Author Archives: Court

About Court

This is Courtney Vallentyne's blog.

Bad Dream Turns Into Bad Day

Posted on by

In what must be a rather bad joke by now, a woman was sleeping in the car while her husband drove her and their son along a highway in Alberta.  She apparently had a bad dream and screamed out loud, which startled her husband so badly he lost control of the vehicle and they ended up rolling the car several times and ending up in the ditch.  Nobody was badly hurt, but something tells me that the husband will have some decidedly different habits on their next road trip.  Namely:  not having those eight capuccinos before setting out on their drive.  Also, perhaps sitting down together and watching that 80’s horror movie marathon the night before might have been a bad idea.

Saw this on Metro.ca

Lockrey, we are all looking at you.

Humpback Whale Rescue

Posted on by

Not that I want to get all teary eyed and emotional on a beautiful Friday afternoon, but man this is a pretty fun video to watch.  Some folks from a whale conservation group find what they think is a dead whale tangled in fishing nets.  It turns out that it’s alive, and they proceed to try and free it.  Pretty awesome video of the whole thing.  They best part is the absolute puppy-like glee it displays once it’s finally free, showing some pretty acrobatic moves in appreciation of the rescue.  Definitely worth a watch, even if it’s a tad long for work viewing.  Good work done there, not many folks can say they have rescued a whale.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcXU7G6zhjU&feature=youtu.be

Saw this on Neatorama.

Gumby Fails to Rob Convenience Store, foiled by pockets or Gumby hands, or both

Posted on by

Yes, this is a pathetic re-post of a silly news story.  It’s an effort to break the blog block I have been having lately.  It’s still funny.  Enjoy.

The clerk thought it was a joke and told Gumby that he had to go back to cleaning. Gumby insisted that the robbery was real and proceeded to reach into his Gumby-like pockets as if he were looking for a weapon, of which was never produced. The Gumby costume impeded his efforts to reach into his pockets and after fumbling around for several minutes, Gumby gave up his efforts and walked out of the store after dropping 26 cents out of his pocket.

Thank you, Internet.  Also hit the link for bonus surveillance video of this idiot.

Source:  Boing Boing and the San Diego News

 

Camp Smitty Finale

Posted on by

So, we finally got the kids home safe and sound today.  It was a great day, incredibly hot but wonderful and fun.  We got up early and headed down with Ben G to get the kidlets at camp.  We were greeted with huge hugs and big smiles and sunburnt faces, so that’s exactly what we wanted to see.  We got a few pictures of the campers together before they all left for their respective homes, and then it was just the few of us left, the parents and kids that didn’t take the bus.  Finally it was time to ask Quinn about the letter.

I took him aside and asked him about the letter he sent.  There was some confusion since he had sent a letter, but it was handed to us today, and didn’t come in the mail.  No, I said, the letter you sent that said “you do not like it”.  Quinn’s forehead crinkled in confusion, and he said he didn’t remember sending anything like that.  I asked him again, and told him exactly what was in the letter, and that it came in an envelope with his name on it, because Nikki had thoughtfully pre-addressed and stamped 8 (optimistic) envelopes that had the kids names on them so we would know which kid it came from (she’s adorable like that, there’s just no other way we could have known which kid sent which letter).  His eyes did register some recognition at that, and he slowly recalled that Cael had stolen one of his envelopes and his paper.  My eyes widened as I realized what had happened and I slowly turned to Cael and asked him if he wrote the letter and signed Quinn’s name.  His trademark smirk and mischievous eyes told me he was guilty.  He said “I might have accidentally taken one of Quinn’s envelopes….”  At this point I stopped him and said, no, it wasn’t an accident, you did that on purpose.  His grin grew wider and he stammered a bit and said “No hard feelin’s eh?”  What can you say to that?

So, in the end, Nikki and I got pranked SO BAD by our 7 year old son that we were calling the camp director to make sure everything was ok.  In hindsight it makes us even madder that we overlooked Cael’s rather, ah, carefree penmanship when compared to Quinn’s careful letters.  He got us, and he got us good.  I am busting with pride over the sheer genius of the whole thing, and I’m not afraid to tell you about it.  What a kid.

Anyway, camp was a huge success, they all want to go back, we are heroes for sending them, and life is good once again.  Having the house full of sleeping kids just feels right, there’s no other way to describe it.

Camp Update

Posted on by

As promised, an update on camp time.  Nikki and I have discovered that coming home after work to an empty house sucks.  As a result we have been avoiding doing that, and have been eating out a LOT more than usual.  There is no way to avoid the quiet when we do get home, but at least the lack of dinnertime bustle isn’t so obvious this way.  We had a great weekend, took Friday off to enjoy ourselves a bit and do some hiking in Gatineau Park (which was awesome).  We were doing pretty well overall, until last night when we got a letter from camp.  This is our only letter from the kids to date, mind you.  There was no date and no way to tell when it was written, it was from Quinn and it only contained 7 hastily written words:

 

Needless to say, we called the camp to make sure that Quinn was ok and not having a miserable time.  The director called us back to reassure us that he had in fact been playing basketball with Quinn recently and he did in fact seem to be having a great time, something that his counsellors agreed with.  So the reason for this letter is still unknown, but it seems for now that he got over whatever it was that made him write this.  Nikki and I are burning with curiosity to know what happened, though.  It could have simply been a moment of homesickness, or maybe something didn’t go his way.  It’s hard to tell until we get them on Thursday, really.  Not exactly the camp letter we thought we would be getting, but hopefully something we will have a good laugh about on Thursday.

More to come!

Camp Smitty Departure

Posted on by

So, yesterday we managed to send three kids off to camp for 10 whole days.  That’s the first time that’s happened, and the kids were STOKED.  Mom and Dad?  Perhaps not as much. 



 


Still we felt it was a really good thing to do for our kids, promote their independence, build their confidence, and of course the crazy amount of fun they would have.  We spent considerable time making sure we packed every item on the pack list, which will probably turn out to be overkill once we have the benefit of hindsight.  That takes a considerable amount of time, as it turns out.  And it looks like we are sending them away for a month. 



 


Anyway, the hardest part for us is they are completely, totally, AWAY.  We can’t easily call, IM, email, poke, Google, FB creep, nothing.  We can only write letters.  Letters, on a dead tree.  On a pure data throughput level, that’s like dialing up to the Internet using a piece of yarn instead of a phone line.  Honestly, how did anybody get anything done? 


So there you go, Nikki and I are dangerously alone for 10 days.  Dangerously, quietly alone.  I will let you know how it all goes….