The Best Of...

Play favourites I tell people. It's how life works. Some people and things just wiggle their way into your favourite emotional places or find prominent spots in what should be your hard to reach high esteem shelf. You could probably explain it all if you tried...why this person means something to you, or how that particular thing found a primo spot in your frontal lobe, but sometimes I think it's better to just like something and not try to figure it out.

I'm not putting much thought into this summer's "Best Of..." list

Best People

One year ago we dove head first into a lacrosse program that provided opportunities to play for those people who otherwise would not have one, for whatever reason...financial inability, no connection to the game, no programs for your age or gender...the reason wasn't important. What was important was that someone gave you a stick and some inspiration, maybe a little steering, and BAM...there you had a lacrosse player. We've been wildly successful, touching the lives of over 150 people. Jimmy Twohander started with 12 little girls, from ages 3 - 11. We called that particular set of bouncing balls Janie Twohander, and have since accumulated more kids, adult men and women in two communities, including delivering programming for people struggling with mental illness and homelessness. No less than 100 of those 150 new lacrosse players were women and young girls...of those women and young girls we've met some pretty brilliant people. Across all of the programs we've met some pretty brilliant people. People like Cass Crowe and Blair Nield...



...two amazing people of seemingly unmatched kindness and enthusiasm. It's not often that you find two people that despite decades of differences still manage to leave some footprints on your welcome mat. They have...because they're light years ahead of most people in terms of who they are and how they impact the world around them. You get excited to see them and are happy to waste any amount of minutes on them. You wish people might think of you as you think of them. That's heavy.

Of course the list is full of wonderful people, both new friends and old...Dustin and Kelly Wellman leading the pack of old, and Sara and Joel Boisvert marching along with the new, alongside people like Julie Duffy and Kat Enders. It's ranks are filled with the brilliant, the kind, the easy to be with, and both the inspiring and grounding. We're lucky people to find ourselves spending our time with such awesomeness, very lucky.

Best Place

There's no place like home, and this particular one is overflowing with some serious magic. Some of it we make on our own...some of it seems to fall from the sky, or drift up around us from beneath our feet, but it's magic no less, and we're starting to learn that we really needn't wander very far to find what we're looking for. It's all right here. Anywhere else is a brief, sweet distraction.



We live just a few blocks from the beach. We hear freighter's horns in the night, and feel the cool air that drifts in from the lake on even the hottest of days. We have things to do, and people to do them with. We have giggles in the air, all through the house, and backyard. We have everything that we need, right here. I never ever thought I'd say that.

Best Distraction

I dont know what our home would be like without Harry Potter. It douses our conversations. It shapes our daughters interpretations of the world. It puts our girls to sleep. It provides escape and release. It makes for car ride games, and dinner table questions. It helps to make us who we are.



I joke with Zoey that if she ends up our Hermoine we'll be oh so endlessly proud, and she beams. She'd love nothing more than to do that. Even Maggie struts around the house whispering Harry Potter now. Ms. Rowling has become omniscient in this home.

Best Option

There is firewood, and there are pirate stories about Nearly Hopeless Ned and his First Mate, Wrong Way Rick..or there are real life stories about the Treasure of Oak Island. There is occasionally music floating out from a phone, and there is sometimes company, although never enough. The girls get excited. I get excited. It feels like we've done something when we've done not much at all. It's a brilliant way to be together. There can be one more beer than you intended...never a drunken thing, but definitely a could feel perkier in the morning type thing. We cook hot dogs and fall out of chairs (mostly Maggie) and laugh a lot. There are snuggles, and sleeping bags, and pleas to stay up late. It's made summer feel like summer.



We're running low on wood, but we made it through an entire summer with the pile that we had. As Fall approaches there will surely be college football on the radio, and sweatshirts and jeans...There'll be more visitors and more pleas to not go to bed. By the time the snow flies I'll already miss it.