Some Video from around Easter!

In this video.....

• Kiara dresses like Daniel Cook at the construction site.
  
• The kids do some crafts and wish everyone a Happy Easter.
• Professor Colm lectures on bacteria from the bathtub.
• Owen gets a little interpretive dance in.
• Colm reads a new book for us.
• Kiara and Owen go camping.....in the hallway!

ENJOY!

A Great Weekend!

Happy St. Paddy's Day! Thanks to Rick, Marj and John for letting the Boss and I get away on Saturday night. It was RobK’s 34^th Birthday on Friday and we went out to celebrate. Got to see some friends that we have not seen in a long while and have a nice dinner and some cocktails. After dinner we went bowling with the gang and had a great time, although after two games I was getting pooped……it was way past my bedtime anyway. Caley was a trooper, by about the middle of second game she was all done but continued to throw a ball for every turn….a lesser woman would have given up (Being “in a family way” makes you tired you know).

Kiara was practising her sitting on Saturday afternoon and doing a great job with Mommy (see video). Uncle Mike and Aunt Rita came over with Maggie for a visit. Nothing gets Kiara excited like a visit from Maggie (see video).

Unknown to most of the civilized world, an almost constant battle between good and evil rages on non-stop inside the McGivern household. Nary a day goes by that Light Sabres don’t whiz through the air in combat. The melee usually continues until egos and sometimes random body parts are bruised, when finally the combatants find something else to do. Colm is usually the instigator and the architect of these fierce encounters, hence he usually assigns himself the role of “Good Guy” and assigns Owen the role of whatever foe du jour he has dreamt up. One would imagine that Owen being a year younger would be at a physical disadvantage; however this is not the case. The role of the evil villain in our house usually triumphs, I’m afraid, due to Colm’s embarrassing inability to even remotely defend himself from Owens routings. Alas poor Colm suffers from his fathers Nerdiness and non-violent nature while Owen has adopted the fiery spirit of his mother. More updates on the constant war between to titans later…..check out the video to see a sample of Owen’s thrashings.

Sunday we were getting out of the house as a family. After several weekends trapped Julie had decried that we would NOT be staying in the house another weekend. But what to do? Need something that the whole family, including Kiara, can be involved in. Julie thought of Bowling as we had just done it the night before. Capital Idea. We decided on London as this gave us the opportunity for the kids to have a nap and parents to talk. Bowling was a blast. It was hard to keep the kids grounded they really had a great time, AND KIARA GOT TO PARTICIPATE! The “T-Bar” for disabled kids worked great and Kiara (with a couple practise shots and help from Mom or Dad) was able to Bowl with ease. Her smile was worth a million. Check out the video for some of the action and the surprise winner of the days contest. A quick dinner at the Dairy Queen and we were home in time for a quick bath and bed. What a great weekend.

The Boys Get their first Barber Shop Haircut

The boys and I ventured out today for their first real Barber shop haircuts. Jay Lozon was very patient and the kids performed well. The possibility of reaching into Jay's "sucker cabinet" kept everyone on the straight and narrow during the cuts. Those are some good looking boys!

McGivern's St. Patricks Day Dinner at the Moose

Every St. Patricks Day my Dad and my Uncle Mike do an "Irish" dinner of Cabbage and Corned Beef and Stew for the folks at the Moose. This year we took the kids and had a great time. The food was great and it is just nice to get out every once in a while. Dad got in a dance with Kiara and she was thrilled. See the video below.

1 Billion Dollars

I know, I know. Not the same as “One Million dollars but you get the point. The US government just approved a budget just over three Trillion (that’s right with a “T”!). I strikes me as odd that we see billions thrown around in the media all day but very few of us, upon any examination at all, seem to have any concept of what one billion really is, or what it encompasses. The most success that I have had in describing “one billion” to people is as follows:

Take for instance that a person at 20 years of age starts his career. This person works a regular day job, 8 hours per day, an average of 240 days of work each year. He gets a half hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks.

• If all he or she does in their job is count out a 1 dollar bill every second of every working minute he would have to count bills at his job for 165.3 years to count to 1 billion 1 time.
• Considering that his descendants take on his life’s vocation, and that each person works from 20 years old to 55 years old do this every day (shoot me), this persons Great, Great Grandchild would be the one to finish the task almost in the middle of their career. This job would take 4.4 generations of work to complete.

What prompted me to write this was that every time I tell people this method of conceptualizing “one Billion” they are floored. I told the story to a group of gents at lunch yesterday and I was immediately asked if this every got me any action with the ladies. I told him I really doubted it. Once a nerd always a nerd I guess.

Another victim of JonBon's attraction.....

At the time of this writing my wife may in fact may be throwing herself at Jon BonJovi, the other love of her life. I did tell her that only girls who show the goods get on stage at a rock concert. I won't hold my breath. She is on a long overdue and well deserved overnight holiday with some friends in Toronto hopefully having an absolute blast! In memory (no pun intended) of this momentous occasion here is a video from last July of Colm singing JonBon's Hit.....(You want to) Make a Memory.

Another Weekend of Kids Trapped Indoors!

I spent most of the week in Florida for work. Of course, the day after I leave we are hit by enough snow to make Julie’s getting the kids to school in the morning very difficult. Fortunately Julie made it through with determination and a little help from Rick and a shovel. The kids, as always, got to enjoy the snow by building snowmen at Mema & Papa’s house. It was good to get home and see Julie and the Kids on Friday. Saturday turned out to be almost blizzard conditions in Wallaceburg, so no getting out of the house and lots more snow. Kiara’s mysterious weekend mid-day sickness returned we were concerned enough to start checking her blood sugar. We get consistently high-normal results of about 7.5-8.5 with one flyer out there at 13.2. Weird. Sunday brought snow shovelling, crafts and more indoor activities. Of course now that we are prepared to measure Kiara’s blood during one of her episodes…..she decides not to have one today! Go figure. This week is supposed to warm up substantially, could this be the last hurrah of winter!


Check out the video below for some highlights from today!

A Weekend Trapped!

We are in the midst of a very lazy weekend. Kiara was ill on Saturday so instead of going out we all stayed in and went stir crazy. The boys and I watched Star Wars Episode One…..which of course led to some requisite light sabre action in the basement (see video). I also signed the boys up for Peanut Lacrosse this year over the weekend. It came down to either two nights a week for each of the boys to play soccer (they would be playing separately, on separate nights) or for one night a week with both of them playing Lacrosse together. We have quite a busy life and it would make it substantially crazier to have the boys play separately, they are also quite excited about playing together. Owen says that Colm is his best friend. I’m kind of eager to see what the boys do when we put helmets, face masks, gloves and sticks in their hands especially with their love of all things that may be made to look/function like a light sabre. So with several hundred Colm directed craft projects under our belt we survive yet another weekend.