A little piece of heaven in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island (Aug 2010)
As we head into the last few weeks of August you get that sense of changing seasons.
Whether it’s the CHRISTMAS DISPLAYS AT COSTCO, back-to-school stuff everywhere, or those amazing August evenings that magically cool to just the right outside temperature at about 9pm when the sun sets and gets ready for the next show just a few hours away…you get the feeling that change is in the air!
As I wrote yesterday, I like to take some time to look forward, but also like to reflect on where we’ve been.
On occasion I go through some old blog posts. It’s an amazing way to see the journey and progress that’s been made. The days and weeks have ups and downs, but I think if we see things over time the general flow of the chart is in a slow but progressive move in a positive direction!
Summer should be a time to relax, enjoy and take in the sun with family and friends.
Agreed…even though I’m not that great at it! As many of you have experienced, probably the most relaxing time is when you get away from the house and normal duties and go up to the lake, cabin, spa, etc.
One thing I love about those times in the summer is the extra time to think and to plan!
Yah, yah, I know, broken record, planning and goal setting. Ask poor Ingrid, she’s been hearing this for 24 years.
So…not to disturb the summertime vibe, but I know for myself I like to look ahead a little at the fall and ask what I want to accomplish. I’ve noticed something very interesting happening on Chris’ memorial Facebook site.
It is still a great place people can send messages to Chris and when you put things in writing you are of course sharing them with a broader community and allowing others to help support your goals and dreams as well.
I’ve seen comments about achieving physical fitness goals and pushing forward to new ones. I’ve seen comments about achieving lacrosse goals. I’ve seen comments about setting educational goals both for high school and college.
THIS IS AWESOME.
I can’t think of a better way to honour Chris and his memory then by rocking out a few goals!
Enjoy the summer. Relax (yes, I’m preaching to myself here)….but take a little time to think ahead and put a few things down on that goal list for the fall.
PS Using Chris’ memorial Facebook page won’t be for everyone but I do encourage all of us to share our goals with someone. It helps those around you help you to achieve dreams!
As many of you witnessed reading thru the multiple World Cup (Soccer) blog posts last month, I love that sport and many others.
I think I have a new favourite team in the British Premier League called Blackpool.
They are underdogs coming into the season, but they scored 4 goals to beat Wigan today.
Ok…let’s go somewhere with this. I coached both boys in soccer. You see a young Chris here putting on some moves.
One of the most difficult things to teach kids in soccer is to ‘go to space’. I’m not talking NASA or the moon.
Going to space doesn’t make sense to kids and even much older players.
Going to space means going to where the ball isn’t.
It’s about anticipating where the ball might go.
When you go to space, you’ll have more of a chance of having the defenders back off and if your team understands the concept of getting the ball to space, you can really start moving the ball.
Chris makes a move, while big brother Max looks on a little too close to the endline I think!
I was left with the dilemma of teaching 6-year-olds the basic concept, but they just wanted to chase the ball like a bunch of bees on a honeycomb.
What I ended up doing was teaching them a little rhyme that I made up and they would say it while they practiced a drill.
Instead of running around in a pack they would run up the side of the field then into the middle where they would get a pass and shoot and hopefully score.
The rhyme was:
Up the side,
In the middle,
Score a goal and play your fiddle.
…at which point I would insist on them playing an ‘air fiddle’ (think air guitar)!
It wasn’t perfect, but the kids remembered it and they got better and better.
As I was thinking about this tonight watching Blackpool, I thought about how Ingrid, Max and I are learning to ‘get to space’ now. We are needing to step out in faith and go where the ball isn’t, in anticipation that the ball will be going there. If it isn’t, we regroup and try again.
It’s a hard thing to do when you’re learning so we may be sticking with the simple rhyme for now, until it becomes a part of the new normal.
Up the side, into the middle, score our goal and play the fiddle!
This is an excerpt from a story in the Abbotsford Times on August 13. The full story can be seen by clicking on the link below. Rhys, like so many of us, had to deal with the why questions, emotions, confusion etc. He has turned that into a motivating power moving forward. Here’s the article:
Burnell, a member of the Burnaby Mountain Selects lacrosse team, the B.C. Midget Box Lacrosse team and the U-16 Field Lacrosse team, was rocked when he found out about the sudden death of his close friend and teammate Chris Friesen on March 25.
Friesen, who grew up in Langley, was just 17 years old. He was far too young, said Burnell, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Yale Secondary.
