Rachel's sleepover

While Abram and I were watching planes at Pease Airforce base, Rachel was at my mom's house in NH for the weekend. 

My mom has an above-ground pool. Rachel and Lawrence love swimming,even when the water is cold. They are good partners.  With glee, Rachel torchered Grandpa Lawrence with the squirt gun!

Rachel loves playing with all the animals my mother has in her house.  This is the tower of bears she created.  I do believe she rearranged them before she left on Sunday.

Rachel was a princess for a weekend. 

It was strange to not have many children that day.  Tobin was flying back from CO, Sarai was at volleyball tryouts and Rachel was in NH.  Carmen was with us for awhile. She did leave us to go to a soccer game in Gillette stadium.  August 28th was a foreshadowing of times to come.

Pease Airforce Base Trip

On August 28th Abram, Carmen and I went to Pease Air force Base airshow in Portsmouth, NH.  Isaac and Jenna and kids joined us.  To say it was impressive is an understatement. 

There were constant airshows with stunt planes.  Here you see two planes that look as if they are going to collide.

Then you see they turn and just miss each other!

Look carefully at the color pattern on the planes. The top side has a different pattern than the bottom side. Until I was showing these pictures to Abram I didn't realize that two of these planes are flying in formation upside down!

OK, more crazy stunts of flying upside down at amazing speeds! Five together with two upside down. I cannot imagine the pilots' stomachs.

Abram was in heaven looking into all the small planes. He also gave me great respect for the pilots in the air. It is cool to see them fly, but now that I have a husband who is learning to fly I learn more about how difficult these stunts are. To control a plane while it has stalled in the air, fly with others and dive straight to the ground is amazing. Not to mention flying upside down and spinning around. It is impressive and worthy of much respect.

I liked some of the wing designs of the fighter planes. Here are two of special interest.

What a huge plane.  It took 4 pictures to capture it all!

These propellers are huge!  I was impressed that they were all numbered.

I used Carmen as measuring stick. The wheels on these planes are impressive.

The next three pictures of a yellow biplane that I really liked.  On the first pass near the plane I saw it from afar and took this side shot of it.










Later we passed it again and I took 3 separate shots to create this one.  It is a beautiful plane.  Abram said that one thing that makes it special is that it is made of fabric. 














Abram asked me to take a picture of the wooden propeller.  This plane takes a bit of maintenance just to keep it looking good.

Here's a cute shot of Aidan and Isaac.  Aidan was trying to fix Isaac's hat.





























What a hot day it was!  Carmen sat on the ground several times.  So many people were camping out under the shadows of the plane wings.  It was amazing to see.

As we were leaving, two stunt planes made a smoke heart in the sky.  I thought it was appropriate to end this way.

Back to School

School began on August 31st for the kids.  I began on the 30th.  I am working at the same school as last year, Beal.  I am a teacher's assistant for two half day K sessions.  This year there are 24 kids in the morning session and 21 in the afternoon! The nice piece is that I only work Monday through Wednesdays.

Tobin is a junior this year!  I cannot believe it.  Tobin is an MVP.  This is a position given to upper class men who show freshman around the school and answer any of their questions.  The principal said that 200 applied for this position and only 100 received it.  Tobin's assigned freshman homeroom is right next to Sarai's. I believe the administration use these upperclassmen to create a smaller, friendlier atmosphere to our high school.

Sarai is a freshman. It is nice that Tobin and Sarai are in the same school.  She didn't want me to take her picture, but once I suggested she hug a cat I was given a huge smile.  She does love our cats!  Friday is here with her.

Carmen moved to a new school. She's at Oak.  This is our 7th and 8th grade school.  She is on 7green. 

Rachel is in 4th grade now.  This will be our last year at Spring St School.

The first week of school was incredibly hot. We had temperatures in the 90's. It is amazing that we all did well. It was very difficult for teachers to feel engaged not to mention the kids. I hope cooler air comes through this weekend.

Loreto 2010

While Tobin was in Colorado Sarai, Carmen, Rachel and I spent four days at Loreto camp.  I taught 7th grade.  Sarai helped out with the junior campers.  Any teacher could have their younger children in the junior camp.  Rachel was there. It was good to have Sarai and Rachel together.

Loreto is our parish's middle school CCD week.  The parish rents a boy scout camp in Bolton, Ma. For 12 years the weather has coorporated with us.  This year it was a different story.  Camp begins on Monday, but all students are to come on Sunday and take a swim test.  The kids are able to go swimming and boating while here.  It rained Sunday through Wednesday!  I actually turned purple on Monday! Thursday was beautiful.  We took this great picture of the group I co-taught on Thurs.  There were 12 kids in our group.

Each day began at 8:30 and ended at 4:30.  There were two specials such as swimming, boating, music or skits for the kids to do inbetween teaching times. 

Carmen and Taylor tried rowing on Tues.  They didn't get too far, but had fun.  Taylor is the daughter of Patty Kinnucane, the woman I co-taught with. 

Thursday we created a poster.  All the kids had fun doing this project.  It was a challenge to teach 12 kids about Jesus for 5 hours.  The curriculum times were broken up into three segments.  Candy was our way to keep them listening and participating. 

