Sunday, October 11, 2009
What's going on at Chez Phelps?
We are going to dinner at a neighbor's house around the corner. At Eva's request, I baked a yummy chocolate cake (I hope it's going to be yummy) and at my request, I made some hot ginger cookies. I must have eaten 6 or 7 of these already. We are also in full Halloween swing. We have a family costume again, the theme of which I will not divulge yet but here's a hint....Eva is going to be Wendy's. See her costume in progress!
Six Flags Roller Coaster Photos
Will and I made a short pilgrimage to Six Flags Great America today, to use the season passes we were levered into purchasing on our last visit. I have to say that with Six Flags only 30min from our house, and practically no lines because it is off season, this is an easy ~3hr excursion.
On the last trip I used my iPhone to take some photos. This time I used my Canon G10 configured for 'point and shoot' (preset focus and aperture set for maximum depth of field). This worked great and all the photos were good from a focus and exposure perspective. However, the composition was not up to my mental aspiration. I had the camera strap threaded through my belt so if the camera flew out of my hands on a roller coaster it would not go anywhere. Unfortunately this meant I could only get the camera about a foot from my body, and there were some great shots I missed because I could not hold the camera over my head. I also need to back the shutter speed off a little to show more of the motion in some of the shots. Oh well, we do have season passes, and they are open Saturdays and Sundays through 11/1.
Because the lines were so short (almost non-existent) we were able to get the front seats in the front car on most of our rides. I have to say, this is eerie, especially on Super Man, which is the highest roller coaster at Six Flags. As Will put it, when you start down the main hill, it feels 'more than straight down'. Because I could not get the camera high enough, I could not effectively capture the sensation of vertical drop, but in the front car with nothing at all in front of you it was intense. This video on YouTube gives a pretty good sense of what the ride is like in the front car.
Six Flags ... again
Will and I are off for a short visit to Six Flags. Goal today is front seat rides on as many rollercoasters as possible in 90 minutes.
Sent from my iPhone
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Earth Treks FBS Climbing Competition
Eva had a great time at today's Friction Bouldering Series / American Bouldering Series Competition at Earth Treks in Rockville. She and her friends from SportRock climbed really hard. I do think the Hershey's bar, Reese's cups, Gatorade and Pepsi that Eva consumed must have had something to her 1st Place finish in her age group. Eva has a couple of more competitions in October and November (Philly, Timonium) and then will hopefully go to a regional event in New Jersey. She loves climbing and her level of intensity this year was a big step up from when she started competing a year ago.
The climbing is great exercise, physical and mental. Eva's strength has improved, and the (many) moves that require her to hang from one arm have become manageable. Mentally she has also progressed, and she has the confidence for the (also many) moves that require dynamic climbing, or dynoing where she basically needs to leap from one position to another. Eva has given up gymnastics to focus on climbing, but I think her years of gymnastics training did help prepare her for many of the moves in climbing.
Eva's climbing coach Jason is excellent, has really inspired her to push herself.
Blue Ribbon!
Eva has been doing competitive rock climbing for almost exactly a year. Today she won her first blue ribbon for her age group. Eva has worked very hard on developing her climbing skill and it showed today. She finished routes I would not have believed she could do if I was not there to see her. Eva's coach Jason is excellent and had done a great job encouraging Eva to push herself.
Sent from my iPhone
Bouldering Competition
Eva is competing today in the Friction Bouldering Series event at EarthTrek in Rockville. So far she is doing great!
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, October 05, 2009
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Apple Season
Old Town has one of the oldest weekly farmers markets in the US. The market occurs every Saturday morning and we try to go each week to stock up on fruit and veg.
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Williams Selyem 2005 Chardonnay
This was delicious wine. Really nice balance of aromatic and mineral notes. Drinking wine this good makes we want to just close my eyes and let the flavor flow over my mind.
Sent from my iPhone
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Crew Weekend at Mowglis
I am way behind in posting camp photos for Will. I have a whole slew of photos and video from Parents' Weekend still sitting in my laptop, unshared. Mowglis continues to post tons of photos from camp activities on their website and Bill and I check periodically to see what Will is up to and whether he looks like he's having fun. He hasn't written asking to come home in two weeks (well, there is still today for me to receive a letter but knock wood it is a happy letter).So in these camp photos, I have seen the boys rowing, sailing, swimming, racing and generally having fun in the lake. They made a sweat lodge, had an additional field day and prepared for crew races this past weekend, red vs. blue teams. This preparation included painting the team banner, painting themselves with war paint and a building big bonfire. Will will have to tell me more when I see him but it certainly looks like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys having a great adventure.
