Zachary's Grade 8 Grad

We celebrated Zachary's Grade 8 Graduation on June 20th, 2014. There were 9  Grade 8 homeschool grads and 1 Grade 12 grad.  It seems hard to believe that we have been homeschooling for 9 years already.
The graduation was held at Rice Road Community Church with a dessert reception afterwards.  All the grads looked splendid.  Zachary was cheered on by Jacob and Grandma and Grandpa Hoffele

Extreme Tree Trimming

Last saturday we went to our freinds treee triming party and there was a lot of food. there was rice krispy squares, maple bacon chips, salt and vinager chips, alphabet pretzels and cookies.
my favorite part was putting the lights on the outside oak tree because me Zach and our friend got to climb up and Zach was about 5 meters above the ground. there was also  fizzy lemonade and apple cider.

The Way Up High Gang!

Jacob's late, but still fun birthday party

On Thursday July 12 we met Astrid, Jaaco and Dorien and Me, Zach, Jaaco and Dorien went on the Canopy trail. which is a network of pillars and a tower with ropes bridges and obstacles between them. there were 2 trails on 8 m above the ground and 1 trail 11m.

some of the obstacles were very hard and some were not really hard just a bit challenging and some were just easy. At least the whole thing you were attached to a cable. At the end me and Zach went on the zip-line together and Jaaco and Dorien went by themselves.

Then we biked home and Astrid Jaaco and Dorien did an errand and then drove to our house while we were waiting Zach biked over to "Intertoys" and got me something when Astrid Jaaco and Dorien arrived we watched the finish of the tour de france stage, and then we watched "Monsters vs Aliens"while having pizza then Eric came so we had Cake and opened the presents.

They got me a puzzle but it was with only a picture of an old airport and you would make the puzzle guessing how it would be looking modern. Zach got me an Angry birds splatty thing but it doesn't work to well. Eric, Astrid, Dorien, and Jacco are off to Iceland for 3 weeks holidays, so tots liens and bedankt for the great times!

14th Anniversary!

It's July 4th and Debbie and my 14th anniversary since that bonnie day at Findlater Castle! Our Dutch friends Eric & Astrid just sent us this cartoon. We're keeping our tradition of travelling on milestone days, as we're heading to Brugge, Belgium today for the European Congress of Sport Sciences meeting, and taking the train back July 8 on Jacob's birthday. Debbie and the boys are heading to Brugge via Brussels to visit friends first.

Euro 2012 - Orange Crush(ed)!

Every 4 years, the Euro football tournament madness sweeps over the continent. The World Cup may be bigger, but the overall quality of the football is probably higher here, because there's really no easy way to qualify. Anyway, after being finalists in World Cup 2010, all of Holland was in full orange frenzy.

Well, that didn't last long! The whole country was decked out in orange, but boy the Dutch stunk out the joint! They lost a bit of a shocker to Denmark 0-1 in the first match, then got absolutely humiliated 1-2 by the Germans in a highly hyped match. To top that off, Cristiano Ronaldo and the Portuguese finished the humiliation with another dominant rout. Oh well, the good thing with the Dutch is that they party BEFORE the match rather than afterwards, so we still ended up having a fine BBQ at Hein and Elly's before the final match!

At halftime, down 0-1, Hein drove us back to Amersfoort and we raced home on the bikes (never seen Jacob ride so fast!), literally getting home JUST in time to see Ronaldo score again! Jacob was so disgusted that he just stomped upstairs and went straight to bed!

Italy-Spain in the final on Canada Day, should be great!

In other sporting news, we're taking the train Saturday down to Liege to catch the prologue of the Tour de France! BTW, figure out this math for me. My taking the train to Valkenburg (southern end of Holland) three weeks ago normally cost 46EUR return for one adult. Liege is even further away, further south, and in another country, yet the TOTAL cost for 4 of us (2 adults, 2 kids) return is 76EUR! And speaking of kids, Zachary's grounded as of July 26, when he turns 12. That's because all the travel discounts are for 11 and under (e.g., a full day unlimited train pass is 48EUR for adults and 2.50EUR for kids!)

The Stelvio!

There are many amazing climbs in the world of cycling, but the Stelvio (2,758 m, the highest pass in Italy) is definitely among the top 5 in the history of the sport. I was lucky enough to ride it during the PezCycling News 10th birthday party bash at the end of May, only 5 days after the Giro d'Italia finished Stage 20 atop it. There are 3 ways up  the Stelvio: 1) Bormio (1,225 m, the way we and also the Giro did), 2) Umbrail from Switzerland, and 3) Prato from 900 m.

Our Pez story on the awesome Hotel Funivia

The climb just goes on and on. It's 24 km or so of climbing from Bormio, including a few very narrow tunnels that have only recently been lit. There are 40 switchbacks too from this side, and 48 from Prato. From the Bormio side, it's never so incredibly hard that you're grovelling (although there's one stretch at 14%), but it's just relentless and gets really hard with minimal oxygen as you approach the summit!

We started in Bormio on a beautiful sunny and warm day, and it gradually got cooler and cooler as we ascended. Partway up, Rich and I found a part of the original road that was still roughly paved, so we figured it was a fun shortcut to take what we called the "Strade Fausto Coppi!"

On hard mountain stages, the directeur sportif in the car hand out water bottles to riders struggling at the back, and the pro cyclists are sometimes known to hang onto the bottle a bit longer than decent as the car continues to drive along, a trick known as a "sticky water bottle." So since pro rider Davide Vigano (Lampre-ISD) was driving Rich's rental car to the top, we figured it'd be fun to have a pro cyclist giving Rich a sticky bottle! On the right I'm enjoying the sun and the climb at one of the buildings on the climb.

