Tag: Sport

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Be The Best.

Seeing through listening.

I had a very unique experience on Saturday.

AC (Auntie Cathy, aka Cathy AJ Hardy) was in the remote Mission studio of Philip Janz doing some vocal tracks for her upcoming release.

She invited me to drop by and Philip was gracious to let me take a few pics  and shoot a little vid.

Philip is a very accomplished musician and producer in the gospel genre and beyond with awards he probably won’t tell you about, but you can read about them on the web!

I love music and the process of creating.

What makes Philip so unique is the ability to really understand music from a musical perspective and also be a technical master.  Watching him work was very interesting.  He was a blend of technician, music coach, manager and orchestra leader.  He knew what small part he wanted recorded and/or changed and then had a vision of how that would affect the whole piece.  You need a lot of vision and skill to do that as well as get the best from the musician or vocalist you are working with.

It was as if Philip was seeing everything through his ears if that makes any sense.  The part I like most in the vid is seeing him twirl his pen as he listens to Cathy lay down a vocal track.  He’s feeling every note and nuance making decisions on timing, pitch and understanding of how he’ll use that piece of the puzzle to help Cathy tell her story.  Very cool.

Talk about Be The Best.

Oh yah…AC is coming out with a new album.  That is VERY COOL too.  There are some fun songs.  There are some DEEP songs.  There are some songs sung with Chris is mind.

I loved what I heard…and I can’t wait.

Here’s a very little sneak peek inside the work of a master producer and a pretty cool musician…(yah, that’s high praise coming from an older brother…)

The other thing to watch for in the vid is the emotion that comes through music.  Is it possible to be happy and sad at the same time?  Is it possible to be feeling the deepest emotions of loss yet feel the powerful strength of hope for the future? Yup.

You can catch all the updates on Cathy’s updated website and her blog.

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Be The Best.

It’s the moments…

Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.

Interesting.

I thought the curved wall going downstairs was a little bare.  I mumbled something to Ingrid about wouldn’t it be cool to have a saying written in text on the wall for something different.

Within a few weeks she had researched, ordered and received this vinyl lettering and most importantly picked out this phrase which I hadn’t seen until it went up on the wall.

I love it.  I think about it every time I head downstairs.

Are milestones important?  Birthdays? Yes. Anniversaries? Yes. Other stuff? (you know what I’m talking about…) Yes.

But really, what’s most important?  It truly is the moments.

As we look back at all of our very treasured memories with Chris and Max as they grew up, so many of the amazing times were simply moments that happened!  Whether it was a three year old Chris climbing a ladder to see his Dad on the roof (true), or the moments of victory at a lacrosse game or the fun and silly times of picking out a Christmas tree, those moments are like gold.

The one thing you need to make moments happen is time.

I remember as young father thinking about how many Dads didn’t get to know their kids because they were so busy or work schedules that were hard to control etc etc.

I am a very busy Dude, but family was ALWAYS first.  Therefore, we made sure we had THOUSANDS of moments.

Those moments are what continue to feed us and help us on our way.

As I was watching that Disneyland video last night I was getting choked up myself.  Those moments were so pure, poignant and unanticipated.  I think that is truly what makes them special.

Anyhoo…another smart decision by that good wife of mine!

Rock your weekend.

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Be The Best.

American Idol, Disneyland and a Port Moody trail.

These three things have a lot in common, at least I hope they do because I’ve committed to that as the title of this blog post.

I caught some of the ‘new’ American Idol last night with new judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez joining Randy Jackson.

As the contestants did their thing they were either ‘sent to Hollywood!’ or rejected.

What struck me was the excitement and pure joy from the families of the young singers who made it to the next level.  You saw Moms and Dads hugging and jumping and crying.  For a moment I thought about lost future memories.

During a commercial break I saw an ad campaign being used by Disney.  They actually take real home footage from parents surprising their kids about going to Disneyland or at the resort itself.  You can see it here.  It’s all about making family memories.

That brings me to Port Moody.  During the Christmas break I visited a dear friend and former colleague (now retired) from BCIT, Sandie.  She was sort of like the ‘mom’ in our Registrar’s Office Department for many years.  One of the things she had by her desk was a bulletin board full of pictures of staff and their families.  Of course it grew over the years.  It was an amazing place to see the passage of time.

