If there is one thing that North Van does right, it is the Lynn Valley Little League. All 3 boys have joined a team - Simon is in T-Ball with the Mariners, Max is a Rookie with the Blue Jays and Callum is on a AA Minors team the Astros. Opening Day had most of the 500+ kids and a bag piper to start off the season.
Callum enjoys bat-catching and pitching, and Max and Simon are pretty good at occupying themselves while "watching" Callum's longer games. I probably should have signed up Max in the higher division than Rookie, since he gets bored during his games and is obviously the best on his team, but he'll survive the season. Simon's favourite part about baseball is the relay-race at the end, but who's isn't??
It feels like we pretty much spend all our time at the ball park, but it is so very nice that all the boys play at the same field, so there are no conflicts and no hectic driving around. Even the concession is half-decent, and my 2 volunteer shifts selling the candy, hotdogs and freezies were actually pretty fun.
Other than baseball, there was Callum's trip to Outdoor School! He went from Monday to Wednesday with all the Grade 3 classes from Ross Road Elem. and 1 other elementary school, up to the Cheakamus Centre near Squamish. He was quite excited to go and said he had a great time. Apparently it is kind of like a write-of-passage for North Van kids. Don't ask me what exactly they did up there, since all he told me about was the food and the time his buddies ran around the cabin naked.
Max had been memorizing lines for a class play, where he got a pretty major part acting as a cheating cheetah that races a sloth. He was super cute, as were so many of his classmates.
I will confess, if I haven't already complained about them, that there are a lot of things about our move to North Van that have left me, well, uncertain about our decision to move here. For the record, I will take this opportunity to whine about them now. Sorry, but it must be done. Of course, all my major disappointments are in direct comparison to what we came to expect from our community in White Rock, and I realize now how lucky we were and that we certainly took them for granted.
- First, it was a disappointing introduction to the District of North Van school system, (which I believe I have commented on before, so I won't go into much detail, but the fact that we were previously in a single-track French immersion school only emphasized what a great school we had and the North Van schools pale in comparison. I still find it strange that neither Callum or Max get any homework from school here, knowing that Callum was practicing Math and Dictee in Grade 1 in White Rock.
- When Max started with the NVFC (North Vancouver Football Club), I felt very unimpressed with the way the games and practices were organized, knowing that Max had so many more skills that were not being used in the rather laissez-faire approach to his age group. Of course, Max's team in White Rock was blessed with 2 amazing coaches that exceeded all standards of coaching requirements, so we were again super lucky.
- Simon's "preschool" in North Van was chosen due to the fact that it was one of the only preschools that had an opening for him, but I emphasize that I put quotation marks around the word "preschool" because it is really just a glorified daycare - super expensive for mostly play-time. Alternatively, I can't help but think of what he is missing out on at Mountainview Preschool in White Rock, where Callum and Max both attended and they were pretty much reading by the time they finished, and I can't help but feel like Simon is academically behind and Kindergarten will be bit of a shocker.
[That's the end of the draft I started writing... Let's just say that, well, things have had really started looking better, or at least my attitude has improved...]
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