Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

A slide show of Alex's 2009. Over 100 photos presented in an "ArtiZine" format (unique design and layout, driven by the article content). Not your normal blog post. Come check out the design and Alex's year.

Slide Show: 100+ Pics of "the Oop!"

School Picture: Alex is appropriately wearing a "XXI Olympic Winter Games" shirt, the day school pictures were taken. Our "big" (little) first grader! She's so social & loves school.

Christ­mas came upon us very fast this year. Be­cause both sets of Alex's grand­par­ents own a di­git­al photo frame, we gave them each a 2GB SD card, con­tain­ing over 300 fam­ily pho­tos (mostly of their grand­daugh­ter). One month later, I've up­loaded some of the best shots to Rand­sco, to share with every­one else!

Alex is a very out­go­ing and en­ga­ging girl of six, though in most of these pho­tos, she's five. Al­ex­an­dra is her full name, but we just call her "Alex" or "the Oop" (a nick­name that she's had for a while and one that stuck). She had a very busy year at kinder­garten, vis­it­ing grand­par­ents, ex­plor­ing, mak­ing friends and just be­ing a kid. We in­vite you to share her year in pic­tures.

We hope you en­joy the show, which is presen­ted in an Ar­tiZ­ine What the Heck is an Ar­tiZ­ine? An ar­tiz­ine is a blog art­icle that has a com­pletely unique design & page lay­out, driv­en by the con­tents of the art­icle. It is re­min­is­cent of print magazine art­icles, where each art­icle has a some­what dif­fer­ent design, ty­po­graphy and/or art­work. In fact, the word "artizine" is a com­bin­a­tion of the word "article" and "magazine". An ar­tiz­ine is dif­fer­ent from a blogazine. In a blogazine, every art­icle con­tains magazine-like styl­ing. Be­cause such styl­ing takes work, blogazines are in­fre­quently up­dated and re­quire the blog au­thor(s) to main­tain a sep­ar­ate site for their "nor­mal" mus­ings. In con­trast, an ar­tiz­ine is simply a spe­cial, magazine-like art­icle, con­tained with­in a reg­u­lar blog. format and it's the second such art­icle we've pub­lished. As such, it may be a bit dis­or­i­ent­ing to some folks. Just wait for the page to load and then hover over the mov­ing theater screen stat­ic. Click to start the slide show. Then click the thumb­nail im­ages to move for­ward, or back­ward, through the slide show! (Simple really)

Now, let's get on to Alex's spe­cially de­signed slide show!

 

Show me the Show!

A classic Norman Rockwell moment, as Alex takes her ceramic piggy bank down to our local credit union "Island Savings" and opens her very first bank account. At age six, our girl is learning how to save her money! She deposited $54.40 in coins.

Alex's Opens Her First Bank Account - Chooses Island Savings Credit Union

Here Piggy Piggy: Alex proudly holds her hand-made ceramic piggy bank, before dumping the contents and depositing them (most of them) into her very first bank account. (One coin was a token, another an English Pence ... the American coins went in at par).

It was classic Norman Rockwell. A six-year-old girl holding a ceramic piggy bank, sitting in the lobby of a bank, waiting to open her very first bank account. The girl was none other than our Alex and the bank was the small branch of a local credit union.

Earlier that morning, Alex asked, "Can I get a bank account?" (Since Dad is keen on personal finance - having retired at age 39 and opened his first business when he was 12 - his ears perked up).

Several questions later, it became clear to him that Alex understood the concept of banks (even though she couldn't name all the denominations of coins in her piggy bank).

Alex has a very special piggy bank, one given to her by her God-mother - a beautifully decorated and glazed ceramic pig, complete with Alex's tiny hand-print on it (Alex was two-years-old at the time "Wilber" was made).

That afternoon, Dad drove his 6-year-old daughter to the credit union in Cedar. It was a long visit. She signed multiple forms and it took time to count out her "life-savings".

It was a very big day for Alex and a proud one for her Dad (who was busy taking pictures of the event). The visit brought smiles to the banking staff, whe were very patient with Alex and treated her like a 'big girl' customer. Not every new account holder meets one of the Credit Union Board of Directors, but Alex did! She also learned the difference between tokens, coins and foreign money (as she had a few Pence and U.S. coins).

To learn more about Alex's first account, read on ...

Alex Breaks the Pig

Kindergarten is finished today. Alex is pretty certain she'll have a great summer, filled with lots of social activities. We're pretty certain Alex is going to miss school. (Class photo included).

"The Oop" Graduates Kindergarten Per Ultum Tripudium

School Photo: Alex was exactly 5 years old when this was taken, on Oct. 3rd, 2008. She was so excited to start kindergarten and didn't cry, like loads of other kids seem to do, when separated from their parents (sometimes for the first time). Our little socialite loved school (and still does).

