Carmen and Soccer

On July 10th, Carmen and 5 other soccer teammates played at Gillette Stadium. It is called the Futbolito Tournament. The games are 4 v 4. It is fast and the fields are small. There were 16 fields set up on the football field.



Here team wore their indoor soccer shirts. It is hard to play these games because the space between fields is approximately 2-3 feet. Soccer balls from other games are constantly coming into your field. Carmen's team did much better this year. Carmen played in this tournament last year.



Carmen likes this field better than grass. She prefers the faster paced game.

We spent the late morning and all afternoon at Gillette. Each player is offered a ticket to the Revolution game that evening. We unfortunately could not stay. Carmen was going back to Holy Cross Sunday morning.

Carmen attended the Holy Cross soccer camp from July 11th until July 14th. She decided to sleep over at this camp. I don't have any picture of her at this camp. It is run differently than the basketball camp. We did see her play in scrimmages at night from 7-8. I forgot to take my good camera the last day of camp because it was lightly raining. She had a wonderful time and plans to go back again next year.

Kayaking in the Cape

Once the Leibigs left our house on Thurs morning (they were headed home to Minnesota, this time with Cora in the car), we head back down to the cape.


Friday July2nd, Chip, Tobin, Rachel, Abram and I went kayaking. It was fun and a bit frustrating. Tobin and I need to learn better techniques. Rachel rode in a double kayak with Abram. Chip was in a single and I was in a double with Tobin.

Here's Tobin



I took pictures when our adventure was almost over. Rachel had to make sure she was in the fastest kayak so she would finish the "ride" first. Abram said that she did most of the paddling. He was just steering.


Here's Chip




This is Tobin and me in our double kayak. Tobin and I were strong, but couldn't stay straight for long. As I prefaced myself, it was fun but frustrated. Abram thinks we traveled twice the distance because we were sailing in S formation. I've only Kayaked twice, this being number 2 and I don't know how to row a boat or paddle a canoe. I certainly would do it again.




As I was looking at pictures for this blog I realized that the following two pictures never made it into the two previous cape blogs. Many people were able to visit Sierra at the cape. She is sleeping in the wrap Marie gave Jenna. What a beautiful baby!


At the house we constantly saw rabbits hopping around. This bunny was in the back yard.


We had a wonderful time visiting lots of relatives and getting a chance to try new activities at the cape.

Summer Sport Camps

Sarai, Carmen and Rachel all attended Holy Cross's Basketball camp from July 5th until July 8th. The camp offers three options for attending: sleeping over, staying until 9pm or staying until 5pm. The camp began at 9am every morning. This was Sarai's third year attending; she decided to sleep over. Carmen and Rachel were new to the camp. Carmen stayed until 9 pm and Rachel left at 5. Yes, I sent three girls to the same camp and utilized all three options! Rachel was doing the camp with two friends; all of whom were leaving at 5pm. These two families helped me get Rachel home. I took their daughters and mine in the morning. It worked out nicely.


The Week of July 5th was terribly hot. We had two days when the air temperature was 98. It felt much warmer playing on the outdoor courts. Abram and I went for a bike ride on July 5th. Our bike computer has a thermometer feature. The warmest it read was 105! I am impressed that the girls played hard for each game while it was this hot. Each girl had two games a day. Sarai and Rachel had games at the same time. I would try to split myself between their games, not easy to do on a college campus. Carmen's games were right after. I was able to get a few pictures of them playing.

The camp is run by the head coach of Holy Cross's girls basketball, Coach Gibbons. It is a fantastic camp. All of my girls loved it. Their coaches all play college basketball. Carmen had a male coach and he was as entertaining as she is, perfect match. Sarai's coach was a high school basketball coach. I believe he coaches at Wachusett. The camp is huge, but well organized and run.

It was difficult to see both Rachel and Sarai's games as they happened at the same time. The camp uses the entire Holy Cross campus. Rachel often played in the hockey rink area and Sarai at the other end of campus in the field house. The other issue was that both girls played the same quarters. I tried to see one quarter of each girl's game. I also could only go to the morning games because Tobin was taking driver's ed that week and needed to be picked up at 3:30. Sarai and Rachel played at 10 and 3 each day.

Rachel's division was called the NIT. It was for grades 4-6. There is a small disadvantage for the shorter 4th graders playing against 6th graders that have gone through their growth spurt! Regardless, Rachel played hard and learned a lot.

This is Teresa, one of Rachel's friends that I carpooled with.



