Kristin Ann Clements' grade 12 graduation ceremony turned out pretty spectacular for her family when Kristin graduated from Barrie Central Collegiate at the top of her class. We knew she was doing very well, but she did not have her final exam marks, and we arrived just before the ceremony began and all the programs were gone.

Jennifer had quickly borrowed a program from the person beside her and scanned through the pages of awards to see if her name was there, but she didn't see it. Until the end, that is, when she came across the final page which was pretty much filled with Kristin's academic accomplishments. The best part for me was that she did not mention it, so what happened next came as a big surprise.

Although McMaster was not on her original list of choices, we convinced her to go to the open house last fall and the campus and programs looked really good. She went ahead and applied as a secondary choice (or maybe even a third choice). But a few weeks back, after a visit to the natural history galleries at the ROM, she decided her future was in Environmental and Earth Sciences at McMaster.

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.