Well I certainly had a great weekend!  The fun started Friday, I went for a hike with my colleague at work Shafi at the Lower Don Parklands and I don’t think I could have asked for nicer weather.  Cool enough that the ground was frozen but warm enough that after climbing some hills I was sweating a bit.  Unfortunately we didn’t see any birds of prey, I saw a falcon or something like that last year but oh well this year there were small birds that were really hard to shoot.

If you zoom in on the branches you’ll be able to see the birds.  We walked by the Christmas tree and someone must have redecorated because all the ornaments were new.  I guess the city is removing it but I wish they wouldn’t, I thought it’s rather nice that someone took their time to decorate a random tree that you only see if you  hike into the park.

Shafi and I went for lunch in Greek town then went our separate ways but I would see him, Mario and Eddy in the evening as we organized to go to the Aurora Winter Festival at Ontario Place.

Taking photos at night is definitely a lot more challenging as the camera wants to expose like it’s the day so you need to shoot manual. Since it was dark, all of us were playing with long exposures and I think the boat ride & ferris wheel turned out really well.  The LED lights were also really cool, I wish Maggie and Brandon came along as they’d both have fun but the wife thought it’d be too cold.  Hehe in the last photo Eddy is charming the TTC lady, she was asking him about photography stuff, if we were a club or something.

Saturday as typical was Brandon’s day with all of his activities but today was special.  Brandon went for his first Brazilian Jujitsu grading and he did great!

He really does love practicing BJJ and after a bunch of drills they got the kids to roll and the kids rolled hard!  Brandon dominated  his first fight completely moving from position to position and the second was a draw but Brandon got the takedown and stayed on top the whole time.  He got his first white stripe and was beaming with pride and I couldn’t be prouder.  Next year he wants to try some competitions, it won’t be easy but I think it’ll be a great learning opportunity for him.

After BJJ grading I dropped him off at a friend’s house to play while I relaxed at home.  A really fun weekend and with my time off I realize how damn lucky I am to have Maggie, Brandon and even Slinky!