Hiking with Chantelle

Chantelle came and spent the day with us a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful day so we took her to Big Hills Springs Park.

As soon as we got there joe climbed to the top of the rocks overhanging the picnic area.

Mandy climbed up too. Notice they both had their webkinz along for the hike.

Beautiful girl

The water was cold!

Joe and Mandy exploring

Chantelle we miss you. Wish you would move to Cochrane!!!

Katie assured me this was safe.

Art class projects

Katie and Sarah took an interesting art class at Soul Studios this year. They made some really awesome projects! First they worked with clay and made some vases. They formed the vases and etched designs in them. They painted them and then the teacher fired them. They turned out great.

This is Sarah's beautiful creation

This is Katie's fabulous creation.

Next they started working on masks. The base was 1/2 of a plastic coffee container. They did paper mache on top of the base, then painted it and added decorations. Here are the results.

Above is Katie wearing her mask.

Sarah wearing her mask. Groovy!

Panama Canal

My sister and her family are on the most amazing adventure. They are sailing around the world!! You can read about my sister's sailing adventures on their blog. http://saltyginger.blogspot.com/ You can also follow their little dot as they cross the ocean.
http://www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/PositionreportsDetail.aspx?callsign=VA3PRY

The kids and I have been enjoying following their blog and learning about all the places they are visiting. By far, the most excitement has been around their crossing the Panama Canal. There are several webcams along the canal and we knew we may be able to see them on their crossing. Here's the link the the webcams.
http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html We had lots of fun watching ships go through the locks. We even from some youtube videos that sped up the whole process. (The webcams only refresh every 3 minutes)

Here is part of an email I wrote to Julie about us watching them make their crossing.

Can you imagine the excitement in the Sparks house Friday morning? Thursday night Shane set up the PS3 so we could get internet on the big screen TV. We went to the Panama Canal webcams and book marked the sites for easy access in the morning. Friday morning we ate bagels in front of the TV. We watched 2 groups of sail boats approaching in the distance. We all guessed at whether you were in the first group or the second group. Finally we could tell. You were in the second group. We were all excited, because with the boats that went through before you the close up was of the second set of boats! But then the camera angle on one of the webcams changed. (we had 2 webcam open so we could see you from the best possible vantage point) When it changed we got a close up of the Gromit! We could read the name on the side and see everyone on deck. They flew a Canadian flag :-) It was cool to know they are friends of yours. Then we watched your boat. It wasn’t as close up, but we still had a decent view. Anyways we watched you refresh every 3 minutes. At one point we thought we saw a pink towel at the front of the ship and another time we thought we saw a Canada flag. Then as the water in the lock lowered we saw less and less until all we could see was the tops of the poles, then you disappeared. I wish I would have snapped a screen shot, but I didn't think about it in all the excitement.

Soon they will be heading to Galapagos and then a 23 day sail to Marquesas!

Uncle Jason

Uncle Jason lives in our basement. He's an expert at video games and he takes us to Dairy Queen. He plays his banjo and he's good at it. He pretends to tickle us in his mind. I like him living at our house. But the worst part about having Jason here is I have to wait until 4 o'clock to play video games with him.
That's all.

Joe

Joe's shirt

Mom and I rearranged the playroom and turned it into a sewing room. We set up our 2 sewing machines and the serger. Mom brought in the shelf with all her fabric. And we started to sew!

I found a sewing book and decided to make Joe a t-shirt first. I cut out the pattern and Joe choose which fabric he liked.

It turned out really good. Joe really likes it and wears it all the time.

Another puzzle completed!!

Well we finished another puzzle. Jason bought this puzzle for the kids after they finished Mandy's kitten puzzle. This one was alot more challenging! I think it took us about a month. But still the kids aren't tired of puzzles. They want more!

Katie's Birthday

13 years ago today Katie Marie Sparks was born!
Our sweet little baby girl has grown into a beautiful young lady.

JOE

I've been playing around with photos on http://bighugelabs.com.

Here's our Joe!

My Webkinz

This is a picture of most my webkinz together. I have 25, but I couldn't find them all today. I have a littlekinz bulldog and a littlekinz mouse who are hiding in my room somewhere.

This is my webkinz bird named Ruby.

This is my Webkinz Chase with a grumpy face!


These are my 2 horses getting choked by a snake.

This is my webkinz koala. She is a girl named Coke. I have another koala whose name is Cola, and he's a boy.

These are mother and daughter bunnies. Their names are Mother Bunny and Kelly.

This handsome little fish is Oreo. I don't know if it's a girl or a boy.

Kitty cat puzzle

Today we finished the puzzle!!!

It was 1000 pieces. It was really hard, but it was really fun. Sarah did 13 pieces!
Mandy bought the puzzle with her Christmas gift card from Grampa Griff and Cheryl.

Everybody gathered around as Mandy put the last piece in :)

Olympic Torch in Cochrane

The Olympic Torch came through Cochrane this morning, so we all went to see it. The girls all put Canadian flag tattoos on their faces. The whole town came out to celebrate! We were lucky, the relay flame exchange happend right in front of us. The guy waiting to have his torch lit, came and let the kids touch it.

I had my mittens on and didn't snap the picture at the right time. This was either just before or just after the kids touched the torch.

A Coke truck was handing out special Olympic bottles of coke. We had to get some because we know Nanny likes to collect coke bottles. Although the kids are sure they are going to be worth a lot of money some day. But Mandy says she'll still give hers to Nanny.

Sushi Night

Yesterday me and Katie made sushi. We learned how to make it in cooking class. Then Nanny bought us a sushi set for Christmas. It had a bamboo roller and sushi dishes.
We made sushi with rice and avocado and cucumber.

