fall sculptures and Halloween

Two weeks ago I had a morning to shop with the girls; a rare opportunity. Soccer games were in the afternoon. We stopped at a local farm on our way home to pick up a pumpkin for Carmen's project and discovered these crazy gourds. Sarai had a great time arranging them for this picture.

On Halloween, my mom and Lawrence came over to carve pumpkins with us. 

Carmen joined in too.

Rachel loves scooping out the seeds with her hands.  The girls picked out large pumpkins to carve.  Rachel's pumpkin weighed 25 lbs!  They were 2-3 inches thick inside.   

Here is a picture of the pumpkins my mom and Lawrence carved.  My mom found glow-in-the-dark teeth for pumpkins.  Pretty neat! 

This is the pumpkin Carmen carved.  She used some of the teeth too.  I tried to lit them inside the house.  The effect is best in the dark (those pictures are coming up). 

On Saturday, the day before Halloween, Sarai went to her boyfriend's house to carve pumpkins.  She carved the owl.  I am impressed. 

This is the one she carved at our house, a werewolf. 

Rachel and I made this owl in a tree pumpkin.  I usually don't make one by myself because for years I have had to help a child.  I think those years are numbered.  Rachel dug out the pumpkin and carved half of this one.  I know it was a challenge to cut through thick sides.  

Here's a better picture of Carmen's pumpkin lit.

Halloween has changed in our house.  This year, the older three all went to parties the night before Halloween.  Neither Tobin nor Sarai trick-or-treat.  I missed getting a picture of Sarai's costume because I was at my last soccer game for Rachel's team when she left for her party.  Carmen dressed up as a pink zebra!

Carmen did not plan on trick-or-treating until she received a call on Halloween from a friend.  Quickly she came up with: pega-zebra-corn; part Pegasus (the wing part), unicorn (the pink cone) and zebra clothes!  I do believe she has a great imagination to see this inspiration in her closet. 

I have sewn costumes for years for the kids.  Now, Rachel has taken over.  She made her own costume this year.  She was trying to be the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.  We bought material, I cut the pieces and told her how to sew it and she made it!  She is also a fast and precise sewer. She made the skirt Saturday evening and the boot covers Sunday before mass. Impressive. 

Another change in Halloween is that now Rachel has great stamina to continue ringing bells for hours!  A few years ago she would get tired quickly, but not this year.  She went out with a friend, Teresa Meyer.  They had a great time together.  Here you see them trading their loot.

Tobin and Sarai passed out the candy.  This allowed Abram and I to walk around with Theo, Teresa's dad while the girls ran from house to house.  Halloween was busy, as many days are here, but it was fun and we enjoyed everyone we saw that day.  Hopefully, we can do the same next year.

League All Star and End of Outdoor Soccer

Tobin is a League All Star for 2010. He finished fourth in the race with a flat 17:00 time. Times vary from course to course. This course was more hilly than Brown's.

Here is a picture of the League All Stars in order of finishing in the race. Back left is John Murray, his teammate, who finished 1st. The Bennie brothers in 2nd and 3rd from Wachusetts, Tobin in 4th, CJ in 5th and Curtis in 9th.  Shrewsbury narrowly lost to Wachusett in this race by a few points. 

The start of the race was a bit harry.  the officials wanted to begin the race 5 minutes early, but the guys did not know this.  They had just returned from their warm-up run to find everyone else lined up and the officials giving them 2 minutes to get shoes on and lined up.  (During the race most runners wear flats, but warm up in their running shoes.)  The day was 43 degrees outside, overcast and raw.  As you can see from this race no one is wearing under armor; just their thin, sleeveless shirts and running shorts.  Tobin did admit that he felt cold during the race.  That's with a sub 5 minute pace for the first mile!

The race was at the Marlboro country club.  This course doubles back onto itself several times, enabling me to take pictures often.  This was within the first mile.

Here you see John in the lead and Tobin right between the Bennie brothers.  The Bennie family has three boys.  All of which are fast runners.  They  have been key competitors for Shrewsbury since Tobin was a freshman.  He wanted to stay with them for the entire race.  The pace was a bit fast, but he held with them for at least a mile and a half and never let them out of his site.  This drive with the brothers impressed many of the runners and parents at this race.

