From Melissa

This was written by my 11 yr old niece Melissa.. I am so proud of you Melissa, i hope that one day your dream comes true in your life time...
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If I could make a wish, I would wish cancer away!

Hi my name is Melissa and I lost my grandma to cancer last May 2007.

She would always say I hear the word, I know the word; I just can't say the word.

Cancer

I lost my grandma a year ago to cancer,
You never think it could happen to someone you love,
I cried for her more than anyone I have before,
She was so weak, fragile, and young,
But cancer doesn't care who its victim is,
Live each day like it is your last,
That's what my Nana would say,
All we have left is her past,
Now she is gone,
She'll be remembered forever,

So I thought I had to do something, with this in mind I started growing my hair and now today 2008 I have long hair, so I can do something for someone with cancer. I will be donating my hair to Locks for love .With the help of my community Driftwood Park I took donations on behalf of my quest. I will be donating $200.00 to cancer in hope to make this terrible word go away forever.
Thank you to all at Driftwood Public School

Happy Birthday Tara

I hope it you have a fantastically wonderful awesome beautiful day today, just like you are... We love you sweet cheeks.

It's Official

Holy cheese batman, read all about it...
Andrew ate cheese today for the very first time in four years... And given the calculations, that would make it the first time in his whole life... I'm soo proud of you Andrew... Oh the life of cheese, you have opened many doors today paving your way to many more and more yummier things :) Way to go!

Other firsts that you've tried this week are: hotdogs (now if i could only get you to stop wanting them ;) )... Cheese and crackers. And (drum roll please) cereal WITH milk in it....

Guess you are getting tired of eating the same ole stuff EVERY single day!

Also, he is eating almost constantly, maybe he's going through another growth spurt...

(oh and you learned to write the letter N today as well)

Wicked Storms

Taken this afternoon.

Watching Daddy

And a little video clip of Andrew singing a song that he sings about 10 times a day. The video is kind of dark because there wasn't a whole lot of light. :P

Cancer Relay

It was really sad. I cried lots, but it was nice being there at the same time. At one point they played a song that my parents played for their wedding dance song, it was like my mom was there and she wanted me to know it, was she speaking to me?. Please listen to this while looking at the pictures :)

Getting ready to go.



Andrew walking the relay..



These are white bags with candles burning inside them, each bag cost $5 to go to-wards cancer research, everyone of them had a name of a loved one that passed or is a survivor, sadly there were more with one that passed on. They had thousands of them lit every where in a circle and on each side of the path that the walkers and runners were relaying. They burned all night long, it was quite the site.





This was the lighting ceremonies, and 5 min silence in memory.


There was entertainment all night long.. This little girl was only 8yrs old and had an amazing voice. I couldn't get a good pic of her because it was way too loud and i didn't want to break Andrews eardrums.



Lots of campers, i think they were for the kids if they got too tired.



This was on someones tent.

Happy Birthday Melissa

Happy 11th Birthday my precious niece... We love you and hope you have a great day today, even with a foot sprang and all ;P

Trip to Kitchener

On Sunday Andrew and I went to Kitchener to spend a few day with Grandpa G. On the first day we went to Aunt Tammy's and Uncle Carmen's for a BBQ, Stacey, Tara, Natyya, Geoff, Austen, Grandpa G, Aunt Judy, Tiffany, Jessica, Melissa, Christina and Mike came for the dinner as well, it was a great day.
Monday Andrew, Gramps, Aunt Tammy, Austen and I went to the Aud to see Natyya compete with other schools for the end of the year play day, it's really changed from when i was a kid, we would only compete with the kids in our school not with other schools, i don't think i like it this way, only the good athletic kids get to contribute now, it use to be only for fun. Natyya's school won the most ribbons tho :)
After that we went to Grandpa's trailer, Tara met us there, the boys went swimming in their underpants (we were not aware that we were going there), they swam until they insisted there were sharks in the water... After that Tara went home and the boys played in the park for a bit and then we went back to the trailer and they played in the sandbox for a while, i must add that they get along really good. Aunt Judy, Tiffany, Jessica and Melissa came after school. Andrew found a caterpillar, he LOVES caterpillars. We had a BBQ, and campfire until it rained and then we cleaned up and went back to Grandpa's place for the night.
Tues we did Grandpa's laundry. Aunt Judy came to visit and later drove me to get a Tim Horton's coffee (i cannot function without), and she picked Andrew up a happy meal. Then we picked up Grandpa and went to her place for dinner which by the way was very yummy... Then back to Grandpa's place, Andrew fell asleep at 8pm (very early for him) on Grandpa's chair half dressed, he was sooo tired.
Uncle Carmen drove us home in his big transport truck this morning.. For some reason Andrew is afraid of it.. Go figure!
Here are some pics, hopefully I'll be able to get them in some sort of order..

