Happy Birthday, Grandpa!!

For my Grandpa's 80th birthday, my whole family got together to "Party like it's 1929"!!! We ate and drank and made toasts and made jokes and swam and kayaked and played games and had an all around blast. Here we all are. Almost no kids left, we're all so grown up ;)

The only not fun part (and when I say not fun, I mean kind of funny for everyone else) was when Charlie got stuck on top of the roof of the boat house because he got all the way up there and then panicked and couldn't jump off for a whole hour. He switched between standing up and sitting back down, but mostly he sat. In his defense, it's really high up (about 10 meters?) and on his way up his foot slid a little on the roof tiles. He couldn't go down the way he came up because of the whole slipping and falling onto the dock to his death thing, so the only way down was by jumping.


After a while, my cousin Jessica made a deal with Charlie that if she jumped off the second floor balcony, he would take the leap from the roof. She Jessica and Caitlyn joined forces... and Charlie stayed put of the roof for another half hour after they jumped.

And so there we stayed, me on the dock, encouraging and coaxing, and Charlie sitting on the roof, trying to stay calm. People came and went, but mostly stuck around, because all that time, they didn't want to miss the big event, as the more time he spent on the roof, the more suspense there was to see his jump. Finally, I decided drastic measures had to be taken - but there was no way I was going up there to jump with him because then we'd have two people stuck on the roof. So I talked him through some yoga breathing and actually got him to stand up. And just when we were all about to give up and leave him there to go have lunch, he propelled with his might and flung himself off the roof, shouting "I'm Batmaaaaaaaaan!!!"

And so ended the saga of the boat house jump, and everyone clapped and cheered and those who had missed it were very disappointed indeed. I was so proud of my honey :)

What I am Reading Today...

Benjamin Perrin is a prof at UBC, in the Faculty of Law, and he has been an important voice in Canada in the fight against human trafficking. He studied at McGill (yay!) among other universities and founded the Future Group, an NGO that combats human trafficking. In fact, it was a Future Group research paper that brought attention to the fact that Canada kind of sucks when it comes to human trafficking legislation and response and why the government is now making efforts to correct this.

In February of this year, Perrin wrote an article that was published in The Lawyers Weekly. The article is called:

Confronting Human Trafficking in Canada
"Human trafficking is a complex problem that is only beginning to be understood in Canada, and immigration lawyers can play a much greater role in responding to it."

It's an interesting article about Canadian law on human trafficking and how (surprise, surprise) we're late to the party of preventing and responding to it within our borders nad beyond. At least we now have a law against trafficking in persons (passed in 2005), but helping victims of trafficking, especially when they are foreigners in Canada, is a slow and frustrating process. It would help it they weren't treated like criminals, right? It seems so obvious, but unfortunately, victims are often arrested and detained and treated like illegal immigrants who have been smuggled into Canada, not trafficked.

Which brings us to the difference between trafficking and smuggling! It's quite simple, really. In general, the difference is found in the choice of the person being transported. A smuggled person retains control over his or her life and decisions; if ever the control is taken out of that person's hands, it becomes trafficking. Does that make sense?

Anyway, more on that later. And more on what I'm reading on human trafficking later as well...

10-Step Guide to Having an Awesome Beach Vacation

#1: Dig huge hole in sand on first day.


#2: Sit proudly in said hole.


#3: Bring much reading material to wile away the hours tanning.


#4: Hang out with cousins (first cousins, second cousins, cousins once removed, take your pick!)


#5: Play 10 cent skee-ball on the boardwalk.


#6:Play mini putt on the boardwalk and get a terrible score because you only play once a year.


#7: Eat a ginormous pickle from Blitz's.


#8: Go see where there was a beached whale and mourn over its untimely death.


#9: Get dressed up and go out with family to eat copious amounts of seafood.


#10: Go on a fantastic day trip to New York City...

... eat at Bubba Gump Shrimp in Times Square...

... and get picture taken with a portrait of Eloise in the Plaza.
Ooooooh, I love the Plaza!!