Tonight's project.

Quincy mad this in class tonight. Sure will miss this class at the end of the semester!

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At the field once more.

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Beautiful sunrise

This sunrise followed my first ride in on the new bike. Beautiful.

Oh, and new bike arrived Tuesday. It is a sweet ride.

Stu and I refurbished the hydroponic bed, so in a couple weeks we will have lots of goodies. Still have room for containers, so I will be shopping for some tomatoes, etc. next weekend.

Fabulous weather here. Great walk this morning, nice ride this afternoon.

Tournament of Bands

This was one of the bands from yesterday's Tournament of Bands at NMSU. One movement was mostly percussions, and everybody got to play on the barrels. It was a great visual!

Or maybe it was Tourniquet of Bands. LCHS has a great season in a lot of ways, but the kids did not earn the scores from the judges to place in competition.

Nonetheless, Quincy is completing her year of lasts -- last band competition (yesterday), last IEP (Friday), last time performing at the Field of Dreams (a couple weeks ago), and this Friday, the last BIG game against Mayfield. The football team has also not had a stellar season, so playoffs look unlikely. But since she is already staying busy stage managing the fall play The Wiz, she will not be at a loss for stuff to do.

Her year of lasts is also one for her parents. I have hawked for the last time at Field of Dreams and plan to never again load up hundreds of nacho boats with chips. My concessions friends plan regular get togethers next year on Fridays to celebrate our evenings without standing for hours on cold cement floors in a loud, confined little space serving lines of people what passes for food at athletic events. Yes, we have healthy choices. No, we never sell more than about 2 pieces of fruit an evening, but we sure do move those frito pies!

It got cold this week, and I even biked home in snow on Wednesday. The deck was covered with snow Thursday morning, but as typical of New Mexico, it lasted only briefly. Weather has returned to beautiful, and since it is Sunday afternoon, all the sunspots on the west side of the house are occupied with sleeping pets (and one human).


Stu returned from a trip to NSF in Washington DC Friday in time to see the LCHS boys soccer team win their first state cup game. Jake had his first swim meet of the year and was happy -- or at least not unhappy -- with his performance.

Empty nesting practice

This was Jake a couple weeks ago at Willamette, before the weather turned cold, blustery, and rainy. (It has been beautiful here this week. Biggest weather issue has been the tail wind for my ride home...). His swim team worked at the opening for the Kroc Center in Salem.

Quincy is at her last high school Zia Band Competition in Albuquerque. With her gone for the day, Stu and I are practicing the empty nesting thing. I (vaguely) remember what it was like to have time to make a nice dinner -- a friend is joining us, the bread just came out of the oven, and I think I can recall how this all works. Of course, we will have too much food.

We are also winding down in the football marching season. As a band parent, I have one more game to work, even if it is the insane Cruces-Mayfield game (a rivalry often mentioned in the top national high school football rivalries). Six years of selling horribly non-nutritious food to the masses is a long time, even if other Cruces parents (I thinking of you, Travises!) had a much longer tenure. Cruces could surprise us and go to lots of playoff games, but it is not looking like that at this point in the season.

Ah well, fall in LC is beautiful. Good time to start thinking about getting into marathon shape!

Cape Lookout

A most excellent day yesterday.

We started out with Salem's Farmer's Market (excellent) where we picked up way too many apples. Jake gets to keep most of them, but they were fresh, locally grown, organic, and of varieties never heard of in New Mexico. Yum.

Met Jake about noon, watched a soccer game for a bit, and had the welcome opportunity to meet Jacob's swim coach. Or at least Stu did. Not knowing it was his coach, I spent the time on the phone to Quincy. Doh!

Then on to shopping (outlet center was crowded!) and the beach. We hiked along Cape Lookout to the end and will have more photos later.

Jacob was most generous with his time. Now to meet him for breakfast and head to the airport.




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Greetings from a very large chair, Salem, OR

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