All the things I am thankful for!

My lovely grandma

   Monday is Thanksgiving in Canada, a day for being thankful for all the things that we have. In today's culture being thankful is often overlooked. Ads on television and on the radio and in magazines focus on all the things that "everyone" still "doesn't have" or what they are lacking. "Get a big screen TV, because your neighbor has one", "drive a better car", "your house is too small", "last year phone model is outdated", "you must have the new game system to keep up with the Joneses" are some of the messages that everyone hears. It's hard to hear all those messages and still think that what you have is plenty good. Of course all those messages are not really meant to make you unhappy, they are just meant to make you go out and buy more things, be it new shoes or vacation time-shares.

   My grandma was born in Poland before WWII broke out. She, like many people in her generation, lived through really hard times. They lived through many hardships and often had to be more concerned with how to obtain the bare minimums needed for survival than having new TV or their house being too small. The benefit of that was that they learned to make do with what they had. If things got broken they didn't throw them out, they fixed it, If things got stained they were not replaced with brand new items but rather treated with stain remover and washed.

Chickens and Dance.

Funky Monkey in his class

   For the last 4 days Funky Monkey and Girly Monkey have been attending Dance Summer school. We signed them up at the end of last year because they were super sad that dance was all over in June. But when Sunday before Summer school came I wasn't very thrilled with my previous decision. It's not that I didn't think that it was a good idea to put them in Dace in the summer time, but rather I was sad over loosing the last free, careless week of summer vacations. School year is already busy for us, and starting all the craziness a week earlier didn't sit well with me. Funky Monkey started his dance classes at 9 am for 3 hours, and Girly Monkey was there for 2 hours starting 12:30 pm. And I was in charge of driving them back and forth, getting them ready, and most of all supporting them.

Girly Monkey with her friends

   Today was last day and parents were invited for the last half hour of each group's class to see what they worked on in dance class. As tired as I was from the last four days I loved every minute of watching both Monkeys. They even got a piece of ice cream cake at the end of summer school. Both Monkeys loved dancing but most of all they loved catching up with their dance friends.