Duran is Jack "Grandpa" Clements' new Seeing Eye Dog. He arrived around May 15, with a trainer, who spent 10 days training both of them. Now the 10 days is up and they're on their own. Duran is very well behaved and is working on getting used to all the new things in his life.
When I woke up on Thursday, January 4, I noticed three new geocaches in my inbox. They were #4-6 of the "Camouflage Series" by Champro. Would it be possible to get another FTF or two? Or THREE? The notification had come in the night, just past midnight. It was now 9:00 am, so I had a good shot at being First To Find. I headed for #6 and #5 first, since they were harder, and in the same area. Six was a multi-stage cache, and both required some walking in steep terrain. Number four was over in Sunnidale Park.
On August 22, Jakob completed his Royal Conservatory of Music Grade 3 examination. The results are in, and he scored 87 -- First Class Honours!
The First Class Honours category applies to students who achieve scores of 80 to 89, so Jakob came in at the top end of the range, and just shy of the top category which is achieved by only 2% of students.
Kristin and Jakob each entered a plethora of categories in the 2006 Barrie Fair, and both came away with a pair of first place ribbons.
Jakob's main entry was in "Junior Crafts - Build Something Out of Popsicle Sticks." He choose to make Tower Bridge, and ended up with a massive craft with more popsicle sticks than all the other entries combined. All his (and mom's) hard work paid off, as the judges gave it the nod and stuck a huge red ribbon on it.
On Saturday August 12, finding themselves abandoned and alone, Danoshimano (aka Dad) and GeoJake (aka Jakob) headed out on a geocaching adventure around Georgian Bay. With no particular goal in mind -- other than a caching adventure -- they headed toward Collingwood and beyond.
By the time they made it back home late Saturday night, they had found 5 geocaches, missed on two others, and had plenty of fun.
The Clements family had a successful 4-day, 3-night wilderness canoe adventure in Killarney Park! This was Kristin and Jakob's second time in Killarney, having visited four years earlier on their first-ever canoe trip. The first time in, Jakob was only 6 when faced with his first portage: a 2.1 km bruiser with no lunch in his tummy. This time around, the longest portage was just under half-a-kilometer, but the kids were asked to drag a kayak through it.
