Eva's #ABS Bouldering Comp - 2nd Place Female Youth C

Eva moved up an age level in her bouldering competitions this year from Youth D to Youth C. She was very worried that being on the young end of a new group would make her non competitive. Today at least this concern was unfounded. She climbed stronger than ever, and had her personal best point total. She made several very difficult climbs that I know she could not have made at the end of last season. She has been doing a lot of strength training with her climbing team, and her increased power was really evident on several climbs today. The comp today was at the Philadelphia Rock Gym (#PRG) in Oaks, Pennsylvania. We prefer the other PRG gym, but I thought the routes today were very good. There were a lot of routes in Eva's skill zone, and they played to different strengths. I thought the judging was good, and the scoring at the end of the meet was quick.

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I am a dedicated mom for taking Lyra to run the Marine Corps fun run in the rain today.

Her CrossFit class ran the mile fun run together and it really was fun! It was seriously cold and wet but I cannot complain because there were lots of marines out there all morning cheering the kids on and I am sure they were colder and wetter.

Doncha just love Halloween?

These shrunken apple heads are part of Will's costume. He's a "shrunken head seller" and I am sure I will have pictures to post later. These heads are disgusting and I will be glad to throw them away although I do believe they will ensure that Will does not pair off at the class Halloween party.

Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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5 MInute Tough Mudder

Found this video of our event; this is pretty much it except there were a lot more hills than you see here!

Cathleen

www.givingfullcircle.org

www.thephelpsfamily.blogspot.com
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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Getting ready to run Tough Mudder!

Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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What does a cat do with five cases of Williams Selyem? #wine

Our cat Noelle has made this her favorite spot since the wine arrived yesterday. She has good taste.

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Beautiful day for a run! Army 10 starts in 20 minutes. HOOAH!

Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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CrossFit kids ran a mile!

Check out Lyra's friend, Kihm, who held her lead the whole way and finished in 9:53. Pretty awesome especially for a five year old coming straight from soccer. All these kids did great! No one quit.

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Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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Basement Renovation Commences (The Big Dig)

We have done several rounds of renovation on our urban townhouse, but none of them resulted in a proper casual family room. We also have had a minor but persistent water problem in our basement forever. The basement has been an obvious target to add some comfortable space to the house, but between the water, mildew and (barely) six foot ceiling we have always hesitated to do anything with it. With the three kids getting older, bigger and wanting more play space we decided to take the plunge and finish the basement. In addition to the family room, we hope to get some drier and cleaner storage space (though less of it) and a downstairs laundry area, freeing up the upstairs laundry to be a linen closet. After normal (for Old Town) permitting delays, work on the project started this week. The photo below shows the 'before' view of the basement and a couple of views of progress as of the end of the week. The before photo, is not REALLY before - it is after several weeks of Cath's hard work moving stuff out of the basement into off site storage. This week saw several days of demolition getting the old cabinets out, then digging. And jack hammering. The jack hammering was clearly audible in the attic, three floors up from the basement. The digging is expected to go on for EIGHT WEEKS, so we can go from a six foot ceiling to a standard eight foot ceiling. Our explorer cat Noelle has already investigated the new dirt piles and decided they make a fine place to sit.

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Can you believe Lyra likes this? It looks like pond water but

It is really Odwalla Superfood juice. I won't touch the stuff but Lyra and Will fight over it.

Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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LISTEN to what is going on in our basement!

The jack hammer is very busy today and I cannot believe the cats are putting up with this. Photos to follow. Which reminds me, I still owe "after" photos from our garden project.

Cathleen

www.givingfullcircle.org

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

Posted via email from Cathleen Phelps

HERE'S WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE ECONOMY... And Here's The Best Way To Fix It

Good Analysis

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-fix-the-economy-2011-10

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The things we do for love!

Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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The garden renovation is underway

And should be done soon if it would quit raining. We are very excited about our plan, more photos are coming. Unfortunately, poor KC is sad. At least we think he is. His favorite azalea bush was moved up behind the retaining wall and he now spends time sitting in the open, surveying his ruined garden. We hope he finds it homey when the new plants are in.

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Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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Magic!

We bought this apple peeler/slicer contraption at Williams Sonoma last spring after waffling about it for 20 years. You know what? It works! Even a five year old can do it as you can see in the video. I wasn't sure how such thin slices would work in the pie but it came out perfectly! Macintosh apples from the farmers' market and a lard crust helped too. Must make another one!

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Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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Love CrossFit Kids!

The coaches do a great job andorra is having a lot of fun. This circuit was preceded by a 400m run and I was too slow with the camera to get the kids all lying down on the floor to cool off. Tug of war is after this!

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Cathleen

www.phelpslore.wordpress.com
www.givingfullcircle.org
www.arlingtonchildrenschorus.org

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Old Beer is (sometimes) Good Beer

A long time ago (at least a couple years before my 13 year old son was born) I briefly tried my hand at home brewing. I made several batches of passable ale, trying to imitate lower alcohol, lower carbonation English Bitter. I enjoyed the process, but decided that like bread making and wine making, the craft breweries made much better beer and ale than I could achieve. I am also a purist, and was frustrated using malt syrup (or whatever it is called) rather than starting with the grain itself. However brewing starting with grain is a whole additional level of complexity. After a few batches, my brewing equipment was retired to the basement, along with a case of beer to drink 'later'. We are about to embark on a basement renovation, and needed to clean out the basement, so LATER has finally arrived. I expected to just pour out the beer, figuring it had become undrinkable, if not downright toxic. However, being curious I tried a few sips. Then a few more to be sure I was not fooling myself. The ale was not horrible. I would not have bought a second glass in a bar, but I would not have sent the first one back. It have a faint molasses flavor, not much fizz (as intended) and very mild hops. Overall it is refreshing and easy to drink, although kind of bland. I decided to clean up a six pack, and keep it around to drink. My daughters were nice enough to label the bottles, and the ale looks quite good in a proper glass!

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First Day of School - 2011

Will, Lyra, Eva Ready for Their First Day of the New School Year

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Funny Drink Names

We had a really fun weekend in Richmond with Mom, Dad, Frank and Family and Cherie and Family. Major parts of the weekend involved going out to dinner as a party of 9 children and 5 or 6 adults.  Apparently, during that time, Will has been studying the wine and beer lists in search of interesting literary observations.  Here is what he found:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Will Phelps ate: Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 8:51 PM
Subject: Funny Drink Names
To: Daddy
Cc: Mommy

I will start with the Chardonnay 

   Fat Bastard Chardonnay

   Naked Chardonnay

These are obviously funny but this one is just weird

    WONGO DONGO??? What?

These two are funny because of pronunciation

Hoegaarden pronounced Ho Garden I don't want to know what goes on in that garden!

And

Yuengling pronounced youngling A beer fully endorced by the Jedi council as the top alcoholic beverage for training padewans

These are just amusing

 High and Hell Watermellon

And

Bells 2 Hearted Ale

"Guinness Irish Stout, For the stout Irishman within us all".

I came up with all of this this weekend. And these are all real names.

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For you Broadway lovers, Will doing Book of Mormon

I was talking to some friends about Will's love of Broadway, so he recorded this demo in a restaurant mens' room to show them. You need to turn the sound up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVXqYDJxvUA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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