Trip to Vulcan, Alberta to meet Spock & Visit with Uncle Bill & the Daveys

One of my favourite parts of Nathan being a sculptor, besides the #1 fact of seeing the hand of God continually provide for us and answer prayer in interesting ways (but that's a book right there), is the fact that we get to meet all kinds of random interesting people! We never know what's around the corner, but suddenly we are meeting people and learning all about them.

Nathan & I have just returned home from dedicating the bust of Spock in Vulcan, Alberta! What an adventure! The little town of under 2000 was crazy-excited to have Leonard Nimoy come "home" for a visit. (Spock, Nimoy's Star Trek character, is from the planet Vulcan, so the little Alberta town by the same name has taken it and run with it and Nimoy has really advocated on their behalf) It was quite fun to be a part of the excitement. We were able to be up there with the VIPs, within the first to greet Nimoy and then we got to go into the Trek station and personally meet him and shake hands with him. Of course, everyone was vying for attention, so it was a bit of a chaotic day, but we did meet him. Poor guy-he just wants to retire and hand over the attention to the new Spock. This was his last public appearance.

Leonard Nimoy standing behind the unveiled bust of Spock

Vulcan parade-it was very funny to see all the people dressed up and to see how the town posted pictures and messages on their storefront windows

We were invited into the Trek Station with about 30 town leaders, so we all stood around in a circle and Mr Nimoy came around and spoke to each of us.

Here we are inside the 'Trek Station' before the whole event got underway. Can you tell that we just watched our first Star Trek movie a month ago?!

Leonard Nimoy-who also acted the Prophet Samuel in an old movie of David-my personal favourite of his roles! He's been acting for 66 years, as well as some directing, and is more than ready to retire into a quiet life, doing some photography as a hobby!

Nimoy unveiling the sculpture. (the mayor is the guy dressed up behind) I thought Nathan did an amazing job! We also had a chance to talk with a guy from CBS, who was the one to check out Nathan unbeknownst to us before Nathan was asked to do Spock. It'll be interesting to see if it leads into anything further. We still laugh over the fact that we have never watched Star Trek and when we got the email asking if he'd sculpt Leonard Nimoy, we asked for photos because we thought he was a founding father of the town!

For me, the best part of the trip was that we also got to stay with our friends, Todd & Julie and meet their beautiful not-so-new baby Nia and play with Josh & Asher, who are the same age as Caleb & Levi. We were disappointed to have left our boys behind especially, as they would have had such a great time playing. I'm quite sure Nathan's highlight of the trip was going gopher shooting with Todd! Todd tells us one farmer figures those gophers cost him $10,000 in one field alone-so it was really official farm business!

Here's the video I took of Nimoy's speech & unveiling-I apologize for the shakiness! Yes-they forgot Nathan's name-which of course I think was completely inappropriate, but they were awfully excited! The mayor-dressed in Vulcanwear is giving most of the speech and we had a chance to talk to him quite a bit beforehand. He's actually an appliance repairman by trade, but a really good guy!

So that's the Vulcan part!

Other highlights of the weekend were:

-having dinner with Uncle Bill in Calgary when we arrived

-nearly getting kicked out of the Vulcan Art Gallery when Todd tried to be sneaky, taking a photo of a painting-we had met the gallery owner earlier, who wanted Nathan to come and check out the gallery-which we did-but she didn't notice he was there. (everyone seemed a bit flustered and the owner was in the midst of knocking down a painting and breaking the frame)

-having dinner in Deifenbaker's Railcar

-Going to the Badlands-it looks like a smaller version of the Grand Canyon! Nathan & Todd hiked up the hoodoos with the boys and we can't wait to bring the kids back to camp there

-of course the part that made the weekend for me was being able to hang out with Julie and get to see her in her beautiful home her husband built and catch up with the family and see the town! There is nothing I love more than long talks with good friends-especially when there's good food and talk of good books involved!

-and I have to mention the car-wash/liquor store called 'Buds n Suds' which features bartending at such events as weddings, parties & brandings!

Keep posted for Nathan's big unveiling in 8 days: unveiling the Homecoming sculpture in downtown Victoria next Tuesday for the Canadian Navy's 100th Anniversary! It's a frantic week for him as he and Bob Palmer get this sculpture finished on time!

Kids...

Charis Cassaday-our big girl with pig tails!I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I always forget how to spell my kid's middle name. Thanks, Heidi, for marrying a guy with weird spelling! (She's named after the amazing Heidi & Kelly, who now have the last name of Cassidy! Ha ha-I know that's wrong!) I always have to check Charis's birth certificate to see whether it's Cassaday or Cassiday! Cool name, confusing spelling. The first time Nathan checked her into the church nursery, he spelled 'Charis' wrong! That's really bad.