Yes it's the last day of May, but there's still acres of snow near the summit. Indeed the pass usually only gets opened about this time each year.It's apparently snowing there now in mid-June! I'm about 1km to the summit on the left. Like Joaquin "Purito" Rodriguez, I tried an attack within 1 km to go but, unlike Purito, I blew up about 50 m later!

The Pez boys (Gord, Rich, me, Leslie) atop Stelvio with the route towards Prato behind us. Check out all the switchbacks! We drove up from Prato from Verona airport, and it's just dizzying. On the right is my beloved Ritchey BreakAway on the podium and monument dedicated to Fausto Coppi, "Il Campionissimo." The Ritchey has really served me so unbelievably well in all my travels, from the cobbles of Roubaix and Flanders to the epic climb of the Stelvio!
Of course, what goes up must usually come down too, and we had a blast of a descent down the Umbrail side to Switzerland. Wicked fun switchbacks and even 2 km on dirt roads. Here's Rich carving a turn. From the bottom, we continued to fly down this gradual downhill towards Prato, where we got picked up by Marco and the gang from Enjoy Garda hotel for the second half of our birthday party along Lago di Garda! Buonissimo!

Biking the Teglio

Wow, the cycling in Bormio is just phenomenal, with three amazing days of riding during the Pez 10th party. It was a real treat having expert guides such as Giacomo and Daniele, as we didn't have to worry about picking out the route or getting lost. Plus, they always knew where all the great coffee stops are! The first day was the longest at 130 km, taking us down the valley (luckily we passed by but skipped the dreaded Mortirolo climb) towards the Teglio climb, one of the climbs in this year's amazing Stage 20 of the Giro d'Italia that finished atop the Stelvio.
Along for the ride was pro cyclist Davide Vigano of Lampre-ISD, one of Alessandro Petacchi's key lead out men. Davide was a really cool and down-to-earth guy, riding with us and not too cool to help with flats, putting bikes on the truck, or to joke with us. I spent a good amount of time on his wheel, getting the Petacchi view! Davide was actually with us for all three days in Bormio. He skipped the Giro but has just finished an altitude camp in preparation for the Tour de Suisse and Le Tour.

The Teglio was TOUGH for such a short (7 km) climb, with the middle 4 km averaging >10% and bits of 15%. It was also baking hot, not to mention all the heat coming off the freshly tarred road. Lots of road graffiti and also pink decorations everywhere still from the Giro. Despite all my time in Europe, it still amazes me that big races go through such narrow roads through tiny villages. Rich and I rode it together and had some fun in the process.

Gord and Rich pondering how to get home with the minimum of mountain climbing!

Kasteel Amerongen

Mother's Day, Eric and Astrid's (kids Dorien and Jacco) and us got together for a lunch at their place and then took an afternoon trip 40 km south to the town of Amerongen to visit their Kasteel (castle). It was a really cool old house from the 17th century, and especially the way it was presented.

Kasteel Amerongen

They'll be featuring on many of our blogs, so some introductions are in order. I first met Eric and Astrid a few months before I met Debbie in 1996. They moved to spend a year for Eric to do research at York University during his Ph.D., and we were introduced via Hein Daanen, who was at DCIEM (where I did my Ph.D.) as a visiting scientist and who worked at TNO with Eric. One of Eric's very first tasks in Canada was to serve as pannekoeken (pancake) chef extraordinaire at a party at my place! Anyway, over many outings, movie nights (I think we went to about 100 movies together at the Bloor Cinemas), Heavenly Hash ice cream, and roller blading sessions, we've somehow still remained friends!

Onto the Kasteel. They really had a unique way of presenting the history of the house in a way I'd never imagined before. Rather than normal exhibits or even video displays, the entire mansion was running a movie set as one day in the life of the castle, when the mistress receives an urgent letter that the husband was returning that night with major political dignitaries for a banquet. Thus, we're taken into the life of the castle's many servants as they prepare over the course of the day in 1680. It wasn't even just a "factual" documentary, but a movie plot line with internal intrigue, scandals, etc. The story was projected over 20+ huge screens throughout the different rooms, with multiple plot lines. Really fascinating!

Of course, the tradeoff for the unique AV presentation was that most of the rooms were near pitch-black, so it's not the place to go if you want to open cupboards and peer in. However, there were a few rooms not used for the AV where you can see the house collections well, such as the butterfly displays, animal heads, pianos, and family portraits. You can't see from the first picture of the kids airborne, but the castle is surrounded by a moat seen here on the right picture.

Another cool "Lord of the Rings" scene!

Oh Canada!

This year Ryder Hesjedal a Canadian cyclist from Victoria, British Columbia won the Giro d'Italia! We were watching the last race today and it was a time trial which Ryder is really good at! Ryder is the first Canadian to win a big race like this, he only beat Joaquin Rodriguez from Spain after 3 weeks and 3,500 km of racing by 16 seconds! Ryder gained 47 seconds on Rodriguez who is a bad time trialist (But still faster that dad by a few light years!).

Dad's friend Rich Pestes from Pez was actually at the finish of the race (Rich is also from British Columbia but from Vancouver instead of Victoria). We think we saw a Pez jersey amongst the fans. Daddy's joining Rich and the rest of the Pez crew for a 10th anniversary week of cycling next week up many of the same big climbs raced the past week!

Greece Top Ten

Top 10 Things I'll Miss about Greece (not in order)

Seeing shepherds along the road with their sheep and goats

Being able to bike everywhere

Seeing the mountains from our apartment windows

Loukoumades and Loukoumies

Souvlaki

Walking to the Bakery in the morning for bread

Greek lessons with Nick

Flopodopolous - our stray dog at the cafeteria

Having school at the university computer lab with more computers than we can use

Our friends from the university and church