We look a walk along the shores of the inlet at Port Moody.  What a great place.  The reason I’m telling you this now is I look literally 15 minutes last weekend to put the following faux movie trailer together using the images from that walk.  It’s in the newest version of iMovie which comes on every Mac.  This isn’t really a Mac ad, but sort of is.

The point is that memories are amazing.  All of the great memories we’ve had together as a family are helping now in our darkest hours.

I’m simply blown away at the ability of today’s technology to take these memories and put them into a format that is useable, fun and easy to do.  I decided to use the movie trailer template and have a little fun so you could imagine what you can do with your family memory video footage!

Have a great day.

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Be The Best.

Yogurt and Toast.

All day long the texts, emails and comments kept rolling in.

We appreciate everything and all of those thoughts and prayers!

The Brookswood gang dropped by in the late afternoon and we had a very unique opportunity to toast Chris.

As I’ve mentioned before, Chris had the ability to eat yogurt without a spoon.  He would sort of squish the bottom of the yogurt cup and slurp and drink the yogurt, usually in one ‘fluid’ motion.

We know there are young readers of this blog and as parents we’re not endorsing this form of yogurt consumption!  We were just happy Chris and Max would pound back yogurt instead of cake.

In this picture you can see the toast just getting underway.  Including yours truly taking the picture, that was an even dozen toasting Chris with a yogurt salute and down the hatch it went.

Ingrid was left wondering how it could be done as she ended up with yogurt in a few places on her face.  I know Chris had a laugh at (or with) all of us!

What an amazing day it was.

I’ve got a few more stories to tell you so tune in tomorrow!

We ended the day knowing that Chris would be very, very happy…and we were too.  As tough as the day was, it was really incredible.

Who knew yogurt was made for toasting?

Ingrid, Cooper, Marshall, Cam, Lucas, Beau, Alan (front), Dylan, Jesse, Max, Devon
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Be The Best.

Happy Birthday Chris!

So many people have told us or emailed us about how they thought of us over Christmas.

I know so many more think of us often and are thinking of us now as we mark what would have been Chris’ 18th birthday tomorrow even if they don’t or can’t tell us.

We are exactly the same way.

We’ve been following the story of the Berg family in Mission and Gillian Berg’s amazing strength and very real highs and lows as she takes care of her family and slowly moves forward with each day.

You can follow and support with your thoughts and prayers through: http://gillianb-journeying.blogspot.com/

The reason I say we are the same is that our hearts go out to Gillian and her family, but we don’t know them personally.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them, but we haven’t verbalized that to them.  For now we will support by reading, caring and praying.  Just as we’ve done, she can see by the blog views how so many people are supporting them.

We know that’s what people do for us all the time.

As we approach Chris’ birthday tomorrow, we don’t have any big public events happening.  A few of his school buds will drop by.  As a family, we’ll head to our favourite steakhouse for a big steak dinner and piece of ice cream cake.  Chris was a fitness and health food fanatic, but he would eat steak and ice cream cake…and we’ll have some in his honour tomorrow night.

So the question is always, what can I do?  What should I do?  I don’t know them very well, or even if I do, I’m not sure what to do.

Here’s the solution.

We’d ask everyone who reads this blog to do some little thing in honour of Chris tomorrow.

Here’s a few ideas.

1. push-ups – even doing one or two in his name would be cool

2. make a toast when you have dinner

3. hug your kids

4. hug your parents

5. eat some yogurt (he would eat probably 4-6 per day)

6. wish him a happy birthday verbally

7. cook some eggs (yep…he ate a LOT of eggs)

There’s a few ways.

I’m sure you can think of more.

Drop us a comment if you want to share.

If you don’t, we totally get it and we want to say thank you for the continued support.

Randy, Ingrid and Max.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!

 

Jan 09 - Chris turns 16.

 

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Be The Best.

Seattle Seahawks and Be The Best…YES!

I was aiming to keep tabs on The Hawks playoff game this afternoon and do a few things around the house.

Oops….couldn’t stop watching.

Max and I watched the second half together including one of the most amazing runs for a touchdown in NFL playoff history.

It had Be The Best all over it.