I think that is Will with the hatchet in the center of the picture. It is hard to tell...one way we recognize Will in the camp photos is by his bathing suit or his tan crocs. Since he is wearing neither, it is hard to be sure, but this boy does look like he is having fun. I go up this weekend to bring Will home and I can't wait!
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Eva goes to Camp
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The other building here is the infirmary, where you Limp In and Leap Out.
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Camp Arcadia is located on Pleasant Lake. Doesn't it look Pleasant? It was but it was also "freeeeeeeesing!" (to quote Eva).
Happy Birthday Eva and Bill
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Bill got lots of chocolate for his birthday, most of which wasn't Eva-safe (fortunately for Bill and unfortunately for Eva). The little shop down the street, Grape and Bean, is a regular stop for birthday and other shopping. We are there regularly for bread and wine and coffee and the yummiest ginger ale ever. Their chocolate is a special treat!
Check out Eva in her new sunbonnet! She outgrew the little pink one (now Lyra's hat) long ago and pined for another.
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We had a nice family birthday out in the garden. Eva got lots of books for her birthday, a journal from Aunt Edie, a jewelry chest and a sewing basket. Eva has learned to embroider and I'm teaching her to sew on our new sewing machine. Eva is in heaven!
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Am woefully behind!
You would think, with Will and Eva at camp, that I would gave posted all kinds of photos and updates out here. But NoooOOOOOOooo I cannot seem to get to it! I think it is because Will and Eva aren't here to play with Lyra while I make the updates. So here's the quick scoop and I will post photos soon.
Eva turned 9 and had a fun birthday party tie-dying t-shirts with her friends. Bill turned, well nevermind, but he had a fun party with family.
I took Eva to Camp Arcadia in Maine about a week and a half ago and it poured down rain the day we flew up but it cleared up for move in day. She wrote a bunch of sad letters home right after getting there but I spoke with the camp and they said she is having a lot of fun and doing great! She did write to a friend and say she was having fun, so it must be true! Eva comes home mid-July.
Bill to Will to Camp Mowglis last Saturday and that was somewhat more involved since Will originally didn't want to go. He had gotten himself pretty excited until it came time to leave for the airport. But Bill said after Will got settled in at camp, he was fine for Bill to leave. I talked with Will's swimming instructor and she said Will is having a lot of fun and is making friends with the other boys. They have an all day hike coming up and a gathering with a nearby girls' camp. Can't wait to hear about that since one of the reasons Will decided he was excited about camp was that there wouldn't be any girls. The boys are required to write home on Sundays if they want to eat lunch so I should be hearing from Will next week. HE comes home mid-August but we are all going to visit him when we go to pick up Eva.
Lyra and I are having fun at the pool, playground, and reading books that are for HER and not the big kids. Swim lessons went well last week vut not this week. Lyra misses Will and Eva but she may have a hard time when they come back.
More later!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Day One at Mowglis
Will began his summer at Mowglis today. Mowglis is a traditional New England boys' camp, with an emphasis on hiking. It is also traditional in the sense that the camp session lasts seven weeks to allow the boys time to really get to know each other and experience camp culture to the fullest. The smile in this photo is a bit misleading. Will is actually pretty apprehensive about being at camp for so long (ok, to be blunt, he hid in a closet in the attic this morning in the hopes of not having to go). After seeing the camp, on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire, Will was somewhat more positive. The people we met were wonderful, and Will is very adaptable. We are all hoping that Will makes lots of friends at camp and transitions quickly from being homesick to enjoying his summer community.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Get your tongue off the pole!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Wills Plastic Surgery on Baby
(That was from Will. Isn't this creepy??)
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Eva's Gymnastics Meet
Here's Eva's floor routine from her meet last night. She has worked very hard all year and recently just got her roundoff back handspring! That was something I never learned to do.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Waikiki
I ended up last week with an almost last minute client trip to Hawaii. I arrived late Thursday and left mid-day Saturday, but I did get a few hours Saturday morning to explore. This is Waikiki beach. One of the cab drivers told me it is all fake - it was originally marsh land that was filled in with sand from Australia. Even if true, the result is a really beautiful beach. I am not normally a fan of highly developed beach resorts, but I liked this spot.
KCC Farmers Market
What to do when stuck in a strange city on Saturday morning? Google 'Farmers Market'. This is the KCC Farmers Market at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu. The selection was wonderful, but I did not think local tomatoes, pineapple, orchids or other goodies would survive a ten hour plane ride back to Virginia. I did get half a pound of Maui coffee beans and four different varieties of local honey.
