Apples

The apple trees are loaded.

 Last weekend, we picked a tubful and made apple cider.

 We used the food processor to grind them up a bit.

 Then they went into the press.

 Although there are a lot of apples, the rather dry summer means that they are not as juicy as they could be.

 Today we picked more apples. I made apple pie filling for the freezer.

 And Heather helped make apple sauce.

They house smells amazing.

More Soccer with a Dash of Cross Country

On Thursday, Cole's team played against St. Paul's.  They earned an early lead, but St. Paul's began to catch up in the second half. Luckily the game ended before they could tie it up, so Glover won.

 The Lake Region High School Cross Country coach invited a few middle school students from the OCSU district to form an LR middle school team and participate in an invitational meet at U32. Of course, Cole jumped at the chance, so this morning I drove him and his friends Caleb and Erika (repaying the favor when they rescued Cole and Heather from the tree-across-the-driveway incident) to Montpelier for the meet.

Cole and Caleb warm up before their race.

 True to form, Cole has his shirt on backwards.

 One-hundred-fifteen 7th and 8th grade boys ready to race 1.7 miles.  Cole was a little disappointed that it was such a short distance.

 Cole is to the far left of this photo.

 Finishing the 1.7 in 10:41

 The entire Lake Region Middle School Cross Country team. The little girl on the left is a 6th grader from Albany.

Fifteen

Well, 15 and the start of high school seems like quite a milestone, but I'm afraid Wayne's birthday was a pretty bland affair.  September 8th snuck up on us while we were trying to get back into the busy back-to-school routine, not to mention soccer games and practices coming at us in all directions.  

Cole had his first middle school soccer game against Barton and won.

He has also been invited to join a few other area students to form a Lake Region middle school cross country running team and attend one or two upcoming meets. He could practice with the LR high school team but that would conflict with soccer practice. (Luckily, the meets are on Saturdays and will not conflict with games.) I'm sure his summer running in Craftsbury has more than prepared him. He is very excited and feels honored to be invited.

Wayne requested Parker Pie pizza for his birthday dinner, so after all the soccer games and practices were over (Heather actually skipped her practice in honor of Wayne's 15th birthday) Joanie joined us for pizza, bringing her famous fruit salad.

Wayne requested this lemon cake with raspberry buttercream frosting and lemon curd filling. It took several days to make and more than one try on the lemon curd filling, after a scalding disaster with a double boiler, but it finally got done.  Mine doesn't look as pretty as the picture on the recipe website, but it tasted pretty good, I have to say.

Wayne is doing a stellar job in high school. He has only one study hall a week due to taking both band and a foreign language (yes, it's French!). He is enrolled in all honor level classes and has soccer practice every day after school.  I check Power School regularly and see that he is maintaining an easy A in all his classes.  He is eager to get his driving permit, which is a step I'm not sure I'm ready for.

Happy 15th Birthday Wayne. We love you so much and are so proud of the sweet, intelligent, honorable, hardworking, fun loving person you are growing up to be.

Random Notes

Here are a bunch of miscellaneous pictures that I found in my camera.  They are in no particular order.

The garden got off to a slow start, but ended up doing ok.

 Yesterday we went for a hike up Haystack Mountain. Wes even came along.

Heather has either a cold or allergies.

 Sunday evening, Wes started a fire for s'mores.

 Cole took his telescope outside and had a good view of Mars and Saturn. This is a screenshot from Google Skymap. We use the app to help us find the planets. Sorry it's sideways.

 Sandy and Edwin gave us a lot of tomatoes from their garden and I made some sauce.

 The pear tree is loaded with really nice pears.

A couple of weeks ago, Heather and I picked blueberries at a local pick-your-own place. 

We made muffins, but ate them before I could get a picture.

The New School Year

I forgot to take a first day of school photo. I also forgot to take a second or third day of school photo. Finally, on the 4th morning, I remembered, so here is the 4th day of school picture. Wayne began high school at Lake Region, so he is in 9th grade. Cole is in 7th grade, and Heather is in 4th grade.

Wayne's band uniform.

 Wayne's first high school soccer game - this is actually a scrimmage and they don't have their uniforms yet. I will take better photos with my real camera when the real season begins.

 Here is our tentative schedule for the upcoming week. Three kids on 3 different soccer teams. HELP!

One good thing: no piano lesson this week!