I was tempted to make a pun about FALLing into a routine at SMUS but a standard week at SMUS is anything but routine, as you will read. And I am always surprised where and when Bolton Boys will pop up with the wide variety of activities they have signed up for. For instance, last weekend, my wife and children and I went to the Saanich Halloween train ride – and we were surprised to see Bolton Brother Vincent there volunteering! The girls were thrilled to see him and he even helped Grace carve her pumpkin.

Christian and Stanley are proud to be on SMUS’ first boys volleyball team. They completed their first ISA tournament and were thrilled to come in 2nd place. This week they traveled to Vancouver and played, in Christian’s words, their “best volleyball”. Next week is their final game of the season is next week. Good luck boys!

Regular classes continue as normal. Here is Joel at his evening Sculpture class.

As you may know, the Grade 10s get to enjoy a year of experiential education and this week they ventured off on their first activities. Here you can see Aoi learning self defense, Garry having fun working with clay, and super-stoked Laurent, who hauled in a 40 pound flounder. We sent it off to a local Thai restaurant called Little Thai Place and on Saturday night had a fish-feast!

Speaking of feasting, the different staff departments participated in a chili cook-off this week. Mrs. Bateman and the ELL Department made a delicious chili but Mr. Daum’s Modern Languages Department were able to steal the popular vote with mole flavoring and fun costumes. The students were the real winners since they were able to sample about a dozen different chili on a cold day.

The Crothall Quad had a great many fun activities this week, including pumpkin carving for the grade 9s, organised by the grade 12s. Here is Klaus taking a stab at the Canadian Halloween tradition, while Edi and Edward facilitate.

With Halloween spirit in the air, the Intercultural Council (headed by Bolton’s own Derry) decided to host Latin America Week this week, in conjunction with the Mexican holiday  Día de Muertos. In the photos below you will see Mathias kicking the week off in a humorous fashion in assembly. Alan, Carlos, Klaus and Jero sang in Chapel. And Jero and Mathias showed off their moves during Salsa dancing lessons.

This Thursday was also enjoyed the annual Founders’ Dinner at SMUS. We celebrate this nod to Barnacle, Harvey, Bolton and Symons by having a dinner for SMUS scholars, their patrons and board members in Brown Hall. At this event, Christian represented Bolton and SMUS when he closed the evening with a speech recognizing what he is grateful for as well as the contributions of the Snowdens to SMUS.

The rest of us enjoyed a delicous dinner out as a house at a Japanese resturant downtown. The boys were perfect gentlemen for the five course feast.

The dining space was not conducive to talk about WW Bolton, our namesake, so I am waiting with that for our next house meeting. Suffice to say, Bolton is the most dynamic of the school founders, athlete, explorer and man of the cloth. Watch this video if you are interested!

On the topic of upstanding gentlemen, here are two gentlemen lying down after some hard work leaf-raking as a way to give back to the community.

Besides raking leaves there were some great activities for the boys this Saturday. Aoi and Laurent loved driving motocross bikes in the mud. A whole bunch of guys went costume shopping down town and Alan, Alex (8), Carlos, Klaus, Pine, Diego (8), Joel and David (Photo Club Head) all participated in a Photo Club stroll through historic Ross Bay. Diego (10), Adam, Jerry and Ranon participated in baking muffins and cookies for the homeless as a service activity.

We capped the weekend off last night with our 18th Annual Howlapalooza Music Event. All the boarders crowded into the Chapel to share and enjoy each other’s musical talents. We started the night with a performance of the “Blue Blazers” (that’s me in the wig) a longtime staff band and among all the great music were acts by Garry and Edward and even Laurent and Xavier added an impromptu encore performance of “We Will Rock You”. The energy was truly amazing, the musicians were talented and we all had a great time.

As I complete this rather long blog I am amazed by the sheer number of opportunities we have in Victoria, BC. By living in an urban environment that is embedded in beautiful nature we are able to enjoy the best of both worlds. Walks through historic properties, gritty motocross, service opportunities within local communities, sending fish off to a local restaurant for cooking, fishing charters, Salsa teachers visiting and tasty dining out – these are just the activities of one week but represent how lucky we are.

Go Bo!