First Snow on the Mountains

Overnight the temperature dropped from 86 to 46 for a daytime high. This was not an unexpected change; the weather report has been predicting it for several days.

There is always something exciting about the first snow of the season. I love sweater weather at the beginning of the season. In fact, I love every season at the beginning. Some seasons just out stay their welcome (namely Summer and Winter).

Will has a lacrosse game tomorrow evening. It will be the first cold weather game this fall ... and the last game they play this season. I guess I should be grateful for our extended summer weather that allowed me to enjoy so many of his games in comfort!

Bill's Saturday bike ride

Bill went on a 40 mile bike ride last Saturday. He filled the camera with 150 photos and videos of his adventure. The video above is of a couple of sheep dogs up in the mountain who came up to greet Bill (they turned out to be quite friendly). They were actually working dogs. There were no people out there, just the dogs, guarding the sheep.

There are too many photos to put on here, so here are a few of my favorites.

Back to the Gym again

It is amazing how much better I feel after just 30 minutes of doing something healthy!

The gym has been closed for the past week for the semi-annual cleaning and maintenance, and to install the bubble over the pool. The pool remains closed for at least another week because this year they are re-surfacing it! It sorely needed it, so I am thrilled!

Tonight I went to the weight room with Helena and worked on my arms. I fully expect to be sore for the next two days.

I really need to make sure I can get to the gym everyday, just so I can feel this good about myself on a daily basis. Even if it never does a thing to help me lose weight or get skinnier, I love feeling this way about myself.

'Virgin' fire

It was time for the first fire in the new patio fire pit! We invited Erik and Deanna and the boys, and Kirsten, Paul, and Tori over for S'mores tonight.

Since the fire pit was "virgin" this got dubbed the 'virgin fire'.

The evening was comfortably cool, making the fire welcome, but not necessary. Bill grilled all sorts of meats and veggies on the grill, while the fire in the pit settled down into marshmallow roasting embers. When it got dark enough, the kids each got several glow sticks to play with. I think everyone enjoyed the evening.

I am very happy with my back yard!

Parent/Teacher conferences at the High School

This was our first experience of P/T conferences at the high school level.

The building was really very quiet! At the Jr. High, there are usually small flocks of teenagers running around together, goofing around and being obnoxious.

The lines were small! Again, at the Jr. High, sometimes the lines can be painfully long and slow. To be honest, some of the 'small' lines at the H.S. were still fairly slow... but that is probably because the grades are so much more critical that the teacher takes great care to go over everything that needs to happen to raise them.

The teachers were very direct. Helena was able to come with us for the first time since 6th grade because she no longer has ballet preventing her. Every teacher directed his/her comments to Helena rather than to Bill and me. I liked that. I got to sit back and watch her interact with them.

There was a parent meeting in the orchestra room after the conferences. The meeting was to go over an orchestra tour that will be happening in April. It will be a 3 day trip to St. George/Zion's National Monument/Las Vegas. The Las Vegas portion of the trip is where they will perform in festival and they will get to attend the off Broadway Lion King performing at Mandalay Bay.

Helena is actually excited to get to go on tour this year (again, ballet always prevented it in the past). The orchestra is planning a trip to Boston next year, so she might let herself be convinced to play her violin for another year in order to go on that tour!

Evening photo

I took this shot this evening in my back yard. I couldn't resist it, but I wish I had a tripod (and that I had a better camera on me at the moment than my cell phone) so that the moon would have shown up better. Ah well. It is still a pretty shot!

Conversations with Will

Will had 8 am lacrosse this morning. I do not like getting up early (meaning the regular time) on Saturdays. Saturdays are meant for sleeping in!

Anyway, after lacrosse, Will and I stopped at Carl's Jr. for an early lunch and chatted for a while. I asked him what his current goals were for where he wants his life to take him and his ready response surprised me! I had expected an "I don't know", really. But, in fact, he has some ideas!

He said he wants to go to Syracuse University in NYC because they have the best lacrosse team in the nation. He said he wants to keep playing his baritone (even in high school) so that he can get a scholarship from it to attend. -On a side note, his band teachers have pointed out that few people play that instrument, so scholarships are ridiculously easy to come by and don't require that you major in music or have a killer GPA. It apparently made a strong impression on him. By the way, Will was awarded first chair euphonium (baritone) over the other boy who is a 9th grader! We are very proud of him!

He also said he wants to be an underwater welder for a living! He says welding is lots of fun, the underwater part sounds like a great adventure, and he knows they make REALLY good money because it is a dangerous and narrow field of work.

I pointed out to him that I am not so sure there is an university degree in underwater welding. However, there is nothing wrong with getting a degree in something else, then working as an underwater welder anyway if that is what he wants to do! I suggested he look into some welding classes at the local applied tech. college for next summer and get back to me. I also told him he should look into scuba certification and let me know about that. And, of course, he should keep taking all kinds of different classes in school to see if something else sparks for him since he is only 13 and still has lots of time to make these kind of decisions!

To be honest, I could easily look up the welding and the scuba, but I want to see just how serious he is about it. I reminded him that starting this summer he would be in 9th grade, which is a high school grade. I told him that high school students can take courses at the tech college tuition free and that I would pay the lab fees if he wants to do it. We will wait and see if he means it! If he does follow through with the welding part of it and completes some training in welding, I'd be willing to follow it up with paying for scuba certification, too!