Anyway, Charis is doing great. She's walking all over the place now. She may be #5, but she knows what she wants and she is busy bossing around her big brothers & sisters and pointing and making the sounds of phrases! You can almost make out what she's saying sometimes because her voice sounds like she just said "I don't know" and things like that! She does say some words, but mostly she just points and hollers. She's not a baby at all anymore, but a tiny toddler! Everyone seems to think she's brilliant for being able to walk, but she is nearly a year and a half, she just looks young since she's still in about the 1st percentile (meaning that out of 100 babies, roughly 99 of them are bigger than her!)

Levi on his 5th Birthday, showing off his new Lego book on the Coho-our day trip to Port Angeles Levi has turned 5 years old! That means we've been in this house for 5 years and 2 weeks! Hard to believe!

I had to go to Port Angeles to do some banking and go the Social Security office, so I asked Levi if he'd like to come along since it was his birthday. Then I found out that you can ride for free on your actual birthday, so that was a great deal! I was a little worried that we were late arriving at the ferry in the morning, so we parked and ran-but we had to wait for a good half hour once we got there anyway. It's an hour and a half ferry ride, but he was pretty excited since I bought candy, which I don't normally do with all the kids. Since we had nearly 2 hours, I thought that would be plenty of time, but the ferry was running late and then the bank took forever and we only had a few minutes at the Social Security office and we just ran out of time, so in the end I realized we were going to miss the boat back if we didn't run! So we RAN and RAN all the way back, arriving out of breath and digging up tickets and passports as the whistle blew. Another 30 seconds and we would have had to spend the night! So much for taking Levi out for sushi (his favourite food) in America! We ate on the ferry-and let me tell ya-it's not like the BC Ferries where they have a selection! Levi was just thrilled to have a subway sandwich-I didn't tell him it wasn't a real Subway sandwich! We arrived back in downtown Victoria at 4:00 after a day of running our hearts out and sitting and waiting! I felt so bad for Levi having to spend such a boring day, but he was thrilled! He just loved the running, he said!

Here's a handy tip I learned last week: if a ballpoint pen explodes all over your hands and then you rub it on your face (the day before your birthday), use wet wipes! They work the best. Forget about the cold cream and olive oil. Don't ask me about getting it off of wood. I've decided I can live with that until I feel like attacking it!

ACACIA MARIE...

Acacia has been doing some drawing lately. I squeezed the desk into the storage room downstairs so the "big kids" can go down there to draw and I put all the good art supplies & books down there. Here's what Acacia came up with last week:

I say that's not bad for a kid in grade 1, just looking at a 'how to draw' book all on her own! I love the green eyes! I think I'm going to enter that one in the Saanich Fair!

Oops. I better go-I need to pick up the kids from their class! I didn't even get to tell you about Eden and how she wants to have a girl baby named 'Noah' after Heidi & Kelly's very adorable son with great hair. Another time. It's probably for the best anyway, since she goes on in detail about how she's going to nurse her baby, whipping up her shirt and explaining it. How embarrassing to have observant children. It's still a bit difficult to understand her since she doesn't say the first letter sound of each word yet, but there she is, explaining and showing you!

Scott's Chicken Farm

Acacia & Eden have spent many hours watching and holding the chicks

Caleb pouring over the Buckerfield's ad, making plans for his pig farm-note the overalls. You can't see the gumboots, but they're there, too!

Picking up our chicks-we actually went to get them on Wednesday, but the lady had made a mistake, so Wednesday and Thursday were VERY LONG days as we anticipated our new babies arrival!

As of Friday, April 9th, 2010, we are official chicken farmers! It doesn't sound as good as "Scott's Berry Farm", but it does seem to be more fun so far! Last week we purchased 30 tiny 1 day-old chicks. Of course, all the kids are thrilled, and we can hardly keep the girls away from the pen, but none have taken it to heart so much as Caleb, who can't believe we're actual farmers so much sooner than he had dared to hope!

The boys in particular were running out of pants without large rips in the knees, so I dug out their boxes of "clothes coming up" and found a pair of overalls someone had given us that were too long. Caleb tried them on and after failing to convince me that they fit just perfectly, he begged me to hem them RIGHT AWAY! That was Saturday, and he's been wearing them every day since except Tuesday when I convinced him that since he was going to Nana & Papa's, he possibly could do without them while they washed! He's also begun to get up quietly before 6:30am so that he can put on his overalls & gumboots and go for a run with Piper around the property. "Just so I get used to waking up at this time for when I have lots of animals and farm chores" he tells us. On Sunday morning, I found him after the morning run, sitting at the kitchen table with the calculator, just pouring over the Buckerfield's ads, calculator, pen & paper in hand, making a list of supplies he will be needing! Our friend Helen gave him a book called "Joel, Growing Up a Farm Man" which has further inspired him. We've been reading it as often as Caleb can convince us we have time and we've been learning all about things like how to castrate pigs lately, so thank you, Helen! Most informative and inspiring! (Joel got to drive a tractor when HE was 8!) Fortunately, Nathan's tractor is still in parts, as the restoration seems to be taking longer than anticipated!