Late pictures

These pictures were left over from various recent events. I haven't uploaded pictures in a while.

At left is Douglas giving a typical expression during one of Owen's baseball games.






Owen at a playground in North Davis.










Kids jumping





Super Owen! I made them Halloween costumes today. They want to be Super Owen and Super Douglas. Douglas's costume looks approximately the same except he has a red satin cape and "SD" on the felt apron thingy.



Dan helping Douglas do the monkey bars at the park.








Owen batting. If you look closely at this picture you can see the ball coming.




Douglas took this picture of me in the dugout.







Owen on the first day of school!






Kids having fun snuggling in a chair.

Circus

We went to the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus at Arco Arena yesterday. It was pretty over the top. The kids enjoyed it. It was the whole 9 yards - elephants, a tiger tamer, acrobats, tightrope walkers, someone being shot out of a cannon, clowns, people on stilts, trapeze artists, and all the rest of it. This morning Owen said, "We wanted there to be elephants jumping through a firing hoop, right Douglas?" Oh well, you can't have everything.

Owen pitched again on Saturday. He did reasonably well. There were quite a few balls, but he did manage to strike out the last kid.

He and one other boy are in the top reading group in their class (level 3; everyone else is level 1 or 2, whatever that means). He seems to be pleased about that. I don't think I would have told him that he was in the top one, but the mother of the other boy told them that today when she was in there reading with them.

I volunteered to be on the school Site Council, which is technically an elected position, but apparently no one else volunteered for it so I guess I will probably get it. They meet about 6 evenings a year and are responsible for making some funding decisions, etc.

Pacifica

I'm at a work retreat in Pacifica, just south of San Francisco on the ocean side. It's really beautiful here. The image at left is from the Answers.com website, so I can't pretend to have taken it. Unfortunately I forgot my camera. But my hotel room looks out over the beach and the waves crashing over the sea stacks. There are lots of surfers, including a number of young kids. We saw one kid who looked about 9 coming off the beach in his wetsuit, getting on his bike and pedaling home while holding his surfboard. All that in a high wind. (Today was a little less windy.)

We've managed to get a decent amount of work done, so that part is good too.

Owen's baseball game last night was rained out due to a massive thunderstorm! Very rare in Davis.

Douglas today...

when I picked him up: "I was playing with Bradley and Tobin. We were pretending to be horns and we were honking."

He also sang a new version of "Row row row your boat" he learned at preschool:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Ha, ha, fooled you,
I'm a submarine.

Lugnuts

Owen's baseball team this fall is called the Lugnuts, after the Lansing Lugnuts. He had his first opportunity to pitch on Saturday afternoon. I missed his pitching - he pitched first (Douglas and I showed up late since he can't behave well for a whole entire game) - but apparently he struck out two batters, threw somebody out, and only hit one player (!) in the leg. That was not the only player to fall victim to pitcher error in the game. First time pitching for 7 and 8 year olds is a little iffy. It went well though. It was a close game (they lost 7-8).

It has cooled down quite a bit. It's been in the upper 70s to low 80s and breezy. Very pleasant. Owen and I played tennis yesterday afternoon and barely worked up a sweat. Of course, that was partly due to the relatively low level of play.

Wed. to Fri. I go to a work retreat in Pacifica, just south of SF. Dan gets to manage the household alone for a couple of days.

LTE published

I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper that was published yesterday, along with two other letters on the same topic (one from my friend Megan). They were in response to a letter from someone who wanted Judy Blume's "Forever" removed from the public library shelves. (Luckily, the library said no.)

Owen had his first baseball practice yesterday. The team name for some reason is the Lugnuts. All games will be at 4:30 on Saturdays.

Ugh

The Senate closed out at around 3:30 this morning, so Dan didn't get home until 4:15 am. Bleck.

Owen's first fall baseball practice is this afternoon. Dan will be helping out with the team, so he's going along.

Owen got a "gold sheet" yesterday at school for his math work - i.e. a notice he'd gone above and beyond in his work. (He did a bunch of extra problems.) When they get one, they get to go to the principal's office and get a little gift (a pencil, sticker, etc) and the principal calls home to commend them.

The UCD email server has been up and down but mostly down for a couple of days, so I've got no access to email until they get it back up, whenever that may be.

Boys

These pictures are from Labor Day weekend in Berkeley

At my mother's house, and





at the Lawrence Hall of Science, overlooking Berkeley and the bay (and SF in the far background).

The Bee hearts New Jersey

Today's Scene section in the Sacramento Bee has an article about the top ten reasons to love New Jersey.

With "Jersey Boys" -- the Tony-winning musical now at the Community Center Theater -- just about the hottest ticket in American theater, it's about time that New Jersey started receiving the respect it deserves.

So consider this list of 10 Things We Love About New Jersey a first salvo in the fight to reclaim a state's reputation.

And in other news, the Office of National Drug Control Policy softball team refuses to play the National Org. for the Reform of Marijuana Laws' softball team in the Congressional Softball League. Wusses.

Quiet weekend

It finally is starting to feel a little fall-ish. This weekend it was cooler, in the 80s and we had the Delta breeze going. Finally! It's sort of muggy today, though.

We finally heard about Owen's fall baseball team. The first practice will probably be Wednesday, although the UC Davis email server appears to be down so I haven't heard all the details yet.

On Sunday afternoon we went to see the San Francisco Mime Troupe, who were performing in Community Park in Davis. They were not mime at all - I'm not sure why they're called that. It was a political play/musical satire about the war. The kids' favorite part, I think, was the USO lounge singer with two backup dancers, singing 'It's my duty to shake my booty' and then the dancers would turn around and shake theirs. They got a kick out of that.

Douglas is enjoying riding on the trailer bike. It looks like this:

It's attached to the back of my bike.

He feels like a big kid being able to pedal. It actually does make a difference when he pedals.

Sunday morning we went for a family bike ride through various Davis tunnels and greenbelts. Everyone enjoyed getting out and the weather was nice.

Smoky

There is a large forest fire going on in Plumas County, way northeast of here, called the Moonlight Fire, which has sent smoke into the air in the Valley. The air has smelled like smoke for the past day or so and it almost looked overcast yesterday afternoon. The picture at left (from the Sac Bee) shows the setting sun yesterday afternoon through the smoky haze.

Other than our air quality, things are going well. We had a park play date yesterday afternoon with a friend of Douglas's from preschool and a new friend of Owen's who is a classmate. Everyone got along really well.

Douglas's new friend just moved to town from SF. They bought a piece of land just north of town and are planning on farming it - they are planting walnut trees this winter. Interestingly enough, the mother told me that they are only the second owners since it was owned by the Mexican government. The land has been in that family the whole time (since the 1850s). It has been subdivided many times - probably it used to be most of the county or more - but this piece was still in the family until now.

The parents are also Carolina MBA grads so we plan to watch the Duke games together in the winter.