 


While it was raining we took shelter in the craft pavilion.  As you can see it was still out in the open. We had a tin roof over us but no walls to stop the wind.  Regardless of the weather we were able to get all te girls to smile for us.  Carmen and Taylor (top left) are from Shrewsbury.  The other girls are from Northboro.  We attend a Northboro parish.

Loreto was a good experience but also very draining. 

Tobin's Last Week Before his Colorado Trip

Tobin was preparing to go to Estes Park, CO for a running camp. Here are some of the things he did in preparation, most of them were fun!

Tobin had promised to re-stain the swing set over the summer. He began the project, with Rachel's help the weekend before he left.

The day was hot and we caught Rachel showering her sister with an elephant watering can.

Then came the hair cut. Tobin hasn't cut his hair since we gave him a buzz cut in Feb. He wanted to be lighter for CO.

Here is the full head of hair:

The mullet look:






Now the lighter Tobin!




As much as I love his curls his new look is growing on me. I do like the buzz look.


We ventured to Wallis Sands in NH on Friday the 20th. Carmen brought her friend Madelyn with us. We met up with Chip, Marie, Marita and a family friend Alex Pietravalle there. I am amazed that Rachel, Madelyn and Carmen went into the water. NH water is too cold for me.


Rachel brought her snorkel and goggles for the beach. She did use both of them too.





Slowly walking into the cool water.





That water has to be so cold, but some how they can go in and stay in for a bit. Rachel said to me that she didn't think that the water was too cold since some many people were in it! I told her they were just crazy NH people who liked not feeling their legs.




Trying to feel their legs.





They did come out for a bit to regain feeling in their legs. Rachel decided that goggles were good eye protection on land and in the sea.





Madelyn and Carmen turned Rachel into a mermaid. I do believe that Carmen got burried, but she has little patience and I didn't get a picture of her.





Madelyn was teaching Rachel to body surf. It is hard to do it with these small waves. I still cannot believe Rachel was in the water for so long. I was cold just standing at the water's edge taking these pictures. Yes, I really like warm water.





A boy shared his a starfish he caught with Rachel. There are rocks separating the public beach from the private areas. He found 4 starfish and some crabs among these rocks.





Here's Tobin the day before he leaves for CO. He has his trusty buddy with him. He was trying to finish some AP English homework on Huckleberry Finn. I don't think much was accomplished. I did use the beach trip to teach Tobin how to use the camera I was lending him for the trip. I am the one who takes 95% of the pictures and then the others are taken by his sisters.





Not sure who took this one of Marita, but I like it.






At 6am, on Saturday Aug 21st, we met 12 other cross country guys and two dads in the center of Shrewsbury. I told Tobin have fun and let your mom know you are still alive daily. He was great and sent me a text each day with something they did. I will post some of the pictures he took and information on how wonderful his trip was.



August flew by. This is just a snippet of how we spent our summer.

Summer Art

This summer began with several trips to the cape and continued by sport camps. Once those events ended we still had many things going on. The girls decided to create murals of themselves. I believe this project was inspired from a time several months ago when Marita and Sarai painted a huge poster of their names.

At my house Marita, Sarai, Carmen and Rachel traced each others' silhouettes on banner paper. Then they spent hours in the basement painting these banners.

This is Sarai's:

I like how Sarai used large areas of color on her person.

Here is Marita's:


I liked her mermaid looking legs.

and her heart

Carmen decided to use splatter paint effect at the end of her painting session.

I liked her name on her shirt.

She also decided to use crayon for her hair.

Rachel used the splatter paint method as well. I took these pictures While the paper was on the basement floor. The perspective is odd because I'm trying to capture the whole body.

We are still in the process of working out how we are hanging these pieces of art work.

Way back in December, Sarai was given a wall tattoo of her name. It only took 7 months, but we finally put it on her wall. Here's a picture of it. We jokingly say that now people will definitely know this room is Sarai's! For those of you who don't know, this blue is the color of her walls.



We also tie-dyed multiple times this summer. I have never tie-dyed until this winter when Carmen did a pair of white jeans. The girls wear their shirts all the time. Rachel actually had a shirt come out with a heart shape on the front of her shirt! We could not have done that if we planned it.

Rachel took another sewing class in August. She made a zebra printed messenger bag.

It completely lined with pockets sewn in.


She learned how to put on magnetic closures in the inside of the lining. I am impressed with her sewing abilities. She did all of this in less than 4 hours!

I believe her next project is her Halloween costume..

Jenna and I took a sewing class at the same place as Rachel. It was a class that was held over two Tues. We learned how to sew a quilted purse. They remind me of Vera Bradley, but I think ours are cooler.

I took these pictures with my iPhone sitting in the car waiting for take out. The purse is made of three main fabric pieces. One side has two panels of the bubble pattern and one of the flower.

While the other side has two panels of the flower material and one of the bubbles. Both sides have red pockets. The inside is lined, with magnetic closer and multiple pockets. The handles are made from the same main fabric from the outside.

Now we know how to make these wonderful purses. Both our mother's would like one! I think we have sewing projects to work on.