Christmas Music

In case you are NOT already in the holiday spirit, here is an abundance of Christmas music videos to take care of that problem!

Cole and Wayne recently had their middle school and high school winter concerts. 

 Cole is in the chorus, jazz band, and concert band.  He somehow manages to sing, seemingly without moving his mouth!

I got my videos out of order here. I meant to have a chorus video here, but looks like that's further down the line. (I'm not going to try to move it, because that usually causes everything to go haywire.)

Cole in the jazz band. You can't really see him because Miss Newton is right in front of him.

 Here he is in the concert band. Again, not a great view.

In high school, Wayne is given a nice outfit to wear. The boys wear dress shirt, vest, bow tie, and dress pants. The girls all wear the same long black dress.

Wayne has a jazzy trumpet solo here. Freshman are not usually invited to join the jazz band, and as you may notice, Wayne is the only trumpeter. (And I believe he is one of 2 trumpets in the concert band, which is open to all high school band members. 

Dr. Doncaster was happy to see Wayne come along after losing some trumpet players last year to graduation. The saxophone soloist here is also a freshman.  Dr. Doncaster gave credit to Amy Newton and Anna Kennedy for doing such a good job with the middle schoolers that these freshman were already prepared for the upper level jazz band. Quite an accomplishment considering middle school instrumental students have one 20 minute lesson each week.  (The jazz band rehearses for 90 minutes on Wednesday evenings.)

Wayne was acknowledged in the Chronicle.

Another piece by the jazz ensemble. The solo singer is the daughter of one of the preschool teachers where I work.

The bassoonist next to Wayne is his honors English teacher, Steve Tatum.

Wayne with the concert band.

Pete Corocos, who is always at the middle school concerts, also photographed the high school performance. After the show, he talked trumpet with Wayne and wants to help him play Taps.

I am curious to find out what songs Heather will be sing at her concert on the 20th, as they are no longer allowed to celebrate holidays.

Everyday Life

Not a lot going on these days, and that's probably a good thing. Soccer ended a couple of weeks ago, so the kids have had less after school commitments. Basketball begins after Thanksgiving break. As with soccer, we will have 3 kids on 3 different teams. 

Wes and Wayne have been doing a lot of hunting. With them away at camp, the deer are brave enough to venture right up to the apple tree in the back yard. 

 The apple tree was a hot spot for wildlife today.

Spike was attacked by another dog while we were out for a jog the other day.  He was pretty sore for a while and had to wear a cone to keep him from constantly licking his wounds.  Unfortunately, the width of the cone also took down a couple of side tables and coffee cups.

 Today was warm and beautiful. Heather, Cole, and I puttered around the forgotten garden and found several overgrown carrots.

I guess our biggest news lately, is that Wayne has acquired his driving learner's permit. This is what it looks like to have your 15-year-old driving you around...

 ...but this is what it feels like.

I'm not ready for this.

Youth Weekend

I don't know all the details, but Wayne and Wes spent Sunday afternoon of youth weekend hunting near the camp and this is the result! I will try to have Wayne write an update to this post at some point with "the story."

Meanwhile, we are looking forward to having only a 2 day school week. Sooooo happy about that!

First Snow of "Winter"

We woke up to white scenery this morning.

I'm not mentally prepared for this, but we're making the best of it.

Cross Country at Lamoille

Cole had another Cross Country meet today. This one was not so crazy big. It was drizzly and freezing cold. A sharp change from the pleasant and gentle autumn we have gotten used to.

Note that Harwood, front and center, had a very strong showing at the race. They had a lot of very fast runners. Bittersweet proof that life marches on, even after the tragic death of 5 teenagers. 

 The high school coach did describe it as one of the more challenging courses.  It was an even 2 mile course, rather than the normal 1.7 mile. There were a lot of steep hills, and it had rained so some of the hills were slippery and muddy.

 Here is Cole coming down the homestretch, looking strong. 

Cole came in 18th out of 78 runners with a time of 14.07, according to 802timing.com .

As far as we know, this is the last cross country meet for the middle school runners, but Cole and some friends are running the Kingdom Challenge 5k nest weekend in St. Johnsbury,

No Complaints

While some people are in the midst of a drought, we can't complain about the mild fall temperatures and the brilliant tree colors.

 Heather, Spike, and I went for a walk yesterday, to collect leaves.

 We used the leaves to make crayon leaf rubbings and watercolor painted over the crayon.

 Today, Heather decided to rake some leaves into a pile for leaf jumping.

Meanwhile, the chickadees are making a good meal of the sunflowers in the garden.

Thetford Woods Trail Run

Cole and friends banded together once again to form a make-shift Lake Region Middle School XC team for the 26th Annual Thetford Woods Trail Run invitational meet.

Alicia, from Albany, and Erica, Caleb's sister and Cole's classmate, warm up before their race.

Below, Cole waits in line for the bathroom.

From the Thetford Academy website:

 "The 26th annual Woods Trail Run will take place on Saturday, Oct. 1, from approximately 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We expect more than 2,000 middle and high school runners to join us from 100 schools in eight states, for an event that practically triples the population of the Town of Thetford." 

 I do believe that there were thousands of people present for the meet. We never even found the Lake Region High School team or their tent. The quote above mentions the 2000 runners, but then add in the parents, friends, and other family members. This was a big, big event.

 Cole was in the junior high boys race with a time of  11:12.62
I really liked their bib design. The picture was also on t-shirts that they were selling, but the price was a little too high for us.

 On the back of the bib is a timing/tracking chip. The announcer was constantly telling runners to NOT use their watches at the finish to check their time bcause the watches interfere with the tracking chip! Cole thinks they might still be tracking our whereabouts. You never know.

He came in 52 out of 180 runners. Not too bad for not really having a team or practices. He does a lot of running in soccer and those Craftsbury races all summer were good training.