Tag: Chris Friesen

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Be The Best.

Borscht and Berries

I usually make a shake for breakfast at least 3-4 times per week.  Chris loved them as well.  He wrote the recipe down last year and called them ‘Randy’s Jacked Shakes’….of course he did!  (recipe: 1-2 frozen bananas, 1 cup strawberries (frozen or fresh), 1-2 cups orange juice, 1 cup yogurt, 1 scoop protein powder (you can get at Costco), all measurements are adjusted to taste and consistency)

Anyways, as I was making the shakes one morning this week I realized what I was making them with.  Remember all that food at the funeral?  Well, through the assistance of amazing friends and family about 3 big bags of strawberries were sliced and frozen.  That’s what we were having for breakfast this week.  I thought again of all the generosity and amazing support.

Tonight I was busy downstairs and Ingrid came down about 6pm and said a relative (name protected!) had dropped off some hot borscht.  If you’ve never had borscht, you better get friendly with some Mennonites  (Toews, Friesen, Harder, Thiessen, Funk, Klassen etc etc) and have a bowl.  It is a vegetable based soup that absolutely hit the spot tonight.  Not only with the food aspect but another humble reminder of how many people have cared and are continuing to care for us.

We get through each day and are looking to the future, but any moment and many moments we have thoughts of our amazing, loving, wonderful son Chris who we will all see again one day.

Until then, we’ll have a shake, eat some borscht and keep helping each other one decision at a time.

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Be The Best.

AC and Friends in Concert – June 26

If  you are ready to hear ‘Love Shines’ in concert with some amazing musicians, mark Saturday, June 26th on your calendar.  Tickets are $15 at the door.  Full details on AC’s website.

What you won’t hear from Cathy unless you pull it out of her is that Gemma (Cathy and Karin Dart) won the award for CLASSICAL/TRADITIONAL SONG OF THE YEAR at the 2009 GMA’s. That is the Gospel Music Association of Canada.  Their music is different.  Their music is cool.  They touch lives.  If you’ve never heard a harp live before, you have to come and hear Karin.  It is really cool.  Yah..that’s right.  Harps are cool.  (you can find people playing Iron Maiden on the harp on youtube…Karin won’t be)

I put together a little video for the CMA’s last October.  If you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance.  That last bit about singing in the shower was a required question from the organizers…don’t blame me… 😉

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Be The Best.

The Stanley Cup and Being The Best.

Wow.  It’s over.  The Stanley Cup for 2010 has been won by the Blackhawks.

Now this is not a sports blog per se, so I won’t mention how much I despise the Hawks for beating our beloved Canucks earlier this year…or maybe I will.  Better yet maybe I’ll make a video…oh yah, did that too.  If you haven’t seen it, here’s a minute and 15 seconds of time that you’ll never get back…

Fun aside, the Hawks Chairman and owner, Rocky Wirtz, was interviewed after tonight’s game.  I’m paraphrasing slightly…but the question was, how did you know you were going to win? how could you have set  your expectations so high?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE his answer.  Mr. Wirtz said, I can tell you this much…if we had set the bar lower, we would have achieved it.

Let that sink in.

If we set the bar low…if we aim low…if our goals are low…we’ll probably achieve low.

If we aim high and don’t achieve the ‘prize’, I guarantee you that we’ll achieve more that we ever thought we could.

Be The Best.  What a great example.

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Be The Best.

Longboarding and Be The Best.

I was first introduced to longboarding (like skateboards, but longer!) a couple of years back by Vincent, an exchange student we had stay with us while Max was staying in Quebec at Vincent’s home.

I met a longboarder skating on the back roads of BCIT a few months later and we got to know each other.

I’ve written before about taking calculated risks and to make a long story short, that chance meeting with Patrick Switzer turned into a sponsorship relationship…the first of it’s kind in Canada and probably anywhere in the world between a longboarder and an educational institution.

Patrick flies down hills in races at 70, 80, and 90+ km/h.  It’s crazy stuff.  You can check him out all over youtube.  This article is a great place for more info.

The reason I’m bringing this up today, is I met Patrick this afternoon before he left for the States, then Europe, then Australia and maybe even South Africa over the next 6 months.  He is in the top 3 of the world rankings in longboarding….impressive.

He told me today of how he has set goals, worked hard and never stopped believing he could succeed in his sport and be successful at something he was passionate about.  I love that.  That is Be The Best!  I told him he could win a few races for Chris this year…and I’m not doubting for a minute that he will make that happen.

Go get em Patrick…and thanks for showing us how to live our dreams.

Dreams+Goals+Work+Work+Work=Success.

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Be The Best.

Hit it hard and coast.

I mentioned that I would bring forward a few life lessons that we had developed as a family over the years.

When I was a teenager I worked at a family supermarket.  There was an older gentleman there that had a saying that stuck with me forever.  A big load of groceries would come in off the truck and our job was to get the load into the store and on the shelves.  Every Tuesday and Thursday he would say the same thing to us.  “Ok boys, tonight we are going to HIT IT HARD AND COAST”.

