Cookies!

We have had a blizzard of cookie baking this past week. Lydia had an early Christmas present from Lucy and Scott: a "whoopie pie" baking device (didn't even know they had such a thing); she's been giving it quite a workout. Amy also organized a big baking session to make thing for our dinner with the Belmont gang last week; the treats included Linzer cookies, peanut butter/chocolcate cookes, and a complicated "macaron'" recipe. The kids helped out, especially Lydia. Photos:

This cookie cutter has a label on it reading "1 Westland Ave" -- wow, that was a long time ago.

I was relegated to making fresh bread-- I don't think there could possibly have been room for another cookie-maker.

Pitch Pipes

Ethan has joined an "a capella" singing group this fall at the high school. It's been an interesting experience so far. Amy and I were a bit surprised when he told us that he was trying out for singing groups, since he hasn't really done anything like that before, but: why not?  These singing groups are actually a fairly big deal at the high school, and there are quite a lot of them (8-10). They are entirely student-run; aside from consulting with a faculty advisor on performance dates/times, they are responsible for everything: planning the shows, organizing the practices, you name it. Some of the groups are co-ed, and some single-sex; Ethan's group, the "Pitch Pipes" is all boys. They practice twice a week, once on Tuesday nights from 8-10 and once on Sunday from 5-7pm. The practice rotates around from one kids house to another, so it seems as though we've driven all over Lexington getting him there and back.

The groups may have smaller events and gigs during the year, but they come together two or three times a year for a "jam", where all of the groups perform. Each group sings three songs, and then at the end they usually try to invite another singing group from one of the local colleges/universities to perform.  Things are pretty low key, and there is a fair amount of goofing around (including the wearing of weird costumes). The jams are very well attended. Here are the Pitch Pipes as first seen on stage:

The group had some fun for their routine this time by turning out the stage lights and putting on a 15-second show with glow sticks, which was fun but rather difficult to photograph:

Listening to the actual songs is a slightly weird experience for people of my generation, since 95% of the time I have no idea what the original song is that is being remodeled/rearranged. For example, Ethan's group did a remake of the song "She's a Lady" by the group "Forever the Sickest Kids"-- never even heard of the band, let alone the song.   The groups don't seem to have any qualms about picking oddball songs. For example, one group did a rendition of "Creep" by Radiohead, which is about as anti-a-capella as you can get (probably the reason they picked it). The other way that "a capella" has changed since when I was a kid is that there is now a "beat boxer" who accompanies the singers, making various clicking and popping noises to simulate percussion. Photos of a couple more of the groups:

Ethan is having a lot of fun with it so far.   When we drive him around in the car these days we get to hear his "beat boxing" practice, and it seems as though he's constantly singing some tune or another at home (family dinners have become a good deal more noisy, at least during the lead-up).

Mind the Gap

Ethan forwarded me a link to this site:

http://www.gapminder.org/

Definitely one of the more interesting on-line data widgets I've seen. Click on the "Gapminder World" tab, then press play. You can also click on one of the dots (countries) to see what's happening with it during the animation.  Hats off to the creator of this thing, it's really neat.

First Paycheck

Ethan received his first real paycheck in the mail the other day: $145 for his work as a soccer referee this fall:

I think that's a milestone worth celebrating. We drove down to the bank this morning to deposit it together.

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.