Wow! Time flies when you're having fun! It is hard to believe that six weeks has already passed and we are saying good bye to Isabelle. It has been a real treat having Isabelle as our "surrogate" daughter for the summer, but I am sure she is glad to be back home again. And Kristin is happy to be back home, too.

On Saturday morning, we put our first-born and only daughter on a train to Montreal as part of the YMCA "trade in your kid" program. Actually, it is part of the YMCA Summer Work Student Exchange (SWSE) program, and she'll be living in Otterburn Park, about 20 minutes east of Montreal, for six weeks.

Jakob helped close out the 2010 Barrie Jazz & Blues Festival as part of a piano recital in the rotunda at Barrie City Hall. He, along with Marc Widner's top students, played on the nine foot Yamaha grand piano (apparently a $178,000 piano) that was on loan from Yamaha for the Jazz & Blues Festival.

Around the time I submitted some single images to Color magazine, I also submitted a few portfolios to B&W magazine. Back around the end of April, I received an email informing me I was a "B&W Excellence Award winner!" There was no mention of which portfolio had been selected, so I had to wait until my copies arrived in the mail today to find out.

For the Victoria Day weekend, we travelled by train to Montreal with Grandma and Grandpa S. and Jocelyn. The 4.5 hour train ride was quite comfortable, getting us to downtown Montreal -- and about 3 blocks from our hotel -- around 9:00pm on Friday evening.

My photograph "The Shoppers" is featured on page 232 of Color Magazine Special Issue #7! That's kind of cool (at least for me). There are 127 "merit award" winners published in the magazine, out of over 2,000 photographs submitted. My photograph is published in the abstract category.