What a treasure of a kid! I love that he has some firm ideas about where he wants to go in life!

D epic

I won't tell you what D stands for, other than to tell you it is an unsavory word to describe the people who chose to go on this adventure.

Bill and 5 other guys rode their mountain bikes up and over several mountain passes from Alta to Park City. It was a 53 mile journey! He had a great time and came home none the worse for wear with a camera filled with images of the guys he rode with and the incredible mountain views. Now the guys (Utah Mountain Biker's Association) want him to join them on a 24 hour ride in October.

I think he is crazy! But in a good way.

Patriot Day

That morning 8 years ago I was getting ready for work when Bill called me and told me to turn on the TV. I turned it on just in time to see the first tower fall. The kids were too young to understand what was happening, they were just upset because mommy was crying and they didn't know why.

The attacks did not effect me personally. I was thousands of miles away. Everyone I knew was safe. But none of us felt safe that day.

I went to work in a fog. All the teachers and older students were traumatized, but the little kids knew little of what had transpired and we kept it that way. What do you say to a 6 year old that they could understand without traumatizing them needlessly? The TV in the media center ran news all day, but the classrooms were shockingly normal.

I remember how quiet the skies were. You don't realize how much background noise is created by airplane traffic until there is none.

What can be said about that horrible day? I like to dwell on the hero stories that emerged. The firefighters who went up. The ordinary people who fought back. The many big and small stories of sacrifice and service. The unity of a nation. I miss that. How sad that it takes tragedy to unite us.

For several years after we held assemblies on this day to remember the lives lost and the bravery shown that day. The assemblies slowly transformed to honoring our firefighters, policemen, and military personnel.

Now? There is no assembly. There is no mention. I teach 1st through 3 grade students this term. Most of them were born post 9/11. The rest were infants then. They know there is something significant about this day, but there is no deep scar associated with it. Do we dredge it up? To we try to instill our scars, our burning memory on a new generation? It did unite us, but will second hand memories ever unite them? No. This is something that belongs to us, just as Pearl Harbor belonged to our grandparents.

"Publish and be damned"

When a blackmailer tried to extort money from the first Duke of Wellington to cover up a disreputable aspect of his past, the duke's response was: "Publish, and be damned." He had enough confidence in himself not to be swayed by this threat to his good name. Sure

enough, his reputation remained unsullied, and indeed he won respect for allowing the story to be known. He knew the blackmailer lives off fear, and if one shows no fear, a blackmailer is powerless.

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The subjects of blackmail and hate mail have been bounced around a lot at the manor lately. There is something to be said for standing up for what you know is right, as in the wise words of Thoreau, "For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself".

This is a posting from another blog that I really enjoyed and decided to re-post on my blog. The original author is Willow from Willow Manor.

Neighborhood impressions

Walking to the gym
Warm, gentle breezes
Friendly greetings from neighbors passing by
Just a few die hard swimmers for the life guards to watch
Screaming and cheering parents at the evening soccer game
Pint sized all stars chase a ball half their size

Walking home after a workout
Soccer still in full swing
A whole field full of all American memories
Gently dancing trees silhouetted against a blushing evening sky
Quiet and peace for an evening walk home
Feeling alive and connected to my world

Spark People

I have been using an online nutrition and fitness tracker for a couple of weeks now. It helps me to be aware of what I am (and am not) putting in my body. It also helps motivate me to get to the gym and to (sometimes) eat healthier. It is good to see how many calories I have already had in the day so that I know what I can or can't eat in the evenings. I try to make sure there is room in the calories for a treat every day... usually an icee.

It is called Spark People and can be found at http://www.sparkpeople.com.

It is completely free and can be used either as an aide to healthy living or as a weight loss tool. I bet you can guess how I am using it!

I haven't lost any weight, yet. I only weigh in once a week and measure in once a month. The measurements are more important to me, so I hope to see an improvement there in a couple of weeks!

Naming trends

Over the years, I have seen names come and go in popularity. Sometimes there are upwards of 3 kids with the same first name in each class!

Apparently, Caitlin (or Kaitlin, Caitlyn, Katelyn, etc.) was quite popular about 20 years ago.

Avery was very popular 8-10 years ago. Most of them are spelled traditionally, but I do have an Avri (poor kid). Why do parents do that?! Cursing their kid to correct every schumck who can't figure out how to pronounce it (like me).

In fact, there are plenty of idiot parents out there who choose a common name and torture it into such imaginative spellings that it is no longer recognizable and the poor kid has to defend the pronunciation to all and sundry. It is almost a relief to get a student with an unusual name rather than a common name with a dumb spelling!

Family Photos 2009

Here are the family portraits! We haven't had them done in a long time so we got them done last month. I think they look great!

September the First

To me, today is the first day of Fall.

I know that Autumn officially happens in three weeks. It doesn't matter. My mind categorizes by months. June, July, and August are summer. September, October, and November are Fall.

So today is the first day!

Funny. It still feels like summer. Go figure.

Will is sick. He has that flushed and glassy eyed look of a kid running a fever. I haven't checked it, yet, because he is currently sleeping curled up on the family room sofa and I don't want to disturb him.

Poor guy. Come to think of it, I could use a nap, too!