Zac kept stealing some before it was all ready. It was sooo good. I had some of mine with wasabi. Wasabi is spicy! I tried using the chop sticks, but that didn't work at all. I didn't know how to.

Avocado sushi is SOOO good!


THE END

Hamlet

Today I finished reading Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

I liked this story because it was exciting. It kept my attention because something shocking was always happening.

Hamlet is a story about Prince Hamlet. The play takes place in Denmark a long time ago. Prince Hamlet's father, King Hamlet died. So King Hamlet's brother, Claudius, became king of Denmark and married Gertrude, Prince Hamlet's mother. Hamlet was really mad about their marriage. Every night at about 1:00am, the watch guards of the castle see a ghost of old King Hamlet. So they decide to tell Hamlet about it. So one night Hamlet goes out with them to wait for the ghost. First the ghost comes and it doesn't say anything, but then the ghost turns around and walks away and hamlet follows it. But they walk a really long ways, so hamlet says he's not going any further. So then the ghost tells Hamlet that he was actually murdered!! But everybody was told that it was a snake bite that killed him. Really Claudius poured poison in his ear when he was sleeping in the garden. The ghost asked hamlet to get revenge by killing Claudius.


Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent to try to cheer up Hamlet. but on the way they cross paths with players. Hamlet is really happy that there are players. He devises a plan where he tells the players to make a play about Claudius poisoning old King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. And in the play Claudius would get married to Hamlet's mother so that everything in the play would be just like real life. Hamlet wants to see how Claudius reacts to the play. If Claudius looked guilty or sad then Hamlet would have proof. If Claudius didn't react then Hamlet would think the ghost was the devil in disguise. When the play happened Claudius got really angry and rushed out to his chamber. So Hamlet thought he had good proof.


Hamlet's mother sent a messenger to get Hamlet to come talk to her in her chamber. Hamlet snuck into Claudius's chamber and spied on him while he was praying. He didn't want to kill him then because he would go to heaven if he was killed while he was praying. Hamlet went to his mother's chamber to talk to her. But before he got there Polonius hid behind the curtains to spy on them to see what happens. Hamlet got really mad at his mother for agreeing to marry Claudius so soon after his father died. The mother gets scared by the way Hamlet is acting and calls for help. Polonius calls for help too. Hamlet could hear that someone was behind the curtain. He stuck his sword through the curtain and when he lifted it he saw that it was Polonius.


Hamlet drags Polonius's dead body out of the room and hides it. The queen tells the king that Hamlet killed Polonius. The king wants to send Hamlet to England on business, but he secretly writes a note for the King of England to kill Hamlet when he arrives.

Laertes comes back to get revenge for his father's death. When he is back, Ophelia goes crazy because of her father's death and accidentally drowned herself.

Hamlet discovers the letter from Claudius to the king of England, so Hamlet writes a letter to Claudius telling him that he's going to return to Denmark. Claudius tells Laertes that when Hamlet returns, they will fence. Claudius's plan was to dip Laertes's sword in poison so even a scratch would kill Hamlet. For a back up plan, Claudius had a poison drink, so if Hamlet got tired while fencing he would drink it and die.


Then Hamlet came back to Denmark. A messenger tells Hamlet that Laertes wants to fence him. So then they fenced. Hamlet hit Laertes twice. Then the queen drinks to Hamlet's good fortune. But she drank the poisoned drink! Then Laertes hit Hamlet with the poisoness sword.
But then Hamlet hits Laertes and he dies. Hamlet now had Laertes's sword. So he killed the king. Before Hamlet died, he told Horatio to tell everyone what really happened.
THE END





CHARACTERS


Hamlet - The prince of Denmark.


Claudius - The new king of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle.


Gertrude - The queen of Denmark, Hamlet's mother.


Horatio - Hamlet's friend.


Polonius - The Lord Chamberlain.


Ophelia - Polonius's daughter


Laertes - Polonius's son.


The ghost - A vision of Hamlet's dead father, the former king of Denmark.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Hamlet's former school mates

Wii remotes

Today Mom said the wii Remotes were way to much Money! So she said if we all finish our home schooling books. She'll buy them! And my work book only has five more pages! The wii remotes are 120 dollars. I can't wait! And I have another book that's almost done too! It's gonna be great!

Everything I got for Christmas

Sarah
Christmas was so so so much fun! I got a webkinz from Nanny, and I got a sushi set from Nanny too. I also got lip chap and a pretty picture frame from Nanny. And from mom and dad I got a fashion designer set for me and Katie. I got a liv girl doll from Santa. And uncle Jason got me a really cool barbie. I also got a guitar from Santa. I got a Bop It from Katie. I got two books from Santa. I also got a curling iron from Santa, I got my hair curled on friday. I also got a R4 from uncle Rob. It has a lot of fun games on it! I got red warm socks and soaps and nail polish from Millie. We also got wii games like New Super Mario Brothers and Mario Kart! It's so fun! New Super Mario Brothers was from Chantelle and Justin mario kart was from Nanny. Our other Mario Kart was from Uncle jason. I got a Chapters gift card too. With that I got two books! It was from Grandpa Griff and Cheryl. I think that's all . . . THE END!

SUPER MARIO

JOE
Uncle jason made it to world 7 on new super mario brothers wii. I wish we had two more remotes for it so Katie and me and Sarah and Mandy can play! One more thing to say! UNCLE JASON IS THE BEST NEW SUPER MARIO PLAYER ON EARTH!
from joe