That hunger, drive and desire to win is what drew Chris to sports and it is what continues to draw Max and I to sports whether it is the NFL, NHL or playing  basketball or soccer ourselves.

If sports is your thing…or if you want to see some Be The Best in action, check out this amazing run.

Story and vid link here.

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Be The Best.

Calgary or bust.

Over Christmas I had a bit more time to look at some history and came across this article featuring a quote from Chris.  I love the comments about team.

Funny story leading up to this tournie.  The team was raising funds to go to Calgary and had received the ‘ok’ to stand in front of certain liquor stores with jerseys on and request donations via a donation bucket.  (don’t ask why…it was easier than a car wash I guess…!)

Anyways, Chris and his buddy Brett Dobray were at a store and I noticed that they would get some people stopping and donating, but many would pass on by.  That is to be expected.  Lacrosse is a growing sport and people didn’t have an emotional connection as they might with hockey.

I had a marketing thought.

I made up some signs that said, ‘help us beat Calgary’ and ‘we’ll bodycheck an Albertan for $10’.  You should have seen the difference!  People were stopping….and donating and donating some more.  It was incredible.

What was the difference?

All of a sudden there was an emotional connection.  In BC, people love (usually in good nature) to bash Albertans!  Hey, when we’re out of the country we’re all brothers and sisters!  It’s like a brotherly competition…just watch the Canucks and Calgary or Edmonton and you get the rivalry.  It was just amazing to see people engage emotionally and then with their wallets as they connected with the BC vs Alberta challenge.  All of a sudden they felt like THEY were going to be playing simply by donating $10 or $20 bucks.

The boys loved that story and that experience…seeing how words and approach could make such a difference.

Secondly, those boys DID play for everyone of those donors and played their hearts out, winning gold, with 6 members of that team representing BC nationally later that summer.

Here’s the full story:

July 2007

The Langley Thunder Bantam A1’s traveled to Calgary over the Canada Day weekend. Forget bull riding at the Stampede, they were there for some hard hitting, fast paced box lacrosse action. Perhaps the actual thunder storm on Saturday night was a good omen for the Thunder, as the young men (just completed grade seven and eight) took on competition from all over Western Canada.

Saturday match-ups had the squad take on the Sabrecats from Calgary beating them 11-3 with Adam Gallen earning game MVP for a strong offensive performance. The Thunder continued by defeating Saskatchewan’s provincial team in the afternoon game by a score of 9-2 led by game MVP goaltender Ryley Brown who’s saves propelled the offensive charge and final decisive score.
Sunday’s games featured a strong Red Deer team with Langley prevailing by a score of 7-5. Game MVP Chris Friesen had a strong defensive showing against a physical opponent. In the afternoon game, Langley fell behind a skilled Calgary Axeman team, but rallied from a 3 goal deficit to chop the tournament defending champion Axeman 10-7. A brilliant goal and full game hustle earned Will Vandenhooven the game MVP. Having gone 4-0 in tournament play, the Thunder headed into the gold medal game against an all-star team from Calgary called the Hornets.
The game lived up to the hype with the first period ending tied at zero. The Hornets came out stinging in the 2nd period and opened up a 2-1 lead with two Langley players in the sin bin with the period ending. The Hornets capitalized on the 2-man advantage at the beginning of the 3rd by netting a goal and opening a two-goal lead. If it were not for the heroics of Ryley Brown, the Thunder goalie, the score may have been much higher. Instead of folding their tents however, the Thunder rallied led by team wide explosive defensive performance leading to goals by Brett Dobray and Michael Messenger. With the game tied Adam Gallen scored a timely goal with 1 second left on the shot clock. Langley then iced the cake with a massive defensive effort during pure pandemonium breaking in the Thunder zone. With the Hornet goalie pulled for an extra attacker Brett Dobray flew down the floor with two Hornets all over him and scored a diving empty netter for a final score of 5-3 for the Thunder.
Chris Friesen, the team captain stated, “We have been working hard at team play. Working for each other and working together. I think we did that throughout this tournament and the results we achieved were excellent”.
“I’m proud of each member of this squad. Everyone played hard and played together”, added Coach Sean Beasley.
Next up for the team is the Provincial Championships hosted in Langley this year which will be held July 18-22.
Six members of the Langley Thunder Bantam A1 team will also be representing BC in the National Tournament in August in Ontario.
Full story from lacrosse association website with picture.
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Be The Best.