Carmen was in the NCAA. This is the largest group at the camp. It is just for grades 7 and 8, but they had as many teams as the younger group and older group combined! Many of Carmen's friends went to the camp too. She loves playing against them in scrimmages. Here she is playing against her friend Leanna.

I believe that she just stole the ball from Leanna. Carmen played spring AAU basketball with Leanna. Carmen was known and used to make steals. She still has it!

Making her fast break after another steal.


Sarai played in the WNBA. It is the group for high school students. Sarai was used as a point guard on her team. Her coach asked if she was trying out to be point guard on her high school team. This is not a position her Shrewsbury coaches use her in. I agree, she would make a good point guard. She is an unselfish player and can see plays and ways to pass the ball to make baskets.


During the camp there are times when you compete with your teammates for most free throws or outside shots. Sarai made the most free throws from her team when they began the contest. She progressed to the next round which was against the best free throw shooters from each team in the WNBA. She made that round too! So on the last day of the camp, in front of all the parents and campers, she competed for most free throws. She made 4 out of 8. The winner made 6, I believe. Even though she didn't win an award she was very happy. It was great to hear friends cheering her on as she made her shots.

After each shot the woman here would give her the ball to shoot again.


I love her form. She really squats down to use her legs in the shot. It works well for her.



The camp was great. Every girl came home tired, as they should, but happy to do it again.

Camp ended on Thurs afternoon. Carmen had one day to recover. She played soccer with a small team at Gillette Stadium on Saturday and then on Sunday morning she went back to Holy Cross. This time she was doing the soccer camp and now she slept over. Pictures from Gillette stadium coming soon.

Crazy Cat Lady

We adopted two adult cats on Tues!

I had announced that I was going to get a cat for my birthday a week ago. I do believe that everyone thought I was not serious. I had a vet appointment on Monday for yearly check-ups. I checked out the cats that were available for adoption. I fell in love with Marley, a 4 year old male and Rachel fell in love with Friday, a 1 1/2 year old female.

We went back on Tues to look and play with the cats more. I decided then to adopt them. Marley was the receptionist nephew's cat. She already has 6 cats and couldn't realistically take another. Marley is very friendly. he loves tummy rubs (more of a dog behavior), jumps on to high things and loves to open drawers. Friday is shy. She had been dropped off at the Cat Hospital on Good Friday, hence her name. She was getting upset at being in a cage since March. We came at the right time. Both cats are black and white.

Now for pictures:

This is Zori from Monday


Here is Marley sitting on my couch today. Marley slept with me all last night. He loves to cuddle.


Here is Friday. She hides under Rachel's bed and loves toys with feathers.

She ventured down stairs while we ate dinner tonight. She is still skittish, but I can tell all will be good very soon. It hasn't even been 24 hours and they are accepting each other very well.

Here's Cappi lying at the bricks while Marley was near by on the couch with me. I am so excited they are adjusting so quickly!

I had to keep both cats quarantined from Cappi and Zori for 24 hours. I couldn't wait that long. Wed morning I opened the doors of their rooms. Cappi had been curious but once he saw Marley, hissing began and low guttural sounds came from him, but that was it. By 5pm Marley was sitting on the couch next to me with Cappi sitting at the bricks near him and Zori across the room. All of them look at each other, but with out a single negative attitude.

I will keep you posted on their progress.

A Day with the Leibigs

We were blessed to see Mike and the kids the Thurs before everyone gathered for Chip and Marie's anniversary party. Mike drove from Minnesota to Boston without Cora! Amazing.

After the beach weekend, the Leibigs came to our house for two days.

During the morning hours of Wed, June 30th we went to the Worcester Armory Museum. It is the largest museum of armor in the US. We didn't see much of the museum because the play room was too cool and we spent a long time creating our own shields.

When we entered the play area Joey immediately climbed into the stocks.


Carmen seized the opportunity to dress him up in her choice of clothing. This area is filled with period dress clothing.


Here is Theresa in her knight outfit wearing a helmet. The "interactive" room had many different helmets to try on. It is amazing how heavy some of them were.


Julie loved using the castle and the figurines.


Here is a closer picture of her.



Rachel and Carmen used blocks to create their own castle.


Cora and Thomas are playing chess. There are several tables with either checkers or chess pieces on them to use.



Sarai and Rachel are using a table with checkers. Sarai and Tobin also played an intense game of checkers; I just didn't capture it.