As I looked through my photos from the race I thought this one was interesting.  The man on the right is Mark Murray, John's father and Tobin's distance coach for winter and spring track. The woman in the foreground is affectionately called "Mrs. Coach". She is Coach Smith's wife.  Coach Jim Smith is the cross country coach. 

Here he is at the finishing stretch.

Sarai came with me to the race.  We briefly congratulated him, while many others came up to do the same.  I heard many girls comment how impressed they were with his time and running so long with the Bennies!

Here are some words from Coach Smith about this race and Tobin:

Right behind the two Bennies was Tobin knocking a whopping 47 sec off his own PR on this course (4th, 17:00). I believe that he would have been under 17 had he continued to push the last 10 yards. Something to work on. Tobin’s improvement and very fine 4th place is a testament to his hard work and attention to detail. Tobin challenged the Bennies and will have another shot at them at Districts!

Outdoor soccer ended on October 30th, while indoor soccer begin that weekend too.  I went directly from Tobin's race in Marlboro to coaching an indoor soccer game for U14, Carmen's age group.  I am also co-coaching the U10s, Rachel's team in indoor.

Carmen played striker again for her last game.  It was a cold, fall morning.  Her team finished with a winning season.  She will be playing with many of them over the winter in Marlboro on a 11 v 11 field.  The other team Carmen's plays with is has only 6 players on the field at a time and walls to play off of.  It is the same place I play my co-ed soccer games at.

Here is my U10 team for the fall season.  Ten of these girls are playing indoors with me.  Chris is on my right, he coached with me this season and is who I am coaching with for both indoor teams.  I began coaching with him last winter in indoors.

Not only is Rachel playing indoor soccer with this team, she made travel basketball for the winter and a few girls from this team will be playing with her in basketball.  Both Carmen and Rachel are playing with three teams for the winter.  Rachel is playing for two basketball teams and one soccer.  Carmen is playing for two soccer teams and one basketball.  Tobin will run indoor track.  He runs long distance, the 1 or 2 mile.  Sarai is hoping to make the high school basketball team.  She is also playing at Girls Inc for basketball.  It is the organization she has played for for three years and the place Carmen and Rachel are playing with. 

Brown Invitational and Soccer

On October 16th, tobin raced in the Brown Invitationals.  It was a cold, windy, fall day.  Abram went to his game while I took Carmen and Rachel to their soccer games.

This is a picture from after the race, but these are some of the varsity runners for Shrewsbury.  From left to right: CJ Williams, John Murray, Dan Mortimer, Tobin and Curtis Beals.

Here John is looking towards the camera so you can see his face.

The night before this race I hosted a pasta party for the team.  We seated 24 people in the house at once.  I made 5lbs of meatballs, 5lbs of breaded chicken and 5lbs of pasta.  We had left over meatballs and pasta, but all the chicken went.  It is impressive how much teenage boys can eat!  After eating some of the guys gathered to create a flag.  Below you can see a portion of this flag.  While the each group was running the flag was paraded around.  At Brown there were races for Freshmen, JV and Varisty.

Varsity runners received new uniforms this season.  Tobin is wearing it for this race.  The guys did comment that the shorts were short. Tobin is fine with that, but some of the other guys find short running shorts risque.





















Tobin went on the bus at 7am for this race.  His race was not until 3:30!  He had a bit of waiting.  By the time Abram arrived Tobin was finally warming up.

The number of runners in the varsity race was close to 170.  Tobin said that 27 schools were running in the varsity race.  Each team is allowed to enter up to 7 runners in the varsity race.  All the runners line up in a huge open field, race to bottleneck together as the path narrows.

I love my 80mm lense.  Abram took a picture of the line of runners and I was able to crop it and get this great picture of Tobin at the start of the race!  Tobin's shoes are great for spotting him in the crowd.  I have photos of him from this race where we are unable to see his face, but can find his shoes!

Chris Favulli found this photo of Tobin on the web and sent it to Coach Smith. Chris is in college now, but ran with Tobin last year.  He keeps good contact with Tobin about running.

