The Month of Colin

The month of June 2009 truly belongs to Colin, my oldest son. I hereby proudly present all the hi-lights for the month of Colin in which he turned 18, participated in a Multi-Cultural Show, attended his High School Prom, the Graduation Ceremony and a Post Graduation Pool Party.

For his 18th Birthday, we had a low-key celebration since Colin didn't want to make a big fuss about his birthday. Derek and I made him his favourite, a Chocolate Cake decorated with banana and strawberry slices and strange meringue mushroom figures.

His grandparents also joined in on the celebration and presented him with a great big cheque for reaching this milestone. It's really gonna come in handy towards his upcoming Tuition Bill. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa!

Here are some of the participating members from the Multi-Cultural Event held at Langstaff Secondary.

Colin choreographed the moves for the Kung Fu Skit where 2 rival chinese gangs rumble.

Got a good shot of Colin in action.

Here's the Group doing some Tai Chi moves.

I really enjoyed the Japanese dancers with their beautiful costumes and lovely moves.

The Korean Dancers also put on a spectacular show.

Here is the party of 10 that Colin shared a ride with to get to the Prom.

For Prom Night, Colin's group rode in style in this Stretch Limo.

The Limo Rental cost them $40 per person. Not bad considering it got them all the way from Richmond Hill to the Waterfront and back.

Here's Colin's Prom Date. Jessica is a sweet and multi-talented girl who not only participated in 3 of the Multi-Cultural shows, but also co-hosted it. She even made some Cream Puffs for Colin and making Puff Pastries requires great skill. Colin is so lucky!

Martin is one of Colin's best buddies dating from Elementary School

They held the Prom at the Atlantis Banquet Hall in Ontario Place. Coincidentally, the same place where my High School prom was held!

Colin's graduation momentos.

Colin also received a Certificate of Endorsement in Business Studies along with his High School Diploma. The Class of 2009 consisted of nearly 300 grads. That's huge. No wonder the ceremony took so long. I think that may be twice the amount of students as when I graduated from High School.

Proud parents

The Graduation Ceremony was held at this beautiful venue. I think my own high school graduation ceremony was held in our High School auditorium. How times have changed.




Colin receives his High School Diploma!

The Valedictorian, Mark Lee is a very charismatic fellow and also receipient of numerous awards. His speech was very funny and witty and he ended the speech with song. He is really quite the singer.

Mark was good enough to co-ordinate this photographic moment for all the proud parents to capture as all the New Grads tossed their graduation caps into the air at the end of his fine speech.

Notice the little baby in the arms of the woman in red? I was totally amazed that this baby sat through a 2 hour long ceremony without fussing or making a sound. Such a good baby.

Here's Dick clowning around with Colin.


At first, I thought we were gonna have to do some serious photoshopping to remove this clown who snuck in his smiley face out of the picture. But it turns out this clown is the High School vice-principal, so we decided to keep him in. Very Funny, Mr. Hilmer.

Here's Colin and the very lovely Jessica who won the Governor General's Academic Medallion, awarded to the graduating student with the highest final average of all Grade 11 and 12 courses. Her overall average was 96%. Way to go Jessica!!!

Colin ended the month with a BIG SPLASH by attending a Post Graduation Pool Party. Colin became an instant hero by bringing a Party Size Platter of Sushi. Too bad nobody thought of bringing a camera to commemorate the Final Good Times before everyone parted ways for the summer.


So now Colin will be off to Ryerson University to study "Information Technology Management" in September. Coincidentally, Ryerson happens to be the same post-secondary institution that both Dick and I graduated from more than 25 years ago. Of course, back in those days, Ryerson was not yet a University. It was a Polytechnical Institution and a fine Institution it was when it was known to us affectionately as "Rye High" because it still retained the same atmosphere as a High School. We hope Colin will continue the tradition by joining the "Ryerson Chinese Student Association"(RCSA) where Dick and I met and still hold many many fond memories of.

Heartfelt Thanks to my most favourite niece, Patricia, for giving Colin this Ryerson Hoodie as a most fitting Graduation Gift.

First Day of Summer/ Happy Father's Day

Aaaah!!! Finally Summer (my most favourite season) has officially arrived and I was not disappointed. Time to soak in all the glorious sun rays and go strawberry picking from our strawberry patch. We've had a strawberry patch growing in our front yard for several years now. I remembered the first year we had strawberries, they were quite small and there weren't all that many for picking, but they were really sweet and tasty.

Over the years, the strawberry patch has grown in size and the berries have gotten bigger too. This year, I weeded out alot of the other plants that were fighting for space in our front garden and pruned back a lot of the cedar bush to make more room for the strawberries. It worked and it looks like we will have our best harvest yet. Unfortunately, more berries meant more pesky critters coming by to visit.

Dick thinks it may be birds eating up our berries and suggested that we stick a brightly coloured object that will make rapid movements in the wind, such as a pinwheel, to scare them off. We couldn't find a pinwheel but we did find a Spinning Hot Air Balloon that might do the trick. I think we were somewhat successful as I did mange to gather at least 3 pints of strawberries so far. Of course, I had to pick some that weren't fully ripe yet because I didn't want to take the chance of losing them to those pesky critters. The result was that they didn't taste as sweet to me but the rest of my family still enjoyed them.

In fact we had enough to serve for a Father's Day Breakfast this morning. We made a whole pile of pancakes, served with honey, freshly picked strawberries and whipped cream. Mmmmm... it was very yummy. We completed the meal with some hamburgers patties and peameal bacon. Needless to say, it was very filling.

For some reason, Dick owns a Pink version of the Nintendo DS and some years ago, Derek had pasted some eyes, cheeks and a mouth on it to make it look like Kirby. So, for Father's Day, I made Dick a Pop-up card to resemble his pink Nintendo DS. The boys chipped in and we got him a new Nintendo DS game (Ninja Gaiden-Dragon Sword). Since Dick seems to have taken an interest in Chinese music of late, I had also asked my friend Anastasia to download some of her favourite Chinese Pop tunes for Dick to transfer onto his IPOD to enjoy.

Happy Father's Day and Happy Summertime!!!!!!!



What's this? Some pesky critter has gotten to some of the berries before we could get our hands on them.


More chewed up strawberries. Could this be the work of some hungry birds? I think so because they left other evidence such as white streaks on some of the leaves.

Dick having fun with the Spinning Hot Air Balloon. My son, Derek had to assemble it because I'm not very good when it comes to following directions for this sort of thing.

Dick had hung it up on the Lilac Bush about a week ago. Let's see if it works.

I still found some berries with bite marks in them, but the area right below the Hot Air Balloon seems to have the most whole berries suitable for picking. In fact, this is our third harvest so far this season.

These were the first 2 berries of the season from a week ago. They are small but still tasted good. They were about 1/3 the size of the heart shaped strawberry Kelly had given to me from a few months ago.

Here's the giant sized Heart Shaped Strawberry I got from my friend Kelly.

Looks beautiful.. Doesn't it?

Here's an alien-looking strawberry looking red and juicy and almost ready to pick.

In honour of Father's Day, I made Dick a Pink Nintendo DS Pop up Card. It resembles the one he actually owns. Don't ask me why he owns a Pink One. Must have been on sale.

It's got pop-up control buttons inside the card. Happy Father's Day.