There were no caps; no gowns. There wasn't any of the pomp and circumstance that graduates across the U.S. and Canada are experiencing this month. Alex just went to school at 11:35 AM and was released at 2:15 PM, just like any other day. The only difference, of course, is that it wasn't just like any other day, because it was the last day of kindergarten.

I asked her, this morning, if she was going to miss school (as I'm pretty sure she will, since she's such a social creature). It surprised me when she said, "No."

Exploring a little further, I asked, "Why not?"

"Well Dad," she said, putting her hands on her little hips, as she does when she's explaining how things are, "because during the summer, I don't have to go to school, see? And every day I'll have play dates!"

(I told you she was a social creature).

Unfortunately, as the Dad and one of two qualified chauffeurs in the house, I was pretty certain that her hastily thought-out plan of multiple 'play dates' per day weren't going to be the norm. I tried to explain that school was the ultimate play date and especially because (now) she's in day-care on many days, in addition to school, so she actually has more actual playing opportunities when school is in session, than during the summer months. (In our rural neighborhood, Alex has only a few kids to play with, within walking distance and none are her age - there are two that are 1-2 years younger than Alex and three that are 4 or more years older).

Of course, my argument fell on deaf ears and Alex remains excited by the prospect of upcoming 'social' summer!

To see Alex's kindergarten class photo ... head to the next page

The Graduating Kindergarten Class

A slide show consisting of 75 photos taken by our 5-year-old daughter, Alex, over the course of a year and a half, using her "Little Tikes" 640x480 digital camera. Our world from a three-foot-something, kid's perspective.

Photography from a Child's Perspective

Alex the Photographer: Our five-year-old daughter composes a photo through the living room window, using her "Little Tikes" digital camera. It's been a great starter camera for Alex.

Shortly after our daughter, Alex (AKA "the Oop"), turned four, we gave her a digital camera for Christmas. She's now five and a half years old and has used the camera for a year and a half, taking roughly 750 pictures all-told.

It's interesting to see what catches her eye, even though many of the pictures didn't turn out well. While we really like the rugged quality, ease of use and child-oriented design of her "Little Tikes" digital camera "My Real Digital Camera" by Little Tikes We bought this durable camera in Canada for approximately $30 CAD. It's worked well for Alex for a year and a half. Pros: The camera is well designed for little fingers, it's rugged and will take abuse, it has both a 1.3" LCD screen and a view-finder for framing shots, it's easy to use, has auto flash and stores about a 1000 pictures (64 MegaBytes). Cons: Picture quality could be better (it takes 640px by 480px shots with some spherical aberration and blurring). There is an appreciable shutter delay, which children must understand, before they can begin to take non-blurry shots. (One needs to hold the camera steady for about a second, after pressing the shutter button). It uses 4 "AAA" batteries & also comes in pastel colors. Thinking of getting one? Click inside this box or the link for more information & reviews on the Little Tikes website. , it has one major flaw - there is a one second delay between pressing the shutter button and when the image is captured. It took Alex a while to work out that she needs to hold the camera steady during and after she presses the button.

We figured that it was high time to show off our daughter's photography "skills" and share her visions through the lens. Life looks a lot different when you're only three feet tall and the things that she's pointed her camera at ... well, you can only conclude that they're important to her!

On to the Show

Alex was really looking forward to Easter this year. She dyed eggs at day-care, at kindergarten and at home. She found a chocolate bunny, was given another by friends and hunted down fistfuls of chocolate Easter eggs.

Dyeing Eggs, Stuffing Turkey & Watching Alex Bounce off the Walls

Easter Booty: Alex, still in a night-shirt, shows off all the chocolate Easter eggs she found. Weather was a tad rainy, so the Easter egg hunting was held indoors this year.

Another Easter holiday has passed. It was less about Christ rising from the dead and more about our five-year-old daughter waking the dead, with screams of delight, upon finding hidden confectioneries.

"The Easter Bunny didn't do a very good job hiding the eggs," Alex remarked, at one point, after plucking a foil-wrapped chocolate 'egg', sitting in plain site, from the coffee table.

In past years, Easter had a way of sneaking up on us. There's no such thing now, as news of the upcoming holiday is distributed throughout Alex's kindergarten network. Before Easter weekend, Alex had dyed eggs thrice: at school, in day-care and at Sparks (young Girl Scouts). She was fully aware that a "candy-filled" weekend was imminent!

It's become a bit of a family tradition that we celebrate Easter at the float cabin. This year, however, we stayed on dry land. Rachel was scheduled for shifts at the hospital and our cabin-mate's were left high and dry, as their boat was in need of mechanical repair.

To learn about our land-lubbering Easter holiday, including photos of egg-dyeing fun and tales of a turkey dinner party ... read on ...

Oop Easter Fun