Tobin ran this race in 16:13!  He was 23rd over all.  Very impressive.  He was a bit disappointed that he didn't get top 20 since they receive a medal at this race.  Tobin made it in the Worcester Telegram with his place and time.  His team mate, John finished 2nd in the race.

It is always impressive how Tobin looks for runners after the race that he was closely competing against and congratulates them and discusses the race too. 

I am glad Abram went to this race.  He met his former Merrimack High School cross country coach there, Mr. Snell.  The Brown Invitational draws from all schools in the NE area.  Mr. Snell has been coaching for over 30 years.  Had I gone to the race I would not have know who he was since I didn't run in high school.

While Abram was in RI, I was in Douglas, MA watching Carmen's game.  Here is a beautiful view at the end of the soccer field.  Unfortunately, the 20 mile an hour winds off the river were freezing for the players.  It also drove the ball in one direction in the entire game. 

Carmen played forward this game.  Notice the girls hair blowing in the wind. 

The score was 0-0.  Carmen is driving the ball into the head wind.  She did a good job as forward.  The players were shivering at the end of the game because the wind was amazing.

I don't have any pictures from Rachel's game because I am the assistant coach.  Abram was not at the field to take pictures too.  Rachel did have a game that day and played well.  I can put her in any position and she will be strong there.  Isaac believes she has great game sense because she has seen both soccer and basketball since she was a baby.  Maybe he's right.

Learning to Fly

Abram here.  A couple siblings asked about my progress on flying lessons, so I thought I'd post to explain the process and where I am in it.

I am training with a single flight instructor in a one-on-one basis.  I try to fly twice a week, although that is going to be a challenge with the fall weather and shorter days. 

The first phase of my lessons were about learning the basic flight maneuvers: climbing, level flight, descending, turns, steep turns, emergency procedures, and stall recovery.  We would take off from the airport, fly to the 'practice area', work on the various skills, and return to the airport.  The practice area is an area of north-central Massachusetts and south-western New Hampshire about 15 miles from the airport that is clear of  established airways for most air traffic.  Even from the first lesson, most of the time I was in control of the aircraft, except when the instructor demonstrated something, or assisted (or just took over) for landing.  In addition to learning the maneuvers, a challenge at the beginning was learning how to communicate with air traffic control on the radios.  We spent about 6 or 7 lessons with 9 hours of flying on this part of the training.

The next phase was about learning and perfecting landings.  During these lessons, we never left the vicinity of the airport.  We would simply fly the traffic pattern around the airport, taking off and landing 8-12 times over the course of 1-1.5 hours.  Operating around the airport requires precisely executing the maneuvers we learned earlier -- every time around the airport you need to climb to a specific altitude and hold it, make at least three turns to a precise heading, adjust for cross winds, change the airplane configuration (engaging flaps), communicate with ATC, and locate other planes operating in the area -- in addition to the new challenges of following the glideslope to the runway and making a proper touchdown.  We spent about ten lessons focusing on landings, with about 18 hours of flying.

Once my instructor was satisfied that I could be safe on my own, he endorsed me for solo flight.  This means that I can come to the airport and rent an airplane on my own to practice.  No passengers are allowed, and I am restricted to flying from our airport (BED, in Bedford MA), and no further than 25 miles away.  After I fly with the instructor to other places, he can endorse me to other airports.  It's nice to fly solo because I don't need to work around the instructor's schedule, and it is cheaper to pay for the plane and not the instructor as well.

The next focus will be on "cross-country" flights.  A cross-country flight is simply a flight from one airport to another more than 50 nautical miles away.  This phase of training builds on the challenge of controlling the airplane, adding the tasks of preflight planning and in-flight navigation.  Before the flight you must do a detailed review of the weather conditions, identify landmarks to navigate by, and create a plan including gas usage and expected arrival times based on the wind conditions and aircraft performance.  During the flight, you need to follow the plan and make adjustments to changes in the conditions.  The first trip I am to plan is from Bedford MA to Sanford ME (65 nm away, just west of Kennebunkport).  Due to the weather last week and my instructor's schedule, that trip will not happen until almost two weeks from now.  So in the meantime, I'll just be practicing the basic maneuvers.  Much of the trip planning cannot be done until just before the trip, since it entails using weather reports and forecasts.