The circle of life…I mean gingerbread.

Ethan eats gingerbread, Max eats Ethan.

Do you really need an explanation?

It’s the circle of life.  The smaller species eats gingerbread, which in turn becomes prey for the larger cousin…I mean species.

Ok, there was a bit of encouragement from the part of the photographer, but I love this pic.

Ingrid had a great idea that we’d have teams building gingerbread houses.  What could go wrong?

Editorial comment:  We tried this once with our Marketing group at BCIT.  Wow.  One group built a gingerbread brothel…but I digress.  Ladies of the evening built out of gingerbread…yah, what could go wrong indeed!? (excellent creative skills…just need some guidance from time to time…) 😉

We had no such incidents at our most recent building event.

These were great houses and Ethan and Max built the one you see above.

It was a fun way to add a positive memory and experience to our Christmas gathering.

That wife of mine…always the good ideas!

As the calendar flies so quickly away from Christmas into the New Year, these houses will become a fun memory of Christmas 2010.

We couldn’t go a minute without thinking of Chris.  He would have loved this event too and probably somehow worked a lacrosse theme into his gingerbread house.

The new normal includes great memories of the past with Chris and everyone else and new experiences too…maybe that IS the circle of life after all.

Gingerbread Street.
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Be The Best.

Vince Gill, friends and the bigger family.

I had heard this Vince Gill song a bunch of times.

In fact I think we own the Vince Gill Christmas CD.

Only thing was, aside from the chorus, I hadn’t really ever listened to the words.

I received an email from someone thinking about us with the song attached.

I listened intently and then looked up the lyrics which I’ve put in below.

Vince Gill is an amazing artist.

His voice is full of feeling, emotion and passion.

When I understood what the song was actually about, it was that much more powerful.

Yes…Christmas is all about family and I love the last line as well.

We’re all part of a bigger family…he states, ‘we’re all children of the King of Kings’.

What I’ve loved (really!), so much about the past 9 months is people reaching out to us from all walks of life.  All religious backgrounds.  All cultures.

When you look at the big picture, we, as in the human race, are all brothers and sisters and truly children of the King of Kings.

Has Christmas been easy?

Nope.

Has knowing that we are connected to a bigger family, literally and figuratively, helped us?

Yup.

Here’s those lyrics.

———————–

It Won’t Be The Same This Year – Vince Gill

It’s time to pack our bags and hit the highway,
And head on out for Christmas holiday,
I’ll fall apart when I pull in the driveway,
It’s my first time home since brother passed away,
His favorite time of year was always Christmas,
We’ll reminisce about the days gone by,
Oh how I wish that he was still here with us,
My memories with him will never die,
(Bridge)

But when the stockings are hung,
And silent night has been sung,
And Christmas is finally here,
It won’t be the same this year,

Losing my big brother hurt so badly,
It’s help me learn what Christmas really means,
There’s nothing more important than your family,
We’re all the children of the King of Kings,
(Bridge)

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Be The Best.

Merry Chris-Max.

I’ve used that greeting for years.

No, we didn’t name the boys so we could have this built-in family pun every Christmas season…it just sort of worked out.

As I write this, we’ve had Ingrid’s side of the family over for dinner tonight.

The Ethanator was intently tracking Santa’s flight across the world via Norad’s Santa Tracking system.

Hey, if you haven’t seen it, you’ve got to check this out.

He’s right on target to visit British Columbia in the next few hours!

Ethan reminded me that we had forgotten to make name cards for the places at the table.  I asked if he could handle it and this sharp Grade 2’er took charge and wrote all the names down.  He then showed me the tag he had made for Chris.  Of course Chris needed a tag too.  I told him to add it to my plate.  It was very cool.

I mentioned at Thanksgiving that we didn’t set an extra place for Chris, but rather toasted him and acknowledged that he was with us always.  Tonight we did the same and raised our glasses and told Chris we loved him.

Then Ethan told some reindeer jokes.

Hey, did you know what the wettest animal in the world is?  Duh.  Raindeer.

That’s how it goes.

I love the eyes of a child.  Poignant. Pure. Powerful…and just plain Funny.

Merry Chris-Max to all.