An afternoon on the beach

On Sunday, we went out to breakfast with Melissa, Nick and Nile and then went for a little walk and ended up on a pretty little beach. The kids and dogs had fun playing in the water and sand! Melissa took this video clip.

More reflections on Nelson

Nelson is a "go with the flow" type of place. If you can't go with the flow of Nelson, it's a struggle and not the place for some. I've been reflecting on this lately, because some people come here and right away fall in love with it. Others come and say "what's the big deal?" or "It's not my groove". At any rate, it's definitely our place and after the amazing summer I was thinking fall or winter couldn't possibly hold a candle to it.
I did remember however, after last winter thinking "how on earth could summer be as fun?" But then summer came, and in Nelson it's a celebratory time for being outdoors, camping, playing on sandy beaches in the warm sunshine, being together as a community, parades, going to the many festivals there are, listening to, or participating in the music scene both for children and adults.
Winter is a time for incredible classes, workshops, performances, arts and crafts faires, swimming at the aquatic center, more outdoor playing: in the snow, tobogganing, skiing, ice skating.

As the summer is coming to an end, we've started gravitating towards many different types of classes.
Aloka is now enrolled in gymnastics, and she is having a blast!! I had know idea how much fun it would be. The children go around in a circuit or obstacle course type of thing, doing different fun activities one after the next. She is beside herself with excitement about it!
Josh is also getting into gymnastics (who would've thought??)! He went to an adults open gym night at the gymnastics club and got an informal private coaching lesson for an hour or so. He learned some of the fundamentals and came back home totally hyped about it.
I'm starting a tribal belly dancing class this Monday that I’m so excited for, and I can bring Aloka. What fun!
On Friday night and we found ourselves staying up till the wee hours with friends. Josh went to our friends' Dallas and Kelly's house, and I went to an "Mbira night" with Aloka and 3 other Mbira players plus kids. We had a nice lasagna dinner and then played Mbira for a couple hours while the children played rambunctiously.
Last night, we went to a surprise birthday party for Nick, which Melissa (his wife) organized. They've become good friends of ours, and we had so much fun! I'm posting some videos from the party. Melissa made delicious Cupcakes (vanilla with a chocolate center, yum!), and there was a great Klezmer band called "Heavy Schmetle" HA! Lots of delicious food and fun company. Aloka and I had stayed up late the night before, and she was also fighting a cold so she wasn't in top notch, but even so, she had so much fun.
It's been clear blue skies, Fall is crisp in the air with leaves turning colour, chilly nights, but the temperature was 75 today (24C).
It's supposed to be warm and beautiful all next week; I'm going to savor these sunshiny days of fall, and when the time comes, embrace the snowy winter.

Granddaddy visits!

My dad came out last weekend to visit. It was a quick trip, just for the weekend, but it was so great to see him. And of course, and Aloka misses him so much now. I forgot to take pictures until the last day in his hotel room, but we also went for a nice lake front walk too.

Garlic Festival Videos

I've been meaning to put these up for a little bit. The African band is called "Malicounda" and my mbira teacher is the drummer in the middle. They were great, and the little girl was so fun to watch. Of course, when we got home, Aloka had adjusted her current "belly dancing" moves, to now accomodate African dance moves as well. She learns so fast!
She told Josh yesterday (in the middle of dancing) "Hey Dada, I'm a little girl from Africa!" She thinks the girl she saw dancing is from Africa too, because we told her it was West African dancing.

Last weekends' Garlic Festival

We went out to a small town called New Denver where thousands flocked for the annual Garlic Festival. It was a beautiful drive, gorgeous little town, and insanely crowded festival. It used to be much smaller and has grown quite rapidly, so the land is a bit small for the size of festival it is now. I much preferred the Starbelly Jam (lots of people but more spread out land, and lots of room to lounge), or the awesome Market Fest's in the downtown of Nelson, but it was still fun nonetheless. There was a nice beach, and a very fun area where there were puppet shows and hula hoops galore. Plus, my Mbira teacher and his african drum and dance band performed, which was a highlight for me.
There are a bunch of pics of Josh in this batch. There's one with two good friends of his, Dallas and Kelly, making silly faces on the beach at the festival.
I'll be posting a video or two from the festival tomorrow!

Girls with dirty feet

Ani and Aloka were barefoot and had filthy feet, and Josh and Jen played silly games. We were at the Preserved Seed, one of our favorite restaurants here in Nelson.

My passion - the Mbira!