The remaining FAA requirements I have to fulfill before taking the practical test are:

• 3 hours cross-country flights with instructor
• 
  5 hours solo cross-country flights (including one long flight with a leg of >100 miles)
• 3 hours flight at night with instructor (including 10 takeoff & landings, 1 cross-country)
• 3 hours instrument flight with instructor (student wears a hood to restrict vision to just the instruments)
• 3 hours preparation for the exam

The minimum number of hours of total flight before taking the test is 40, but I will be well above that.  I will likely be over 40 hours by the time I get to do the first flight to Sanford.  Ultimately what is important is learning how to be safe, and the more practice the better.  Also the learning process doesn't end with getting a license, so the number of hours before you are official is somewhat irrelevant.  I think we all can agree that we are better drivers now than when we got our driver's license!


Then what?  With a license, I could take a couple passengers for short jaunts in the area; think picnic lunch on Nantucket, dinner and an overnight stay in Bar Harbor or Niagra... But no family vacations yet because that would really require a bigger aircraft than I would be certified for.  I would like to continue training for other ratings:

• Complex Endorsement - allows you to fly planes with retractable landing gear and a constant speed propeller.  A constant speed prop is like a transmission on a car, as opposed to a fixed pitch prop that I fly with now, which is like a car with only one gear.  The constant speed prop adjusts the pitch of the propeller blades so the engine can run at one speed while the airplane flies faster or slower.
• High Performance Endorsement - allows you to fly planes with >200 horsepower.
• Instrument Rating - training for flying by reference to instruments; critical for safe (and legal) flight in clouds or limited visibility

Eventually it would be nice to have our own plane, or a share in one, but that is well ahead of what I'm ready for at this point.

Hiking and Cake for Aidan's 2nd Birthday

Aidan's birthday, October 12th, always lands around Columbus Day Weekend.  Jenna decided that we would keep the tradition started last year of hiking up Mt. Wachusett.  We took the most direct route you could this year. We just climbed up stone stairs. 

The weather was perfect for hiking.  The kids were good sports to get up early and hike.  We had to borrow sneakers for Marita because she didn't know we were hiking and my shoes are too small for her.  Sarai's feet are bigger than hers.  Luckily, Jenna wears the same size.

We took a small break on the way up. 

 

A hiker past us and offered to get a group shot.  Tobin was a great sport to hike this day.  His left eye was swollen shut.  I didn't know what was causing the eye pain and swelling.  He could look down, but sunlight hurt his eyes.  We were able to get an antibiotic drops for his eye.  It took several days to improve, but all is well now. 

Isaac had both kids at one point during the rest stop.  I thought it was good picture.  The green carrier was a gift given to Abram and I when we had Tobin by Jason Strayer.  It has served us well with all of our children and now Isaac is using it. 

Isaac and Sierra at the top of Mt. Wachusett.

Aidan enjoyed his banana snack while the group hung out at the top.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Here's one for the happy couple book.  A nice picture of us at the bottom.

Happy Birthday Aidan!  Jenna made three cakes.  Elmo was a GF cake.  I am amazed that even though it is chocolate and tastes great, no one dares to try it. 

As I tried to get this picture, Aidan was stealing a lick or two of frosting. 

The boy is Jenna's.  He loves chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

Rachel is sitting on her Great Grandpa's lap. 

Present time was great.  Isaac had sent out an email invite stating that Aidan's birthday was sponsored by Pixar, Disney and Lego.  I do believe that we all sponsored them!  He received many gifts within the Cars theme (his favorite movie now).  One gift he received that was not within this theme.  Marie found a great costume.  It was a horse.  The back legs are the kid's legs and the front ones plus body are attached with suspenders.  Aidan loved it! He ran around the house several times as the horse. 

Rachel looks very cool in the cowboy hat too!

It is wonderful that we get to see Aidan often and celebrate his birthday with him.