Andrew is wearing Grandpa G's shirt.


Austen and Andrew swimming with the sharks.






The boys in serious play.


Mr Caterpillar. Aunt Judy in the background.


The marshmallow experience, what a mess this was.. That's Tiffany holding him.


Passed out cold. He had way too much fun.


My childhood house


Natyya's school play day competition.

Happy Fathers Day Daddy

As well as Grandpa S and Grandpa G... I love you...

Mommy and Me

It just came to me that i haven't posted any pictures of the 2 of us together...
Are we not just the cutest pair ever?

Apparently

I am one of Andrew's best friends :) So says he.

I'm in Love

Today we went for a walk down in the Don Valley.. Not much to report but there were lots of those blood sucking bugs out there. Anyways, i thought i would share with you my two most fav boys on the land! Aren't they just adorable? Oh and another one just because :)

Happy Birthday Aunt Judy

Happy Birthday Aunt Judy, we love you.

One Stage That I Hope Goes Fastttt

Temper tantrums, meltdowns, screaming fits. Tiring me out, max...

Example:
Andrew - "can i have my water gun"
Me - "as long as you don't squirt anything but Reggy or the cat water"
Andrew - "deal"

Andrew proceeds to squirt Reggy, he sits in my path, gets me wet.

Me - "Andrew, do not squirt it in that direction I'm getting wet"
Andrew - nothing
Me -"Andrew you do that again, I'll take it away from you for the night"

He squirts Reggy again whilst hitting me.

I take the water gun away from him and told him he could get it back tomorrow.

Andrew flips out. Crying uncontrollably... Scream and shouts to have it back...

I try to calm him down, explain to him why it got taken away and told him i would read him a story or he could watch Franklin, but there was no calming him down.

Andrew is now in bed. I guess he was tired. But i think i will make it a rule for now on that the only time it is allowed to have water in it is when he's outside or in the bathtub. Lessened learned!

He's been having many of these episodes lately...I have to be patient, this too shall pass, this too shall pass.

(oh and the reason i let him squirt Reggy the cat is because he could use a bath and that's the only way he'll lick himself)

I LOVE this Picture

You can really see the color of his eyes in this one.

Did you know?

That there are monsters with energy fire rays on their backs?
According to Andrew there is....
(interesting)

So i did a google search on this to see if he was right and this is what i found!
I say he's a genus!
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12897-monster-black-holes-power-highestenergy-cosmic-rays.html


Monster black holes power highest-energy cosmic rays


* 19:00 08 November 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Hazel Muir

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Supermassive black holes that lie at the centres of galaxies and are devouring their surroundings act as cosmic peashooters, firing energetic charged particles through space (Illustration: NASA)
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Supermassive black holes that lie at the centres of galaxies and are devouring their surroundings act as cosmic peashooters, firing energetic charged particles through space (Illustration: NASA)
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Web Links

* Pierre Auger Observatory
* Alan Watson, University of Leeds
* Peter Biermann, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

The Auger Observatory in Argentina detects energetic particles through their interaction with water in surface detector tanks (shown). It also uses telescopes to observe how incoming cosmic rays make the atmosphere fluoresce (Image: Pierre Auger Observatory)
Enlarge image
The Auger Observatory in Argentina detects energetic particles through their interaction with water in surface detector tanks (shown). It also uses telescopes to observe how incoming cosmic rays make the atmosphere fluoresce (Image: Pierre Auger Observatory)


Enormous black holes in galaxies millions of light years away are pelting us with energetic particles. The finding, from a telescope array 10 times the size of Paris, solves a long-standing mystery about the origins of the most energetic cosmic rays that strike the Earth's atmosphere.

"Finding an association with something in the sky – it's just fantastic," says Alan Watson from the University of Leeds in the UK, a spokesperson for the team that made the discovery. "The result heralds a new window to the nearby universe and the beginning of cosmic-ray astronomy."

Cosmic rays are charged particles such as protons and atomic nuclei that constantly rain down on Earth's atmosphere. Most come from the Sun and other sources within our galaxy, such as supernova remnants.