“I went through a lot of emotions,” he said.
“I was sad, I was confused. I tried to figure out why he died but I managed to just get through it.”
Delivering the news to their son that his friend had passed away was also an emotional experience, said Burnell’s mom Lori.
“It was very difficult because we were very close family friends,” she said. “It’s devastating. It’s hard to explain to kids this young why these things happen. I don’t think there is an explanation but to see all of the boys take up the cause and keep working hard in Chris’s name and really pay tribute to him . . . Chris lives on through these young guys.”
“There’s a picture of him holding a lacrosse stick and it says ‘Be The Best’ at the top,” added Burnell.
That’s Be The Best.
Congrats Rhys. We’re all very proud of what you’ve accomplished so far.
Ingrid and I were at Deception Pass today spending time with the Ethanator, his sister Emily and their wonderful parents Selena and Frank (Ingrid’s brother).
Sunset at Deception (with lousy bberry camera!)
I know I’ve said this about other places, but the 2-hour drive south of Vancouver on the 1-5 and then west towards Anacortes and then to Whidbey Island and Deception Pass is worth every minute. If you get a chance go. Better yet, make yourself a chance…and then go!
The State Park there is incredible and many Canadians and Americans spend some great time camping or simply enjoying the fresh water lake and the ocean on the other side of the sand spit.
We’ve spent a bunch of time down there over the years most notably with Max and Chris.
I’ve loaded a picture up of Chris getting repairs after slipping off a log during a fort building exercise on the beach when he was a young buck. Nurse Ingrid is administering the first aid.
Today we were in that exact spot. Sitting on that exact beach. Kids had built a fort with the exact bunch of logs that have been there for years if not decades. Ethan showed me the fort and we built a sand castle together and then just watched the waves and tide do their thing all afternoon eventually washing our sand castle into the ocean leaving us with great memories and the possibility of building new sand castles tomorrow when the tide goes out again.
A young Chris gets repairs at Deception Pass. He was convinced band-aids made things better, so Nurse Ingrid was liberal in her 'treatment' including the green dot on his head!
It was old normal meets new normal. The ‘deception’ is (besides the tie to Deception Pass and my ongoing need to fuel my insatiable pun appetite) is that the New Normal may look easy. It might look easy but of course it isn’t.
While we were on the beach I received a message via Blackberry about a comment on the Blog. Please read it in the comment section below. It’s from someone I don’t know, but Karen has been sharing this journey and been on her own journey for 10 years since her husband passed away. As both Karen and ourselves have experienced, the new normal isn’t easy and sometimes I don’t like it much as I’ve indicated several times in this blog!
That being said, I’m more convinced than ever that the new normal is what I want to continue to strive for, knowing that it may look deceptively simple at times but isn’t, and will continue to be a series of decisions on a daily basis for 10 years and more!
I’ve been thinking about the concepts in that ‘mudslide post’ this past week. With another gigantic slide that occurred on Friday, Aug 6 just north of Whistler, BC, it again makes me think about the concept of what we control and what we don’t.
I think the answer is something like we can’t live like there is a mudslide coming, but we should be prepared if one ever does come. I’m reminded of the Proverb that states (paraphrased), ‘the lazy dude says there is a lion outside, if I go out there I might get eaten’. So how does this all relate to Tiger Lilies, roses or other flowers?
We are all familiar with the phrase, take time to stop and smell the roses. I think that’s where the balance comes in. We (as in Ingrid and I and Max) need to continue to plan, set goals, work hard and think about the future….while not forgetting to stop and smell the flowers. Stated another way, we cannot ‘stay inside’ (figuratively) just because a lion or mudslide may again cross paths with our lives!
We continue to move forward, stop and smell the flowers and make decisions in the world we can control. In the world we can’t, we don’t stop moving because of what ‘might be’, but we keep our ’emergency kit’ (relationships, friends, family) in excellent working condition as we continue on life’s journey.
Too deep for Saturday morning? I’ll go smell some flowers.
Wow. This throws my whole family history into a jeopardy. It could be because of the Mennonite heritage of milking the cows (I’ve never milked a cow but I’ve gathered a lot of eggs and caught a lot of chickens in my day…) and doing chores before breakfast or simply that I tend to be a ‘morning person’, ‘brunch’ has been consumed many many times before 10am in this household. As the Chief Brunch Maker in this family and for all those who believe brunch can be eaten before 10am, I may add an addendum to that Wikipedia site…
Yes, these are real pictures of today's 'brunch'.