In the center of the room is a large floor chess set. Theresa and Joey played chess with this board. Theresa had changed into another outfit for the game.


Joey modeling another example of a helmet. This helmet was incredibly heavy. I f you are wondering why Joey has white gloves on it is because anyone who handles a helmet needs to wear gloves to protect the metal from the oils on our skin.


More helmet time


We decided to leave the interactive room and create our own family crest on a cardboard shield. Behind Carmen and Rachel you can see black stencils. One wall was covered with different symbols used on shields and what they meant. There was a choice of shield color and that too had meaning. My girls had done this project in the past. This time they decided to have fun and pick symbols and colors based on taste rather than meaning. Here is the one that Carmen and Rachel created. We made veins for the dragon's wings and Carmen created silver twist marks for the unicorns horn.



Sarai is trying to fit four large creatures on her shield. You can also see more of the choices for symbols in the background.



After the museum we ventured to Jenna and Isaac's house for outside fun and dinner.

Jenna has hung a rope with a ball attached to a branch so Aidan can practice hitting. Julie loved doing this, but would get it stuck in the tree each time. Tobin graciously stayed with her and helped get the ball out of the tree. I actually heard Julie say that she liked seeing Tobin get the ball for her.

Tobin got a bit of Sierra time this night. He's becoming more comfortable holding her.


Joey also was able to hold Sierra. Thanks Cora for taking this picture.

It was great seeing the Leibigs. I hope they had fun with us too.

Cape Cod II

Warning, this blog will be long. I tried to capture the weekend of June 26th and 27th. We spent time on the beach; at a wonderful restaurant; swam in a hotel pool, over-whelmed the waitresses at dinner on Sunday and then took over Ben and Jerry's for ice cream. More happened, if you can believe that, but those are the moments captured in this blog.

Abram and I traveled back to West Yarmouth for the weekend of June 26th. Lots of time was spent on the beach.

Here are Ada and Donny. Glad to see Donny again; it had been 5 years.

You cannot have a beach weekend without making someone go in a hole! Nice job Rachel.

or some how shrinking Luke!

I tried to capture the feel on the beach. Sierra was a main attraction with many.

Here are more of the clan socializing

also many of the Dancy sisters collaborating on a cross-word puzzle

Here are some of the portrait pictures I took.

Thomas with his shovel.

Rachel burying herself


Marita and Thomas playing in the sand

Great smile Jacinta! She's missing a few teeth though.

The white hat club began this weekend. I couldn't resist. I love this picture.

We celebrated Chip and Marie's 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday evening. Here is a picture of everyone who attended.

I am very impressed that we were able to get everyone to smile for this picture. What a feat! I had said that food and drinks usually makes everyone happy. We certainly look it. 9 out of 10 children made it down for this weekend. We missed you Jacob! Nettie and Russ's family came and Marie's parents too. Happy Anniversary!

Jesse says it well: "Cheers"!

Marie took this nice picture of Theresa and Carmen.

Here are the seven sisters with guest appearance, Theresa.

I stole pictures from Marie. She was good at getting groups of people together. Here are Carmen, Joey and Leah.

A beautiful picture of Mike and Julie.

Jesse and Sarai. I do believe burnt orange was a common color.

Jacinta and Rachel

Rita and Joe Arcifa, Marie's parents. They celebrate their 65th anniversary this year!

Russ and Abram

Marita, Sophie and Nico

Nice picture of Marita, Zoe and Mira

Marie captured me and Zoe.

Max truly enjoyed holding Sierra

A bit of daddy time between Isaac and Aidan and Mike and Thomas.

I couldn't resist capturing Thomas using his knife in a unique manner!

Luke and Tobin (Tobin was given a choice of many pictures of him and Luke and he chose this one.)

Nettie and Dylan

Carmen, Sophie, Rachel and Nico

I love Sarai in this color.

Nice shades Aidan!

After dinner many of the kids went to the Sheraton to swim in the pool. Here are some of the fish that came: Carmen, Sophie, Nico, Jacinta, Rachel, Theresa, Joey, Thomas, Julie and Aidan and their dads.

Aidan loved using the ladder to climb up and down the stairs.

Thomas with his goggles

On Sunday we went out to eat. Marie captured Joey, Tobin and Sarai at the end of one table.

Last but not least ice cream at Ben and Jerry's. This is a great picture of Aidan and Isaac. No one else peaked through this cut out.

I do believe that everyone had a wonderful time together. We left Sunday evening, but would come back on Thurs for more fun and a chance to see Jacob.