November 2021

 

Erin's birthday gift to me, a barfing Reggie sugar bowl. Priceless: the pudgy proportions are spot on.

Caroline's sculpted gift

and we did a 22 mile bike ride on my birthday

November was a big cross country month and this is the middle school state meet that concluded Erin's school season. She ran the 3K in 12:23, finishing #12 in her division and helping her team take second place in the state. 

Erin's classmate and club teammate

For their first post-COVID concert, Heather's orchestra played Brahms #4 in Symphony Hall. Attendees had to present proof of vaccination and wear masks and the house was about half full. Classical music remains hard hit by COVID.

Tessie's 3rd grade word work assignment: take these words and write sentences with them.

She misunderstood the instructions and wrote sentences with her own words. Apparently Stardew Valley introduced her to chum buckets.

Tessie's last in-town mixed level soccer team. Starting in the spring they split into skill-based teams and travel to games.

She did

The cross country club team moved into its Junior Olympic season where they competed in USATF sponsored competitions. In the race containing teams from New England, Tessie's 3K time was 15:26 and her 9-10 age team placed #1.

For the Jr O season Erin moved to the 13-14 age bracket and had to run a 4K. Her time was 17:03 and her team finished #2.

The next race was the regional championship and contained teams from New England and New York.

 In the past we've traveled to NY but this year it was held at an old golf course in MA. 

Tessie's time was 15:08 and her team placed #2

On your mark, get set,

Go!

Erin's time was 16:52 and their team finished #2, good enough to qualify for the national meet in Kentucky in December

For her birthday dinner Erin wanted a fondue meal with just Mom and Dad

and birthday tiramisu

Those of you who have visited us probably know about our infatuation with Boda Borg, the indescribable collection of mini-escape rooms. Of the 20 quests at BB, we've completed all but 2 and one of those was Superbanan, where you have to traverse the final room on suspended rings and simultaneously press 3 buttons. This year Tessie and Erin could do the rings and with Caroline's stretch...

we did it!

and earned the stamp to prove it

For Thanksgiving Grandma Joan and Grampa Ed visited

The meal was a roast chicken with traditional fixings

Later in the weekend Heather traveled down to SC for her dad's 75th birthday celebrated with a COVID booster

The sounds of failure

October 2021

 

With semi-competent cooks in the house, this year apple picking led to

the kids pie making

I took a quick trip to NY to check in on Grandma Joan's recovery from knee surgery

Erin's middle school has a big XC team of about 150 kids. The top 20 boys and girls travel to away meets but the whole team can race at home. The girls team won every meet except for one to the other middle school in town. The boys team was undefeated. At the end of the season all the middle schools in the state competed in one large meet. Erin's team finished #2 to the other middle school and the boys finished #1. The high school XC team should be pretty good.

Wilson Farm's haymaze

Modeling a sweater that Heather knitted

Tessie wishes she had a guard cat to protect her room

Katy's favorite weekend of the year isn't when she's hosting us over 4th of July, it's the trip to Capon Springs in WV

Every year at Capon they have a pumpkin weight guess. Thanks to research ahead of time like above at Wilson Farm, we're prepared, and with 12 attendees we can spread out our guesses. We spaced our entries by 3 lbs and even though Tessie wanted 141 lb, I said that she'd be pretty close with 140. Correct weight:141, and since someone got it right on the nose, Tessie didn't win.

Tessie's first XC meet. In her 3K race, the #1 runner had such a big lead that he and the pacer keeping the runners on the correct course were out of sight of the rest of the field, and when the #2 runner made a wrong turn, he led the entire field on an extra 1.5 K extension

Erin's age group raced the correct course

Tessie was in the 8 and under group and took home a 2nd place trophy

Instead of standing around at XC meets, Caroline volunteered as a ticket taker at the historic Hancock-Clarke house 

wow Tai-Tai is a tacocat as II, @I, @wow

Look who took home the pumpkin from the rec center guessing competition

and with our own big one, we had our work cut out for us making jack'o'lanterns

I told you our 37-lb pumpkin (top right) would be purrfect

Never seen so many fairy rings as here in the woods at Capon Springs

Tessie's 3rd grade soccer team was so dominant that the goalie almost never touched the ball. Doesn't stop you from working on your dance moves.