But the origins of the highest-energy particles, which travel within a whisker of the speed of light, have been puzzling. A single proton can have as much energy as a tennis ball served at 100 kilometres per hour.

Astronomers found it difficult to explain how particles are accelerated to such enormous speeds.

One possibility was that they are spat out by "active galactic nuclei" (AGNs) – energetic galaxies powered by matter swirling onto a supermassive black hole. This would be feasible if the AGNs lay up to a few hundred million light years away. Theory predicts that energetic cosmic rays from farther afield would lose energy before they reached Earth by interacting with relic radiation from the big bang called the cosmic microwave background.
Giant cosmic ray 'net'

Alternative explanations include gamma-ray bursts, violent explosions that are sometimes thought to signal the collapse of a massive star into a black hole. More bizarrely, the cosmic rays could signal the decay of heavy particlesthat have been trapped inside weird knots in space-time since the big bang.

Testing any idea has been difficult, however, because the highest-energy cosmic rays are very rare. To catch enough of them to investigate their origins, scientists had to build the largest cosmic-ray catcher in the world – the Pierre Auger Observatory.

The international observatory is an array of 1600 detectors covering 3000 square kilometres of land in Argentina. It began operating in 2004 (watch a video overview of the array).
Nearby active galaxies

The observatory measures the aftermath of a cosmic-ray strike. When a high-energy cosmic ray smashes into the upper atmosphere, it creates an avalanche of secondary particles that branches outwards as it cascades down. The particle shower can have a "footprint" as large as 40 square kilometres when it hits the ground.

The ground detectors of the Auger observatory record these secondary particles, while 24 optical telescopes around the perimeter of the array record how the particle shower made the atmosphere fluoresce. This allows astronomers to accurately estimate the energy and trajectory of the incident cosmic ray that caused the shower.

Now the Auger scientists have analysed their 27 most energetic cosmic rays detected until August 2007. Almost all came from directions corresponding roughly to the positions of nearby AGNs up to 250 million light years away from us. The chances of the pattern being a coincidence are just 1 in 100.

"This basically confirms that AGN seem to be the best sources," says team member Peter Biermann from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany. "I'm very pleased because this is what I've argued on the basis of detailed physics for 20 years."
Particle smasher

The array's success ushers in a new era of precision cosmic-ray astronomy, according to Watson. Over time, it should detect tens or hundreds of cosmic rays from individual AGNs and their range of energies should clarify exactly how they were accelerated – a process thought to be controlled by magnetic fields around the colossal black holes.

"If we had, say, 100 cosmic rays from a single AGN, we would see their spectrum of energies and then the models of acceleration would really have something to shoot at," says Watson.

Scientists will also use the Auger observations to probe the physics of particle collisions. When cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, their collisions can be 30 times more energetic than those at the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, which is due to open for business next year in Switzerland.

The Auger observations should also help track magnetic fields in the galaxy, because these fields bend charged cosmic rays slightly off a straight path. "We're really just starting – we've got a fantastic 10 years ahead and it's really exciting," says Watson.

Journal reference: Science (vol 318, p 938)

Random Pictures

Dr's and Signs

Andrew went to the Dr's today for a follow up appointment from when he was in the hospital. He wore his own stethoscope and everyone in the office thought he was so cute (but how could they not? lol). Dr K asked him what his stethoscope does and Andrew looked at him with that are you serious look and laughed at him and said "nothing, it's only a toy"... Oh and another thing, never ever if your able to, have a 4 yr old wait too long in the actual examining room, there it way too much interesting things to explore, WAY TOO MANY things. The Dr looked him over, weighed him and he gained the pounds that he lost from being sick. He's all better, but i didn't need to go to the Dr to hear that, i knew that already, but they said to make a follow up appointment so i did, costing the tax payers money that didn't need to be spent, but oh well, that's another story for somewhere else!

Afterwards we walked down the Danforth. Every cute sign that Andrew saw he wanted me to take a picture of him with it. It was a slow walk, thank God it was a nice day. We went into a toy store, he played in there for about an hr, he bought a Curious George flashlight out of his birthday money and then we headed back home.

Whose Looking?

Please, purdy please leave a comment from time to time so i know who is looking here and Andrew will be reading this at some point when he's older and i think he would find it quite groovy to read what you have to say about an entry that you might have enjoyed reading. Come on, come in who ever you are. The door is always open!

Another Birthday Gathering

Saturday we had my side of the family gather here for a small gathering for Andrews birthday. He also got to celebrate it with Anika for her 4th birthday as well.