Happy Canada Day!!! #TGCBB

Today my great country celebrates its 145th birthday!  Hooray!!

I didn't get quite as many posts written for The Great Canadian Blog Bash as I would have liked -- that's the end of the school year for ya!  It was BUSY for me last week!  I am happy to report that I'm officially on "summer break", woo!  I do need to go back to the school for a day to finish the final clean-up of my classroom (moving stuff to my new room for next year), and to file my student records... but then I'm outta there until the end of August!

For Canada Day, Mr. Lock and I are taking it easy.  We are going to go to my parents house, and just relax and enjoy their backyard pool.  It is such a beautiful, sunny day!  We are going to enjoy a BBQ with my immediate family for dinner.  I'll be sure to wear my Canadian-themed flip flops that I got from Old Navy a few years ago (little red maple leaves all over them) today!   What are your Canada Day plans?!

I am so proud of the country I'm from, we are such a wonderful, multicultural, peaceful and polite country.  We are so accepting of differences, and we welcome so many people from so many different walks of life into our arms.  I am very proud to be a stereotypical, polite Canadian, eh?  I certainly use the word "sorry" way too much! ;-)

I used to know this whole commercial off by heart, and I still love it to this day...

Enjoy this day, Canadians, and have a nice long weekend with your family and/or friends!

Invented by Canadians #TGCBB

Did you know that the following were all invented by CANADIANS?!

• Nanaimo bars
• Poutine (YUM!)

• Butter tarts (YUM x2!)
• Walkie-Talkie
• Standard time
• The telephone (I've been to the Alexander Graham Bell Homestead in Brantford, Ontario!)
• Java programming language
• Snowmobile
• The prosthetic hand
• The snowblower
• The foghorn
• Basketball
• Lacrosse
• Ice hockey

• Five-pin bowling
• Trivial Pursuit (the board game)
• Insulin
• Bone Marrow Compatibility Test
• Egg carton
• Wonderbra
• Plexiglas
• The electric oven
• Cardiac pacemaker
• Alkaline battery
• SONAR
• The electric wheelchair
• Computerized Braille
• CPR mannequin
• Electric car heater

 
Sources: Wikipedia.org "List of Canadian Inventions" , Canadian Bacon Blog , About.com "Made in Canada"

Proud to be Canadian, eh?! #TGCBB

Good morning! Today is a big day, it is the kick-off of The Great Canadian Blog Bash!



I am truly proud to be Canadian.  It is exciting and thrilling to live in such a multi-cultural country, but I have to tell you... when I'm asked what my "background" is?  I mostly just say, "Canadian, eh?!".  I then get asked if I mean "First Nations"... but I don't.  It's just that my family, stretching back to 3 of my 4 great-grandparents, were all born in Canada!  That fourth great-grandparent immigrated to Canada as a small child, too.  I don't feel a connection to any country but this one!  I guess if I dig further in family history, I'm a "classic British cocktail" - Scottish, Irish, Welsh - but mostly, I'm proud to be Canadian!
It was so challenging to decide what to write about for this post!  
I want to write about my role as a Canadian teacher.  We have so many amazing discussions in my classroom about the beauty of Canada's cultural diversity.  My grade two students and I say hello in many different languages when doing the morning and afternoon attendance - I teach in a very multicultural school.  It's thrilling to be a part of a the rich cultural mosaic of our country, and to help my very young students recognize and appreciate cultural differences.  I love the way we  love and appreciate others, regardless of race, culture, language, or sexual orientation, in this great country of ours.

I want to write about the beauty of our landscape.  I have had the pleasure of travelling across Western Canada (I live in Ontario, just north of Toronto).  My family and I went on a summer road trip when I was seventeen,  we drove for three weeks and stayed in major cities, as well as a few small towns, across Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.  We saw national parks, Canadian wildlife, amazing fresh water lakes, forests with towering trees.  Witnessing diverse lands, comparing British Columbia's towering grey and white mountains to the yellow of the flat lands through Saskatchewan, was absolutely an experience that I think every Canadian needs to have.

My father planned the whole trip, based on wanting to take us to see Kelowna, B.C. were he grew up for nine years of his childhood (ages 4 to 13) because of his father's job.  He had always wanted to take his family to see this special place from his childhood memories, and so he designed a once-in-a-lifetime cross-Canada-to-the-West journey.  I am so grateful to have ever had that experience, and it will live in my memories forever that I live in an awe-inspiring and beautiful country.  I hope one day to similarly travel by car or RV through the East Coast as well.  It's on my "bucket list".

I want to write about famous Canadian people, famous Canadian inventions, famous Canadian foods!  I want to write about HOCKEY, and TIM HORTON'S of course!  I want to tell you about Canadian historical facts!
So, this is just post number one.  For a country as large as mine (largest coastline in the world, hello! 202,080 kilometres - that's 125,570 miles for my American friends!), it will take more than just this one small post to do it justice!  We are going to continue this Blog Bash throughout the week!  I hope you will come back and visit.  As we lead up to Canada's Birthday on July 1st, there will be lots of Canadian content to come!  Stick around, eh?!

Don't forget to also check out the other participating Canadian blogs throughout this week!  Many are hosting exciting giveaways from a variety of Canadian companies! (The giveaways are open to Canadians only).