Yard House
I stopped for one pint of the local IPA at the Yard House restaurant on Lewers Street in Waikiki. It is a Western US chain that claims to have the largest selection of beer on draft in the US. They certainly had an impressive selection of taps, but I don't trust myself with the tall glasses that are their namesake.
LIVE FIRE!
I just find this billboard, which was common in Waikiki, to be bizarre. My understanding is that with strict gun control laws at home, many Japanese take the opportunity of visiting the US to try out shooting. I get that.
But advertising for the lady in the lace blouse who want to take a break from shopping at Hermes and Cartier to try out the high-tech pistol with the laser sight? I guess this is just a niche market I don't appreciate.
I am also not certain I want to go shooting anywhere that welcomes children.
Monday, May 18, 2009
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Sunday, May 03, 2009
Happy Birthday Will!
I have had a lot of trouble getting birthday parties together for the kids. Will takes care of this by planning his own. To celebrate turning 11, Will decided he wanted to have Capture the Flag birthday at the park complete with nerf guns and general mayhem. He drafted rules (since there are lots of variations in this game) and drew a map of the park for his friends to see in advance. We had a total of 12 children (though Eva wasn't there the whole time). Great fun was had by all despite the foul weather. It was about 60 degrees and rained lightly through the whole game. The advantage of this was that no one else was at the park so the boys did not run roughshod over any children, small or otherwise. I think the red team was the overall winner. We trekked back to the house for cake.
Now I have to figure out Eva's birthday....her plans are often more elaborate and, as a result, don't come to fruition as frequently.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Preschool Art Chair: Before and After
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As room parent in Lyra's class, it was my responsibility to have the children decorate a piece of furniture to be auctioned off at the school Gala. EEK. This is the sort of thing that causes parents to all of a sudden become very busy at work and home with other things. It fills so many parents with dread that the school even hired an artist to help out painting special backgrounds etc. if room parents needed extra help.
We had to pick the chair color last fall from a selection of very pale and plain colors. I ordered a cream colored on (it's wasn't as green it looks in the picture) but it was pretty darn BLAH. There was no option to have a black or dark brown chair, either of which would have been really cool foil for some bright colors. I did not want to have to repaint the whole thing and was struggling with what to have the children do that would really be their work but still look pretty. The children are all 2 years old or just turned 3, so any sort of "representational art" project would be very difficult.
Fortunately, a couple of parents in Lyra's class offered to help out and one of them had the idea of having the children sponge paint the chair. This was BRILLIANT because a freeform project like this would allow the kids to really paint the chair themselves but the result would still be something you'd want to have in your home.
I traced Lyra's hand and my hand, shrunk it down to 2/3 the size on the copier and traced them onto contact paper so we would have handprints left on the chair when the painting was done. That turned out to be a good use of the very boring color of the chair. I wrote everyone's name in a handprint using a ultrafine blue sharpie.
It's CUTE! (Though I wish I had better handwriting) I hope it raises a good amount of money for the school. The next piece of furniture I paint will be for our family and not on anyone's deadline but my own. I'd say I wouldn't do this again but I want to use up all the paint and polyurethane we have leftover. Plus the kids are fired up to do their own project now.
Every time I do something like this, I am struck by how weird our society is about art. So many say the are not creative or "artsy craftsy." Sometimes it seems there is the perception that only special and gifted people can create art. Sometimes I get the sense that people feel art and craftwork are valuable or important ways of spending time. Either way it is sad that so many people feel they are not creative or that creative activities are not an important way to spend time. Who didn't love doing this stuff growing up? That makes no sense to me. One of the best things about having kids is it has given me the opportunity to go back to the creative and art activities I loved as a child.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Spring Piano
It feels like Will just had a piano recital but this weekend, he had another one. Will played a short piece by Haydn (Sonatina in C Major, H. XVI No. 7).
I wish I could have recorded some of the other students but Lyra was a handful and I had to take her out. I listened to most of the recital from outside the door and from downstairs in the reception hall. Bill was attending a school event and not able to help me out. There was some beautiful music going on, Mendelssohn, a fantastic Sonata by Prokofiev and a Beethoven Concerto. One little boy played Schumann's Fantasy Dance. This is a piece I once played in a recital, although I was quite a bit older...He is 8 and I was probably 12.
I think there is one more recital before we break for summer. Stay tuned!
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