Sports

I am afraid that I fell down on the job this fall with respect to taking photos of the kids sports activities. I only made it to one of Ethan's meets, and with Lydia I was too busy coaching to take pictures. Here are a few odds and ends. This is Lydia just before one of her games-- you can't really tell from the photo, but the weather was brutal (intermittent rain, wind, very cold):

This fall the format was 8-v-8 for Lydia's age group. We did the travel league, since there isn't an in-town option for girls at this point. It was fun, although the division we were placed into was very tough -- we only won 2 games. Lydia was a defensive specialist; she was usually the fastest player on the field, too.

Team photo, minus yours truly.

Here's the start of the JV race for the one home cross-country meet that I was able to get to. Ethan is in there if you look for him:

This is about the half-way point. I took lots of other photos but the focus was horrendous (I miss not having my VR telephoto lens, arg).

As with the situation at Diamond middle school, the boys teams are good, but the girls teams are incredibly good. The depth and the level of participation is amazing.

Pile O' Leaves

This morning I had my coffee, ate a good breakfast, put on my work clothes, grabbed my work gloves, and went out to do battle with the leaves in the yard. The kids figured out what I was up to, however, and after about 10 minutes my leaf pile had been totally co-opted (I don't think I got much more than a couple of bags filled). They were out there for what seems like hours. On the other hand, there is something cool about kids having fun that doesn't involve screens, microprocessors, or wireless access points. Photos:

Help! I've fallen into a leaf pile and I can't get out!

More random shots:

Leaf pile diving:

You can't see it, but Ethan is actually under there somewhere:

At this point the kids told me to leave them the camera and go inside, so I went to read my email. These are their shots:

More leaf pile diving:

Wildwood

This evening Amy and Ethan went off together to Boston to see a show; Lydia and I stayed home. While sitting on the couch together reading, I had to field a number of questions from her, including "What is arthritis?" and "What does it mean to 'wind a watch'?". The second one left me feeling pretty old and decrepit, I have to say (possibly even more so than the bruises on my feet from this morning's soccer game).

We had a good time reading to each other, however; we took turns reading passages from "Wildwood" by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis. It is an engaging book to read aloud; it's also nice to read a kids book that has a strong female lead character, to boot.