May, So Far...

Spring has been very late coming to our area.  A couple of weeks ago we still had snow on the ground, and although that is gone now, we have had cold temperatures and rainy days.  It has made attending all these sport events a true labor of love.

Wayne and teammates warm up for some events at the Twilight Meet at South Burlington High School.

Wayne clears 5'6" in the high jump.  

Here Cole runs the 100M. He seems to be leaning more towards the sprinting events lately.

At the Twilight Meet, Cole set a school record in the 800M with a time of 2:07. 

Wayne runs the 400. I will have to update this with his time.

Cole and friend, Grant Laclair.

At an after school meet at North Country, Wayne runs the 100M. Again, I will have to update with his time.

Cole is #1 in the state for Division III in the 400 with a time of 53.59, fastest by 2 seconds.

At the North Country meet, Wayne won the 800 by a looong margin.

This year he has tried a few new things such as javelin and shot put.

They won the 4x4 relay

Meanwhile, Heather and her Tar Heels AAU team went on an overnight trip to a Rutland/Castleton tournament. They thought they would meet up with some tougher teams, but they won every game they played, and won the tournament in their age division.

Here they are wearing their championship t-shirts.  The championship game was very close. They won 12-11, with one of the Lowell girls making a foul shot with 20 seconds left in the game. Heather said that during that game she had made a left handed lay up, and also made 2 foul shots that "swished."

One of the Lowell girls got special permission to invite the Tar Heels team to her school's semi formal spring dance, which was held in Paris, France.

A fun way to end a great season.  Now Heather is moving on to softball. Stay tuned.

More photos available here:

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipM8YxRp2pAO47VN_rsnTdHHQBSCeKEiXNu2g4o2

and also here:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMNFd3sq7nWIcT0T5qANqtzTcmPn3FUPP50ozhZYYUmeBAGvzuw58DUMmO1sPyY2Q?key=NGpyeE1iZWd6SjhiNmdGelNqdnBwZVoxRk1uQTFn

April

First thing in April, of course is Cole's birthday. He turned 15 this year. Can't believe it! We had lemon cake with lemon buttercream frosting with Grammie and Joanie.

We did not have 15 candles.

He got some gifts including a computer, a basketball, and lots of money from generous relatives!

Heather finished up the Jr. Hoops and Middle School seasons of basketball, only to start the AAU season.  AAU stands for Ameature Athletic Union.  The teams have nothing to do with school towns or districts. Heather's team is called the NEK Tar Heels (I have no idea why). They consist of 6 girls from Glover, 3 girls from Lowell, and 1 girl from Brownington.  They only lost a couple of games early in the season, before really coming together as a team. With some great coaching and a lot of really smart girls, they became one of the strongest teams in the area.

We had tournaments every weekend for almost 2 months - each time 2 games on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.  Easter weekend we only had Saturday games.

There were tournaments in Brownington, Lyndonville, the Lamoille area, and Barre/Montpelier area.

This is the gym where Heather broke her arm last year.  

The Tar Heels have the prettiest uniforms in the league.

Sometimes we had several hours between games, and were too far away to just go home in between. On this occasion, I took Heather and her friend Kelby to "Get Air,"an indoor trampoline park and then out to pizza.  It was an outing Heather had asked for back on her birthday.

We managed to squeeze in some egg decorating.

And had Easter breakfast.

Then Easter dinner at Joanie's.

Heather and Joanie continued their tradition of making place cards.  These are hand painted on little wooden tags.

More photos available here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nU3y3v1XuXsznDbZ8

Good-bye Patches

Ten days ago we had to say a sad good-bye to our dear friend Patches.  She was a sweet and friendly girl, always ready for a snuggle and eager for a meal.

She came into our lives one summer, 10 years ago, as a stray, lurking in the woods by the blackberry patch and chasing mice in the hayfield.  As summer turned to a chilly fall, she would nervously sneak into the garage to eat Spike's puppy chow.  She would never let anyone near her, and I warned the kids to not get too close, as we did not know her vaccination history.  One day, while she was in the garage, stealing Spike's food, I managed to get the garage door shut before she could run away.  She hid among the toys stacked along the wall, but I was able to reach in and run my hand along her back.  That was all it took, one friendly touch and she was in love with us for the rest of her life.  We checked with all the neighbors - no one was missing a cat, and our best guess was that she was one of the many barn cats from the old farm.  We got her checked out at the vet and lived happily together for the next decade.  Heather was so young when we adopted Patches that she doesn’t remember life without her. We will always remember what a sweet and friendly girl she was.

New England Indoor Track and Field Championships

On Friday morning we all headed down to Boston.  Wes and I dropped Heather off at Joanie's house for an overnighter before heading out, and Wayne and Cole traveled down in their coach's vehicle.  (Cole was allowed to choose a teammate to make the trip with him, and he chose Wayne.)Lake Region High School had paid for rooms for the coach and Wayne and Cole.  The school also paid for their gas and meals.  Cousin Emily had warned us that the Best Western we were all staying at was not the best area of town, but the hotel itself was fine.  I liked our rooms - they were comfy and clean.  The staff was great.

 Our view.

 Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, Wayne and Cole had some free time to explore with their coach.  The running events had originally been scheduled to begin at 11:30 Saturday, which meant Cole's 1000m race would have been at around 1:00.  Friday evening, event officials sent out a message that, due to a "storm" of 3-6 inches of snow, the entire event had been pushed back.  Running events would not begin until 4 o'clock.  Estimating that Cole would not run until 7, really threw a kink in our departure plans.  We didn't want to leave Joanie responsible for Heather and transporting her back and forth to her Newport basketball tournament.  Joanie and Heather were also dealing with our sick cat, the dog, and chickens.  Wes was concerned about plowing, if we were to get snow.  We were thinking we wouldn't be able to stay to see Cole race, which felt like a huge waste of time and money, to go down there for nothing.  

In the end, after hemming and hawing long enough, Wes and I did end up staying to see Cole's race.  There never was very much snow, and we knew a night drive back would not be too terrible.

Cole warms up.

 Waiting to enter the track for his race.

A race official shows some of the runners where the start line is.

Cole placed dead last in his race.  However, we have to consider that he was the only freshman in a race with mostly seniors.  He had qualified without even really training (Lake Region students do not have regular access to an indoor track, and winter running outside in VT is sketchy.) Also, he did better his Vermont State qualifying time. (I will try to update with times later after I verify with Cole)

We were really proud of Cole and glad we ended up staying to see the race.  We are also really thankful to Joanie for being so flexible and dealing with Heather and her basketball tournament, and all of our animals.

Heather is #15.  Peter and Jeanne also attended one of her games and Jeanne sent me this photo.  We got back to Joanies house at around 9:30 to pick her up.

 The Glover team took 2nd place in the Newport Rotary tournament.  She had 2 games on Sunday which we were able to watch.