the students held a model parliament. David was in the governing EVIL party (Enhancing Virtue in Legislature) as the member from Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. Among the useful bills that they managed to pass were: a repeal of the Law of Gravity; a change to driving on the left side of the road, phased in by vehicle type over five years; and a bill to increase airline security by issuing handguns to all passengers.
On Thursday evening David had a tryout for the summer Under 18 Boys soccer team. Unfortunately it coincided with the 3rd annual Seder supper for the church Youth Group. This is a meal with accompanying ritual designed to help Christians gain an appreciation of Jewish celebrations of Passover. Ann and Mark, the leaders of the Youth Group, prepare the meal and the kids are happy to help out by devouring it. David managed to get there before it was all gone.
Our Easter weekend has been very relaxing, with most of us lazing around and reading books for the better part of each day. The weather has been very cooperative by being pretty miserable: no real incentive to go out. It was fairly nice on Saturday, so Ann and I rode our bikes down the Lake Charles trail. Emily was also out with the Girl Guides on Saturday morning to see a special showing of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. On Sunday morning we went to the early morning service which is normally at the Dartmouth waterfront but, due to the poor weather, was held in the church this year. It is followed by breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages and pancakes in the church basement. The rest of us then went home to continue our slothfulness while Ann remained to help serve communion at the main 11 o'clock service. This afternoon we all went to Ingrid, Mike and Alex's for a very nice dinner.
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On Tuesday, after dinner I drove up to Acadia to see the final concert of the Acadia University Band in which Katy plays flute. It was also an opportunity to return all the stuff that Katy left behind last weekend. I thought the concert was great, but Katy seemed to think that they could have played better.
Dartmouth United is trying to balance its Under 10 teams this year, so both James and Emily had to go to balancing sessions this weekend: James yesterday and Emily today. The idea is simply to judge the abilities of each of the players then to spread them around so that each team has roughly the same strength. The season won't actually start for another month.
I reported a few weeks ago that the Dave Brothers Band recorded a couple of tunes to be used in the play En Suite currently being performed by the Dartmouth Players. Last night Ann and I went out to dinner with Dave and Chris, and Jocelyn, Dave and Jocelyn's sister Cathy (visiting from Ontario) then on to see the final performance of the play. It was a strange concoction with plenty of "adult themes" (murder, aldultery, rape, molestation and lesbianism, to name a few) but was quite funny. The music sounded great and a number of people said how much they liked it. After the play was over we stayed on for the cast party.
This morning Emily and James performed along with most of the rest of the Sunday School in a Passion play during the Palm Sunday service. Emily was Peter, along with some smaller roles, and James was one of the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus. The both performed well and received many compliments after the service.
The Dartmouth High Band is going to Cuba in early May, so this evening we had a Cuba party to which several members of the band and chaperones were invited. Our neighbours Carl and Roxanne also came and Carl brought a Cuban friend, Michael. The kids all got to learn a bit of Spanish (Carl is fluent and, of course, it is Michael's native tongue), try some Cuban food (cooked in by Ann mostly, so not completely authentic, but pretty close according to Michael), and to learn some salsa steps. They all seemed to enjoy themselevs.
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Today is Katy's 19th birthday, making her legal to drink in Nova Scotia and to drive in France. Ann went and brought her home from Acadia on Saturday afternoon and we have spent the last couple of days preparing some of her favourite dishes: Eggs Benedict, marinated flank steak and poached salmon. On Friday night several of her friends came over to hang out. We had her main birthday celebrations yesterday, though it was pretty low key: a birthday breakfast with present opening around noon, a lazy afternoon for most of us (Katy was writing a philosophy essay; I took the opportunity to ride my bike down the Lake Charles trail), followed by dinner and a DVD (the latest version of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen ). I drove Katy back to Acadia this morning while the rest of the family was at church. She'll be writing her exams in the coming weeks, then will come home for the summer around the 20th.
The rest of our week was busy, as usual. Though Emily's Girl Guides was cancelled on Monday (due to their curling outing the day before), Ann's book club met at Opa! (a Greek restaurant) to discuss Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Though the club as a whole gave it mixed reviews, Ann really liked it.
On Wednesday David and the rest of the Dartmouth High Scool Band played at the Sir James Dunn Theatre in Halifax in a concert shared with the Dalhousie University Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Ann went along to watch while I stayed at home for the regular Dave Brothers Band practice. David had another concert on Thursday which we all went to. This time he was playing with the All-City Senior Jazz Band at a concert at Ellenvale School which featured mainly elementary school bands.
March 2006 Archive
May 2006 Archive
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