Rachel's Fans at Basketball

Rachel played travel basketball this winter season.   She played basketball last year and didn't think she wanted to try out for it this year until her closest friend, Teresa, asked her to attend a tryout with her.  They made the same team and Rachel realized she loves basketball and is very good. 

Her games were played on Sundays. 
Last year she chose the number 23 which is the inverse of Sarai's number 32.

Rachel is a fantastic player.  She is able to steal the ball often and make fast breaks as pictured here.

I always enjoy watching her lay-ups.  Yes, this picture of the hoop looks odd.  At 5th grade they lower the hoops to 8 1/2 feet.  At this gym they cannot lower the hoops so they hung another hoop from the rim of the 10 foot hoop.  It was a bit difficult to adjust, but they managed.

Here is Rachel with Teresa and her game coach, Alex.  Alex lives across the street from us and is a senior like Tobin.

Rachel asked her siblings to come to see her games, but only Carmen made it before February vacation week.  Everyone was free at the end of vacation and planned to see one of her last games. 

Sarai made this sign for Rachel for the game.  Each letter is on a 8 1/2 x 11 construction paper.  She now displays it on her closet doors.

Here you see her cheerleaders! Bill, Sarai, Tobin and Carmne. Abram and I were there too, but since I'm taking the picture I just featured the kids.  Each time Rachel had the ball, cherrs of encouragement errupted from the bench. Everyone was laughing with joy, especially Rachel, during this game. They certainly tried to make up for all the games they missed. 

Rachel is good at looking up and finding open players.

She also will take the ball and control it and keep it from the defending team while moving it to an open player.

Was was a head taller than the players on the opposing team!

Sweet lay-up!

Rachel loves her team.  They have fun and have worked hard to earn their place as 3rd in their league.  tomorrow is the last game of the season with playoffs next week.  It has been great to be coached by the senior captain of the High School varsity basketball team Remy and Alex an experienced senior who lead them to many wins in games. 

Thanks to all who have helped to cheer on this team! 

Sarai at the Winter Ball

A few weeks ago, Sarai went to the winter ball with Bill McKenna.

Helping her get ready was an all girl affair. Carmen and I worked together to use the curling iron and make banana curls all over Sarai's head. Rachel was given the camera to document the progress.

This is the photo Sarai's calls her family photo:  her, Bill and Zori. 

I tried taking photos in different rooms to see which background was best. 

I prefer the kitchen curtains color as their backdrop color. 

Sarai's dress was simple, but looked great.  When we were shopping for dresses I picked this one out because of the great color.  She wasn't excited about it until she put it on.  She did take Bill shopping for a shirt and tie to make sure it complemented correctly. 

Many people have huge groups gathering at their house for pictures.  We went to one house, took this picture and left quickly.  Even though there were many people there, they did not know anyone there very well.  We did capture a good photo though.   She is wearing Toms shoes in this photo because the shoes she had planned to wear were at Michelle's house.  We are going there next.

This is Michelle, a good friend and someone Sarai has played basketball with for many years.  We drove to her house for more pictures.

Caroline and Sarai, with a Bill shadow on the left!

Liz Belden and Sarai

Sarai is in a Liz sandwich.  Liz Belden is on left and Liz Benbenick is on the right.

Michelle and her date and Sarai and Bill.

Winterball is held at the High School.  It is usually a fun time to dress up and dance with friends. 

Valentine's Day Hike

Abram and I celebrated Valentine's Day with a long hike.  The weekend before Valentine's Day, he had asked what I wanted to do.  Having dinner on a week night when most places are already booked did not seem fun to me.  I'd rather be active, so I suggested hiking.

We often do a long hike up Mt. Wachusett starting at the Audubon Society.  I wanted to do a different hike this time.  Abram had taken the day off on Thurs to spend the day with me; that in of itself is a great gift!

The Midstate Trail goes north to south through the middle of Massachusetts.  It is broken up into several sections.  I wanted to begin at the Barre Falls because I'm intrigued by falls.

Here is the trail marker:

We began at the Barre Dam by 9:30am.  No one was there, it was so quiet and peaceful.

  After a short walk into the woods this was the sight that welcomed us:

A peaceful river flowing through the woods.  I'm glad there was little snow on the ground; although I have missed the snow this year.  I can imagine this river would be much fuller with a good amount of winter snow melt. 

