(This is a story by my son Ethan, who is 8 years old.)
Chapter 1
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved to swing.
One day he swung so high that he slipped of and flew though the air! Then a peregrine falcon stuck him down flying the fastest he could! He fell and […]

The kids all got their medals today from the Fraser Valley Regional Library summer reading club challenge.
Aidan, when he came home with his, said now he’s got his first medal “so he can feel like a winner.”
Tags: family, fun, reading, medal, kids, john koetsier

Ethan’s instructions:
1. Blow both balloons up first (to stretch the balloons)
2. Let the air out of both
3. Blow up the balloon that’s supposed to be bigger (on the outside)
4. While holding the outside balloon put the other balloon inside it
5. Blow up the inside balloon
6. Blow up the outside balloon just a bit more
7. Tie […]

We’re currently on BC’s Sunshine Coast taking a week’s holiday. A couple of days ago we took a two-hour hike to Skookumchuck Narrows, which is where the tidal flow into a huge basin is constricted through a narrow passage and can exceed 30 km/hr.
Really cool rapids and standing waves … which the kayakers enjoy:

[…]

Ethan and Aidan were playing around with Photobooth, Apple’s fun picture-taking software that accompanies the newer iMacs and MacBooks with built-in cameras.
A couple of the results:

And one that they liked better:

The painting you see in the back? It’s Jeroen Vermeulen’s … their uncle (and my brother-in-law).
Tags: ethan, aidan, john koetsier, family, […]

(a poem by Gabrielle Koetsier, age 10)
Children sitting, solemn, silent.
Bell rings! Screaming, yelling, violent!
Running, rushing, up the stairs.
“Children, wait!” nobody cares.
School’s out! It’s summer! Time to play!
No more teachers! Run away!
We are going to the pool.
Perfect way to keep us cool.
Let’s go buy some lemonade!
We will drink it in the shade.
Our skin is brown, our […]

This past Easter we, naturally, had an easter egg hunt. Each of the kids had a chance to hide the eggs and let the others find them.
And Gabrielle, being the creative girl she is, had to make it more interesting … with clues. Here they are …
Hrm …. in the library?

Outside?!?

This doesn’t sound too […]

I took the day off today and we spent the day at Mount Baker. Tubing, playing, feeding the birds … absolutely gorgeous:

Here’s a short video that I took while tubing … following Gabrielle down the hill:

Tags: mount baker, tubing, john koetsier

Teresa’s grandfather’s last message … we left it on our answering machine for almost two years, until I recorded it onto my computer.
Click the pink play button:
powered by ODEO
Teresa’s Opa (Rienk Koat) died in 2005. Here’s one of the pictures we have of him in our kitchen.
He died less than a month after leaving this […]

Saw this today: His sister in danger, 4-year-old plays hero.

The robber was holding a gun to 5-year-old Mary Long’s head when a 3-foot-tall Mighty Morphin Power Ranger leapt into the room. “Get away from my family,” 4-year-old Stevie Long shouted, punctuating his screams with swipes of his plastic sword and hearty “yah, yahs.”
The robber and […]

Tags: aidan, snowboy, snowman, john koetsier

Last year we had snow. This year, we have more:

Tags: snow, vancouver, flickr, john koetsier

So Aidan wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings.
I said no, it’s too scary for 3-year olds. He disagreed, saying that he would not be scared. “I’m tough!” he declared. Teresa backed me up, telling Aidan that there were lots of parts in LOTR that she was even scared by.
He thought for a second. […]

So we were at some friends’ place this afternoon and they have a cat.
Gabrielle told Aidan that cats like to play with string, and that he might like to wiggle a string in front of the cat. Aidan took the string, and held it with both hands horizontally in front of the cat.
He waited a […]

Back from trick-or-treating with the kids.
Ethan counted his candy, and he’s got 135 chocolate bars, bags of chips, and assorted other candies. The other kids have about the same.
We didn’t go to that many homes …. many just give out 6 or 7 candies at a time.
Sheesh - when I was a kid we […]

Ethan, this is how you type without looking at the keyboard. You just have to know where all the keys are, and then it is very, very, easy.
(Typed with my eyes closed - mostly - to prove a point to my 7-year-old son, Ethan.)
Tags: typing, kids, son, ethan, john koetsier […]

My 7-year old son Ethan is continually amazing me with his insights, thoughts, and questions. He’s not the most verbal or social of kids, but he is a (young) man of ideas.
Today, entirely unprompted, he came up with the idea of intergenerational starships.
After all, he figured, you can’t get to the nearest stars (he started […]

It’s rather self-explanatory, don’t you think? Here’s Aidan, my 3-year old:

I just saw POV on PBS: Waging a Living, and I am ashamed that I am ever in any way discontent with my life or my job or my salary.
Waging a Living follows the lives of 4 individuals who are “working poor.” (More details about them.)
One’s a security guard in downtown San Francisco, making $9-10/hour. […]