In any event, Sunday breakfast/brunch was a big deal in our house. We not only had a big breakfast that got bigger as Max and Chris got older, but it was a family moment as well. We usually had our weekly ‘family meeting’ post brunch and then as they got older and schedules more difficult, the family meeting happened after Sunday dinner. It was a few moments in the week to discuss schedules, coordinate plans and discuss things.
Ingrid, Max and I have been talking weekly and coordinating our lives in the past few months, but I haven’t made a real solid Sunday brunch since March 25. But I did today. The reason it was so early (aside from personality/culture ‘issues’ as indicated above) was that Max had to head to the pool for Life-guarding duty. Ingrid, sensibly enough, is still sleeping.
I’ll cook her a more traditional brunch served between 10am and 1pm.
On a recent Okanagan jaunt, Ingrid and I spent a few days with our good friends Mark and Vickie.
From joining us at the hospital on that life changing evening of March 25, Mark and Vickie have been beside us on every step of this journey. Words will never be enough to express our ongoing gratitude for our friendship.
And as a broader message, we continue to feel our larger family of support even now. Of course summer brings a different ‘vibe’ as people (including us!) go on vacations and take in the beauty of BC and beyond and recharge the batteries. But we still feel the support as we connect at lacrosse games, summer bbq’s, on-line, and even little things like seeing the Blog stats let’s me know that people are still connecting with us and it is appreciated!
But back to wakeboards and waterskiis…
What would summer in BC be like without some sort of water activity? In the video below I want you to see a few things. Of course, there is just the summer fun of getting out there, but there’s a lot more going on. Eric is learning the sport of wakeboarding. He was attempting 360’s which are doing a full rotation in the air. He wipes out. Then tries again. Then wipes out. Then tries again. What was cool about this (besides the wipeout footage!!) was his discussions with his Dad after getting back into the boat. ‘I could try this.’ ‘I could try that.’ ‘I’m going to get some lessons.’ One thing he didn’t say was ‘I quit’. ‘I’m not doing that again’, or whatever.
You’ll also see Emily rockin along on her waterskiis. She’s zooming over the wake like it’s soft butter. She’s got a lot of drive and determination and it was cool to see her handle a long ski session with the poise of a pro.
The last thing I want you to notice is at the end of the video. Eric takes a big jump and lands it after some great air time. I’ve slowed the vid so you can see the grin on his face as he lands the jump and feels the accomplishment of learning something new. As for the 360? He’ll get there. Eric and Emily have the Be The Best attitude, so it’s just a matter of hard work and practice!
PS: To see any video larger, click on the button in lower right corner of vid (the one with 4 arrows) and you can watch in full screen. This video is also shot in HD (high def). Click on button that says 360p with an ^. You can then adjust to 720p for HD action. (Hey listen…I taught my 70 something year old mom to program her PVR this week. If she can learn that, you can do this…! 🙂 Later)
I’d like to spend more time out in nature than I do, but when I can see wildlife in action I love it.
I recently had a chance to see an Osprey (and no not at a Zoo…this was the real thing!) in action.
What amazing birds. With a wingspan over 1 metre, they are sometimes called fish hawks as they circle the water looking for their dinner.
Ospreys are built to fish, but even with that they sometimes miss.
This picture shows the spilt second after an arial strike and in this case the bird did not leave with dinner as it did the day before. But I’m sure it will learn a few things and be back again. That’s Be The Best…Osprey style.
Last week (July 18 to be exact) marked Nelson Mandela day.
You’ve seen a number of references to him in recent months as I am amazed at this man’s ability to move beyond any reasons he had to be angry or bitter or hard-done-by and moved forward in a continued spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness.
If you want a fuller understanding of who Mandela was and is, I found this ‘hero file’ site very informative.
It contains a quote from Mandela’s book that I have yet to read, but will add it to my list.
Mandela’s autobiography, ‘Long Walk To Freedom’, ends with these words:
“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”
Isn’t that the truth!
For all of us we have many hills to climb. Some reasonably inclined, some tougher. The reality is that there will be more hills.
What I’m coming to realize more and more is that these hills simply form the landscape and it’s how we see them and climb them and who we climb them with that really defines the journey.
To know there are more hills ahead can perhaps be a comfort, not a sentence, because with hills ahead, we know the journey continues.
Be The Best. 