Even though there wasn't any snow on the ground, there was ice in the river along the edges or near tree limbs in the water.

I was amazed that the river could be flowing quickly and still there's snow and ice forming. 

We crossed a bridge at one point.

Here was the sign on the bridge:

We walked for a good 4 and a half miles along the trail and then turned around to get back to the Barre Falls.  We climbed down a steep hill and set of stairs to see the Barre Falls and this view. 

I just love the icicles forming on the rock just above the water's edge. 

I learned a new game that day: Disc Golf. 

Here is a map for hole 4 showing you the path your flying disk should go and what par the hole is. 

This is what you are aiming to get the disks into. 

When I first saw the map on our way to begin the hike I thought it was showing a golf course.  Then when we returned back, a few hours later, people were playing around the falls.  It wasn't until I read the label on the metal hole that I learned about this sport.  By 1pm the Barre Falls had several teams of people around playing this game.  Barre Falls has an 18 hole course. 

Barre Falls is beautiful.  There is a lot of land to walk along.  They have picnic tables and a volleyball court.  I'm glad we discovered this place and had a peaceful hike together. 

Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Trip to Block Island

As I looked back on 2011s pictures I realized that I had uploaded photos to Face Book without doing anything for the blog.  I have quite a bit of catching up to do!

On September 30th, Abram flew me to Block Island for the day.  Here is a picture from the plane of the island.

I believe it was the first time I flew in the plane we have a partnership in.  Here's the Cesna 182 in the hanger.  This is the four passenger plane.  There is a six passenger plane in the partnership, but Abram needs more flying hours to fly that one with the family.

The cool thing is that we leave the car in the hanger while we fly. 

After landing in Block Island we began walking into town.  I noticed a hedge of hydrangea bushes.  I laughed seeing the one blue flower amongst all the purple ones.  Block island is small in quaint. 

In town we walked around and found some very interesting shops.  We were there off season so most of the restaurants were not open for lunch. 

We found Carmen's Closet

I loved the Peppered Cat.  Sarai is always calling me "Sassy Momma" and this picture reminded me of a sassy lady!  It was paired next the the Salty Dog. 

While we ate our lunch, which by the way was delicious, I saw the best tandem couple I've seen so far.  They had a special dog carrier for the bike!  The dog is on the back.  It jumped right in and road away with them. What a great way to travel together.

Abram ordered fish and chips.  The fish was huge.  It was almost two inches thick and four inches long. He had two huge pieces.  I had a lobster salad.  Getting sea food right from a pier store is the best!

After lunch we ventured off to find Abram's Farm.  I wasn't sure what we would see, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Abram's farm is a refuge for exotic animals.  Here is a lama.  They use the fur from their lamas to make yarn. 

There were several lemurs.



This is a tortoise.  He doesn't seem large until you read that he is under 5 years old.  He did seem fast for a tortoise.  Tortoises grow until they are 20.  This one was donated to Abram's farm from a tortoise reserve because he was going to be too big for them.  Can you imagine how large this animal will be after growing for another 15 years!  Wow!

This was one of the strangest animals I have learned about yet.  This is a Zedonk.  It is a cross between a zebra and a donkey.  This is becoming a new animal in different zoos.  It was peacefully hanging out with the lamas in the large fields they had.

There were red kangaroos, too. 

After finding Abram's farm we tried to find the fastest way to walk to a bike rental place.  Here is a photo of what walking/hiking is like with Abram.  According to the map we had this was a real trail.  It led us behind houses and into what seemed to be rental house's back yards.  I was thankful it was off season and most of these places seemed empty.  The "path" did lead us to the bike place.  We had our pick of bikes and off we were to bike the rest of the island. 

It was a beautiful day, a bit cool, but perfect for biking.  We did not bring sunscreen and both of us were a bit red by the end of the day. 

We found lighthouses

Fish out of water!  This was a cool sculpture sticking out of the water on one of the roads we biked. 

The man at the bike rental place recommended we find this beach.  It was secluded and beautiful.  I am always grateful when locals tell us of great finds and unique places to go.  It always add to our adventure.  There staircase down to the beach was steep.  Here's the view from up top.

I found my name, on a bike, at the bike rack at the top of the staircase.

We sat on some rocks near the base of the staircase.

This is the beach view. 

Just an amazing view and a beautiful day together!