today is remembrance day. in ontario - it is a day where we go about our business and at 11 everyone stops and reflects usually in school assemblies --- i've always thought what we did was good - however, moving to labrador has opened my eyes to what the rest of the country is doing. from what i know - here, bc, and alberta all take the 11th of november off from work and school and have huge local celebrations and remembrance ceremonies. in hv-gb it is particularly prevelant as we have such a huge military history here. in our school ceremony (which we had yesterday) we had members of the colour guard, the base chaplain, and people from the legion. i was told early on that this was one of the biggest assemblies that this school has - and it didn't disappoint. the music part went well - including my loverly brass ensemble who were so nervous - but they pulled off the last post quite well. it was good - remembrance was more deliberate than i'm usual.
today was different. there was a service this morning in the woods on base, and a town wide parade and ceremony at the legion at 11am. i did not go to either. i spent my day working on report cards - not that i got far... at all... but i tried.
tonight was something new. the olympic torch came through hv-gb tonight and since i am part of the community choir i was a participant in the ceremony. pam, nick, and i went together and were quite surprised at the amount of people pouring into the park. it seems like the whole town came out to celebrate together. it was really nice just to sit outside in the FREEZING cold air and complain about our freezing toes while just chilling with everyone from the town and watching the torch run in.
i guess you should check out cbc and see if we were on there... peter (one of the news guys from cbc here - in the play with me - and in the community choir) was there with his camera - so i guess it's a possibilty. we were up on stage twice - once to sing a song that no one i was standing around remembered - fortunately it's super easy and we were singing with over 100 grade 2 and 3 students who really know the song. we later came up when the flame was on the stage to lead everyone in o canada - it was good times.
we decided to leave with the flummies came onstage so that we could beat the rush. i dropped nick off and then pam and i went back - as soon as i came inside i heard loud bangs - so i looked outside to see a huge fireworks show going on over the trees. the view was better than sitting on the deck at home and only the low ones were slightly difficult to see through the trees - but you could still see them.
overall - great day :)