Hit it hard and coast. Work hard, unload the groceries, shorten your breaks and then have a bigger break when the job was done.  Simple.  I love that saying.  I used it with the boys (Max and Chris) all the time.

Our society is built around COASTING first and then WORKING later.  ie…paying on credit and then having to pay the bill later…eating a big greasy meal and then working out later etc.

The principle of ‘hit it hard and coast’ is just the opposite.  Work first. Relax second.

Simple advice that Max and Chris both took to heart….usually!

Hit it hard and coast.

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Be The Best.

Plain and simple.

There is no love like a parent’s love.

Our love for Chris continues every second of every day.

Sometimes we cannot express that as deeply as we feel, but it is there with every heartbeat.

We miss you so much Chris…and when I say ‘we’ I feel you all continuing to stand with us.

One decision at a time…moving towards the new normal, but no one said it was going to be easy.

I know there are many of us who are still working through our feelings about grief and loss especially as they relate to Chris.  If you haven’t already, please find someone you can talk to.  That can be a friend, teacher, parent, coach, relative, etc. etc.

I know after those words saying ‘have a great week’ may sound trite…but I do believe that too.  Let’s have a great week and aim to Be The Best regardless of our pursuits.  For our high school students out there…study hard!

Have a great week.

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Be The Best.

‘Bee’ patient

Be patient, be patient, don’t be in such a hurry, if you are inpatient, you’ll only start to worry…

Those are lyrics from a kid’s musical I sang 35 years ago in a church play.  Some things stay with you…that and I’m still in counseling for being dressed up as a Song Book…no really…I was living, singing book.

I’m not sure how it relates other than I have this bee pic from the other day and I’m really feeling impatient about showing it to you.  This was a bee getting ready to land on a California Lilac.   I had sort of overlooked the picture when I wrote the post the other day.  I find with pictures and many other things, it’s good to go back and review.  I can’t believe how many things you see again for the first time, when you have a little more patience.

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Be The Best.

Roy’s in San Diego – the full story!

If you ever get a chance to go to Roy’s (Hawaiian Fusion Restaurant)….go! It is awesome.  We went for the first time in Hawaii several years ago and go back whenever we have a chance.  With the closest location in Hawaii or California, that’s not too often so when we were in San Diego a few weeks back with Steve and Meggan we jumped at the chance.

Because it was the Saturday night before Mother’s Day and they were doing a big Mother’s Day promo, I called the manager that afternoon and explained our situation to him.  I said that Ingrid was a very proud Mom, but too much emphasis on that point would be hard for us to deal with at this time.

The manager said no problem, he’d handle things….and he did.

The server was amazing.  Kind, attentive, outgoing and he didn’t say one thing at any point in the evening that remotely made us uneasy or uncomfortable.  As our dinner progressed the restaurant began to slow down and our server spent a little more time with us and we got to chatting about his pursuits (he’s studying architecture), his background (he’s from Miami and recently moved to San Diego to study) and his plans for the future.  You know who this young man reminded us of that evening in a very indirect way.  Yup.  And guess what was the topper?  At the end of the evening as we were paying the bill we asked what his name was.

“My name is Chris”, he said.

Of course it was.

Now, this was simply a chance encounter and we realize there are thousands of young men named Chris throughout North America.  That being said, it was a pretty special moment on the eve of a very different Mother’s Day.

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Be The Best.

Playground Follies and too big Max

This movie is dedicated to the Ethanator (my nephew Ethan) and his little sister Emily who both star in this epic film.  We took them to the playground a few weeks back before enjoying some soup in Fort Langley.

Young kids are unbelievably ‘in the moment’ but have an amazing sense of the beyond.  It’s hard to describe, but I love every second.  Ethan was an amazing cousin for Chris and honoured Chris through many hand drawn pictures and cards.  Emily is a little young to remember these events, but you can see in her a determination that has Be The Best written all over it!

Frank (Ingrid’s brother) and his wife Selena (our sister-in-law) were simply amazing support in the past few months and it’s awesome to see their little family come alive with such joy and passion for living.  I know that Chris loved you all so very very much.

The kind of fun we had in the park was simply an example of age having very little to do with the bond that forms between cousins and family.  Too big Max is a pretty cool dude for being willing to chase around a kid’s play park, but I think he might have actually been having a lot of fun himself!!

Enjoy the show.

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Be The Best.

That plant is dead.

If you would have seen this plant a few months ago you would have thought the same thing.  The winter had not been kind to this California Lilac bush and we were not sure it was going to survive.  Look at it today…like this evening..(yah I got distracted while mowing the lawn).  This plant not only has survived, but it is thriving.  Seeing the bees going crazy with the pollen on this plant is an excellent sign.  In some sort of way this is like the sun behind the clouds producing the silver lining.  We believe that we too will continue to renew and aim to bring hope and passion to those we meet along the way while we honour our son Chris.  That plant is dead…NOT.