October is Birthday and Costume Month

Here's a collection of pics from the last couple of weeks. The boys bday party with their friends... a rowdy two hours with 14 hyper boys in the house eating sugar and snowballing energy off of every wall in the house. Fortunately the Alschulers were in Washington, DC for Ericka's first ever marathon run! She did 26.5 miles in 4 hours 8 minutes. She was upset that she didn't reach her goal of under 4 hours... but we are so proud of her finishing let alone coming in so close to her actual goal!!!!! (26.5 miles!!!!) Anyway, the party went well. No injuries. Nothing broken in the house. All the friends went home tired and happy. The boy's friend Aiden spent the night and the kids were pretty tired on sunday. I went for a fantastic bike ride for 2.5 hours on some of the most delicious single track covered in bright yellow leaves which made it beautiful and challenging. Some other pics are of that rascal who should have been a girl but turned out to be a boy (gerbil), Anika at some cute moment with her hat (the family bday celebration on Wed), the boys with nylons (removed from the shoe shop where we caused a raucous while trying on shoes for Isaiah), and some images of a nice walk we all took after work to a fort I found behind one of the Umass dorms.

October's Double Cumpleanhos

It’s that time again… the boys made one more full trip around the sun… Isaiah has been around it 9 times and Amán has been around 7 times… and I am getting dizzy just watching … it all seems to have happened so incredibly fast. We had a nice family celebration for both of them tonight. Mason and Ericka made a treasure hunt for them that they had to read and search for pieces of the missing map that once assembled had to be ciphered correctly in order to find their gifts. Irene contributed some new furniture for their bedrooms. Isaiah got a shelf and Amán got a desk. They will have another small get together with friends on Saturday. They sent invitations out and Amán’s friend Ethan actually responded by owl (you guessed it… it is Hogwarts themed). I also include some pics of the boys in some of the recent spectacular fall colors. It is still fairly warm but the trees are exploding with color.

Quabbin Romp

It is really amazing what a wide open space can do for clearing my mind and freeing my soul. It also helps to be finally over a week long illness. Last weekend we went for a hike to the Quabbin reservoir which I have posted pics of before… A little bit of rain with its dark gray skies gave such a fantastic backdrop for the first of the fall foliage. The leaves are starting to turn and some of the colors are already breath taking. The water level is low due to the dry summer we have had so far but this was way fine by us. Lots of open space with water, rocks, sand and fantastic drift wood to sort through and build sculptures. We spent at least an hour throwing rocks. It is amazing how many games are invented when the rock throwing starts. We sank ships, pushed ships, skipped rocks, made splashes, aimed for the center of each splash etc.

We caught a snake, two frogs and a dead fish. It was an incredibly successful romp in which our spirits flew, spun, twirled, and bounced around that vast open space...

Capture the Flag

Randomness. I mentioned a few days ago that I have been out with a fierce bug. Wed-Fri I stayed home really feeling out of it. Today is sunday and I still feel out of it. Tomorrow is a holiday so I have one more day to get right but during those days alone in the house I got a chance to attack a list of things that had been hanging over my head to do for a while. The list is not finished of course it never is... there is always stuff to do and things pending and fires to put out etc. But I did knock a few big items off the list. A few weeks ago I trimmed some of the little lower branches of a tree in the front of the house and it has, as I had hoped, become the kid's favorite climbing spot. They go way up, spy on folks walking by and play for hours. We invited as many folks as we could for a potluck yesterday afternoon and a game of capture the flag. Aria, James and Sasha came out from Boston and we ate tons and had a fantastic time running around in the dark, strategising, putting each other in jail etc... until the inevitable happened... I floored poor Mason. I was so intent on getting this kid Brennan who had our flag that I didn't see Mason and we collided. He's ok but it was scary there for a moment and I felt really bad. Despite this and one other accident everyone seemed to have good time and made a date to do it again in two weeks. So for those of you who couldn't make it this time around put it on your calendar.

Summer Projects

I really need to put in a little tribute to a summer project that Irene took on this summer. She bought a house last year that had an old rock wall in front of it that was completely broken down and buried by many winters of sanding the icy roads and forces of nature. This summer she started at one end uncovering the rocks and building a new wall in its place! The result is what you see here and it is gorgeous! Congratulations Irene! You are amazing!

Rapid Multiplying

Are you sure...? "Yes, I am positively sure these are both female." That was the guarantee at pet store where we got skittles and m&m. And you know what we found out? Tada!!! People tend to bend the truth or make stuff up to make a sale!! Skittles, the little devil (on his perch left) was just pretending to be a female! Now we have 8 instead of two...!!! ... Anyone want some cuddly, cute, furry pets? I promise they will get fur and open their eyes...

Emerging from Silence

Silence… could mean anything... sickness, stress, tiredness, lack of confidence, computer's busted, internet's down, away... a gazillion different reasons for not writing in a while... probably a good few of the above and others... Here's what I can remember ! :) I just spent 1 week in Florida trying to be of assistance to Mom in the effort to get Jere back on a plane home to Costa Rica. Jere is doing much better after being rehydrated and having an 18 cm titanium pin put in his hip/leg to reinforce the bone where the cancer has infiltrated and tried to take over. We brought him home to Ali’s house, got to a place of confidence and flew him home. Jaleh came up to help on the flight down... he is now back and settled back in his home.... home.. yaaay... we love you Jere! The kids went to school last week without their forms to have their pictures taken and poor Isaiah went to the office to call home to see where they were. Britt had to do a mad dash and got them there just as Aman was walking down the hallway toward the photo shoot. The boys and I biked to a great get to know you picnic at school last night for Isaiah’s class. Lots of food and giggles with the kids. Aman’s was last week and he was a bit nervous about being there without friends so I just chilled with him while Isaiah romped with his friends. Aman is such a sweet heart and his latest thing since I came back on Sunday is to say, “let’s go sit over there (in that tree or on the top of the playscape) and talk”… talk? Where does that come from? Isaiah in the meantime is feeling generally a bit left out and I guess he has a point since we have really been giving Aman a lot of attention to try to keep him from flipping his “I’m pissed off at the world” switch. Britt and I were having our usual morning cell phone conversation (life is so crazy) and both resolved to try and give Isaiah a little more TLC I have been doing a lot of skating at the new park in northampton, did some early morning surfing in Florida one morning, children’s classes are about to start back up, Anika gave me a 5-7 min hug when she saw me after being away for a week, the number of gerbils will increase tremendously in a few weeks when she is due, Ericka just had a birthday on Saturday (sept 24), Mason is really excited about being in gymnastics, Ericka and Alfie just got back from another Triathlon. Ericka did really well in the running part in a relay and Alfie did the whole thing (swimming, biking, running). Alfie came in 2nd in his age group (his friend Eric came in first) and #20 something over all out of 570 competitors!!! They don't call him Turbo-Alf for nothing!!!! We are so proud of their accomplishments. Ericka will be running a full marathon later on this month (26 miles!!!).

Speaking of gyms here’s a link for another more in depth story about Britt’s gym that was aired on WFCR here in Massachusetts WFCR_STORY

I am supposed to be sick so I am going to go nap... but not before I post these last three of the boys in deep focus during quiddich practice in the rain...