I'm in love with a musical instrument from Zimbabwe. It's called an "mbira" and it's a thumb piano of sorts, with 22 to 28 keys.
Aloka and I went to the Wednesday Street Market and my mbira teacher was performing. I took a little clip of him which shows him playing a close relative of the mbira, called a kalimba. The big round thing it's in acts as an amplifier. You can also see his mbira's on the ground as well as another big gourd amplifier (called a Deze, pronounced deh-zay).
The music has a very watery quality and goes in a circle where there isn't really a beginning or end. Because of that, it puts the listener into a very relaxed state.

Tomorrow we're going to the Hills Garlic Festival and then on a beautiful hike in the mountains above. I'm sure I'll have some fun pictures from that, and next weekend is a big harvest festival, stay tuned!

More "language" anomalies

Aloka was taking a bath the other day, and she had a whole bunch of rubber squeaky bath toys in there with her. Josh noticed that some of them were growing mold on the inside and took a few over the the sink to try and clean them out. "We need to get you some new bath toys, Didi" Josh said to her. She replied with a nod "I know...those are totally crap!" We then had to reflect on the frequency in which we say that word, and apparantly Josh and I say crap a whole lot. Children are like little mirrors!

And this morning, I was reading a beautiful new book to Aloka by Elsa Beskow, titled "The Flowers' Festival" and telling her about all the different flowers in the garden. She was engrossed in the book, and then looks up at me and says "I have a flower in my garden back on Vashon Island!" "oh yeah?" I replied. "Yeah, it's called a Butt Flower." I chuckle. She continues, "and it's really reeeeally STINKY!" How am I not supposed to laugh? Such a 3 year old. And where does she get this sense of humor anyway?? I can hear my Dad, Mom, and a multitude of friends right now thinking in a loud voice "ARE YOU KIDDING??" :)

Videos: "A game with Larissa" & "Playing in Sand"

Here are just a couple videos, one of Aloka and Larissa playing Lion and Deer. She caught on pretty quick after this one, and you can imagine how many times it was played afterwards!
The next was from a visit to the valley, 20 minutes from Nelson. It's beautiful and reminds us a lot of the Colorado mountains. The smell of sage permeates, crickets are chirping in the dry reeds and the air is thin and clear. My mom made that little dress for Aloka, which she is so creatively covering with dusty sand!

The Packrat

Yesterday, I had just parked on Baker Street and Aloka and I had gone into a toystore. All of a sudden I hear lots of talking outside and look out and see tons of people around our car! Apparantely, some kind of rodent like thing had run down the street and was taking cover in our VW engine compartment.
It started with a few people, and more and more people stopped to see what all the hubbub was about. We were on our backs trying to grab the thing from under the car. Then finally someone went to get the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) who then brought a net and cage. The thing was captured in the net, but then squeezed through one of the holes! Eventually, someone grabbed it by the tail and got it into the cage.
The funniest thing was that no one could identify what it was. Everyone who stopped, asked what it was, and I heard "chinchilla" (most popular), "squirrel", "rat", "packrat", "someone's lost pet", it was too funny. One guy, when realizing he couldn't identify what it was, suggested that "maybe it's from the States!" (we still have Washington plates on our car) And another person said, "well...welcome to Canada, eh!"
Later on at home, we finally identified it online as a Packrat.
It touched me that so many people were concerned for this animal's wellbeing. Everyone was genuinely concerned that it would run out into the road or get harmed in some way. When it was finally caught, there was much cheering and a sense of community accomplishment. And I thought I was just going out for a couple errands!

Auntie Larissa visits!

Once again, I have way more photos and stories to tell than I have time. The summer has been so full for us, and it seems to not be slowing down! We've got an upcoming Garlic Festival, and a cool Family Fun Day in Kaslo for September in the way of festivals. I'm also enrolling Aloka in Gymnastics this week and we're so excited for that!
My sister and her boyfriend were just here for 4 days and we all had so much fun with them. We did lots of playing on beaches, hanging out on Baker Street, we went for a long walk on the railroad tracks, and of course, jumping on the trampoline. Larissa and her boyfriend Joe were amazing with Aloka and played with her so much. One morning, Joe told Aloka all about Garter Snakes, how to hold them, how they release a yucky smell when they're scared. Joe showed her how to hold one using a pretend fimo snake. Later that day, he caught a real one for her, and she got to apply her new snake knowledge! She was beside herself with excitement about it.
By the way, the second photo is Joe balancing on a rock at Cottonwood Falls. It was such a cool shot, I had to throw it in!

Aloka gets her groove on

This is a video from the Cottonwood Falls Market. There's usually a drum circle by the waterfall where Aloka loves to dance. This one is a particularly great video of her! The other video was the inspiration.