Tag Archives: Photos

Aug 4 2007

Two Chapters Draw to a Close

Yesterday was a big day for two Dearlove boys, as A and I both marked significant milestones.

For A, it was his last day at daycare (the picture is from the graduation ceremony they held a few weeks ago). A was only 16 months old when he started at Pinocchio – just a wee lad in diapers with a limited vocabulary. It’s been amazing to watch him grow over the past three years and develop strong friendships with some of the other kids. He’s become especially close with Myles and Sebastian, we’ve gotten to know their parents, and I hope we’ll all stay in touch despite the fact they’ll be at different schools in September.

We really lucked out with the boys’ daycare. Pinocchio is a city-run daycare at the old Ottawa city hall, which is a pretty cool building. The teachers are great, it’s a nice facility, and the boys love it. One of the biggest sources of stress for young parents is finding good child care, and we were really fortunate that spaces were available when we needed it.

As for me, yesterday marked my last day as orchestra manager. I spent part of the day talking to musicians from the National Youth Orchestra about my experiences over the past nine years, the audition process, and issues facing orchestras today (I think I may have gotten a bit evangelical at points). I certainly didn’t know what I was doing when I took the job, and hopefully I gave them some concept of what happens behind the scenes.

So, I’m on vacation now for the next 31 days (wow, that sounds like a long time). On September 4th, A and I will both start new chapters as he’ll start Junior Kindergarten and I’ll move into my nice new digs.

Jul 21 2007

The Coffee Bitch

If you’ve ever wondered what an Orchestra Manager actually does, the picture above gives you a pretty good sense of how I spend about 95% of my time.Now, would you like that with cream or sugar?

Jul 10 2007

CHEO Teddy Bear Picnic

UPDATE: For those of you looking for the date of the next CHEO Teddy Bear Picnic, it’s scheduled for Saturday, June 26, 2010.  The celebrity breakfast begins at 8:00 am, and the popular B*A*S*H* tent opens at 9:00 am.  Complete details about the event, including parking and transportation information, is available here.

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I think I’ve been neglecting the “family life” portion of the blog. In an effort to make amends, I present for you a few pictures from last weekend’s CHEO Teddy Bear Picnic.
B, A, and K (who’s mugging for the camera).
   
A in his Sears catalogue pose. 

K, the boy of a thousand faces.

May 14 2007

May is for Birthdays

A and K are both May babies, so we’ve been busy baking cakes and wrapping presents. K turned 2 last week and we had a fairly quiet evening, while A turns 4 on Saturday.

Saturday was anything but quiet as we hosted a birthday party for both the boys. A room of 14 children under the age of 5 is already fairly noisy, but when you add Mike from Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo and his menagerie of creepy crawlies, the energy level goes through the roof.

It was actually a pretty cool party. Mike brought a tarantula, a huge millipede, some lizards, a cane toad, two snakes, and a snapping turtle. I was O.K. with it for the most part, although I was a little worried that the turtle might take a kid’s finger off. I also had images of kids licking the cane toad and then rolling around on the floor having hallucinations.

For some reason, the thought of a bunch of adults coming to our house turned me into a Martha Stewart wannabe. Suddenly the front door needed to be painted, photos had to be framed and hung, the piano polished, windows washed. Of course, hours of cleaning were quickly undone as kids ground chocolate cake into the carpet, but at least the place was presentable for the first few guests.