I shot this on the way into work this morning. I like the reflection of the two trees in the water and the fact that you can not see them in the background due to the low fog (ghost trees, as it were).

With no TV last night (banned on Mondays and Wednesdays), the girls made time to work on their piano duets.

Maya came home from school yesteday with a fever and still has one this morning.

Last night was family night and Maya selected “progressive painting.” Each person starts a painting and then passes it to the person on their left who adds their own elements. The process is repeated until everyone has contributed to each painting. Here is a section of one of three paintings that we jointly created.

While we are on the subject of school work, here is a piece of art created by Maya depicting her with her friends and her pig. Click on the photo for a larger view.

Nicolai’s assignment for English class was to create a John Standish Journal based on his own research. Nico took great pleasure in making the journal look physically authentic as well. In so doing, we were fortunate to have avoided burning down the house and having to record an entry on this blog documenting as much.

Kyle finished his regulation season with a 4-0 victory that secured a 6-2 record. Here, Kyle beats a pair of defenders before unleashing a missle on goal.

Today was the final game of my soccer season. We defeated Malaga 2-0, avenging an earlier loss this year and secured promotion to Division 1 next spring. There are 90 teams in our league (40 and over men). Next year, we will be competing with the top twelve. I played a solid game at defensive midi but failed to score on a nice left-footed opportunity late in the second half.

The family had a full day of soccer on a chilly, but otherwise glorious fall day. First up was Nicolai, whose team went down 2-0 before rallying back to a 4-3 win over a strong Weston team. Nico, shown here, going up for a header (which he handled beautifully). Next, Maya was in action and also produced a come from behind 2-1 win. Finally, all three kids and I attended the Concord-Carlisle match to watch our high school team qualify for post season play. A more accurate accounting would mention that all children found and went off with friends while I watched the game with, come to think of it, some of my friends.

The boys showing off their guns..

Courtney, Seth, Kyle, and Sadye had dinner at our house before heading out to the Concord-Carlisle football game. Yes, Kyle is wearing pajama bottoms. No, I have no idea why?

I woke at the crack of dawn to do some morning photography before our first work session began. I drove up the coast a little and believe I was in the vicinity of Kittery Point when I took this photo. Click on it for a larger version.

After a ten hour day of work, Graham (my new boss, singing in the blue shirt) treated the team to candle stick bowling followed by a fine Mexican dinner. It is still a too early to tell, but I think I am going to really enjoy working for this guy. The new team went through trial by fire today and emerged intact.

The same woman, after a costume change, improvising a song in response to the unplanned death of her dog at the hands of one of our group. The further we got off the planned script the more insanely funny the evening became. In the end, my team correctly identified the killer for which we each received a plastic walkie-talkie.

After a long work day we were treated to a dinner/murder mystery. The woman pictured here was one member of a four person cast that interacted with our group to stage the murder.

As an ice breaker we had to create a pictorial response to five questions. (1) recent accomplishment- promotion to division one soccer, (2) personal goal-improve everything I touch, (3) lesson from a mentor-wrestling coach, running with arms up to learn how to mentally block pain, translation to life and business = never give up no matter how tough things get, (4) little known fact-studied ballet, and (5) advice for Avid-better to do three things well rather than four things poorly.

Today is the first day of a 3-day senior management offsite at Wentworth by the Sea. This will be my first opportunity to work with my new boss and newly installed management team.