Maya and I head over to the Charleston Navy Shipyard to take in the visiting Tall Ships. This week long annual event feature some of the most beautiful antique sailing vessels in the world as well as many modern naval ships.

 
This morning Maya and I dropped Nicolai off at the Boston airport for his trip to Minnesota. When asked to pose with his sister as we bid him farewell, Nico seems to be setting a double chicken wing. This, I suppose, should come as little surprise after he spent the last week in wrestling camp. I cannot begin to imagine how he is going to great his cousins when he sees them this evening. Nico was very pleased with his camp experience which included three 2-hour wrestling sessions per day. He feels he made significant improvements to his technique and returned with arm muscles that would put a gorilla to shame.

 
Nicolai’s wrestling camp culminates in a tournament today where he placed 2nd to the New Hampshire state champ winning two of his three matches. Tomorrow he leaves for Minneapolis where he will spend a week with my brother’s family. Before he left for wrestling camp he completed this set of croquet mallets as a gift for his cousins. The heads were made from the trunk of a cherry tree we harvested from our property. I rough cut the blanks and Nicolai did everything else including the finishing. Kyle suggested making a chipper club for situations where you need to jump an opponents ball. We combined that concept with a shorter mallet head which comes in handy in other situations.

This morning I found these two girls on the couch. To say that Maya loves Nala would not really capture the full measure of their bond. Jeanine and Kyle left this afternoon for a 10-day adventure in Transylvania. Jeanine is one of the chaperons travelling with our church youth group to visit with our sister church in Romania. Most Americans associate Transylvania with stories about Dracula, the rest of the world regards this part of Central Europe as a scenic region nestled below the Carpathian Mountains.

Today I flew from LAX to Boston and this particular route covers some of the most spectacular landscapes in the country. My window was clean, the air was crisp and I captured dozens of really nice images. I like this one for the color palette (you will need to enlarge it to appreciate it fully). I did a shorter than normal trip to California so I could see Nicolai on his birthday. He is attending wrestling camp this week on the campus of Boston University. I found him in the cafeteria having diner with his buddies who were not aware it was his birthday. By the time his Happy Birthday song was done I would say several hundred people in the cafeteria were pitching in at full volume. We had a chance to catch up on his camp experience to date and then he had to ready himself for his third training session of the day.

 
I believe that Michael Jackson had some serious psychological issues but there is no denying that he was one of the most talented and iconic entertainers of our time. We were born in the same year and I grew up dancing to his music. His death shocked me and caused me to reflect on my own life at the fifty year mark. Had I not had to work today I would have probably taken the time to witness his memorial service at this satellite venue in Santa Barbara.

Work takes me to Santa Barbara again, where the weather is simply delightful. I made a ten-minute pit stop at the beach before arriving at the office. I need to spend a weekend here on one of my visits and take some time to enjoy more of the beauty that is everywhere.

Today Jeanine and I dropped off Nicolai at Boston University where he will spend the next week in residence at the Carl Adams Wrestling Camp. Helping Nico get situated in his dorm room provided a 4-year flash forward to his departure for college and it left us both feeling very sad. We know he will enjoy the camp but for us it was a powerful reminder that we only have two years left with Kyle and another two after that with Nico. The program features intensive training with top caliber coaches and wrestlers, rigorous physical conditioning, and concludes with a tournament among the camp attendees.

 
Maya returned today from a week long visit with her Aunt Susan. She seems to have grown up over night and looks less and less like a little girl every day.

 
Nicolai, against all odds, is one of the best players on the court having really mastered the full complement of volleyball skills. I can not express how much pleasure I took from spiking a ball that was set to me by Kyle who received the pass from Nico. If I can hold out for a few more years then my ultimate dream will be realized when Maya joins the squad.

 
If it is the Fourth of July and we are in town then you will find us enjoying the hospitality of my high school wrestling partner and good friend Tom Metzold. Each year Karen and Tom throw a wonderful party with great food and numerous sporting options for the kids. This year I really enjoyed playing volleyball with my boys. Kyle relies heavily on his athletecism but I can see his technique improving dramatically with each game.

Today is a work holiday for me and I spent the morning getting our tractor back in shape. Forensic evidence suggests that one of the two boys drove the tractor into a tree, damaging the front bumper which also serves to support the hinge mechanism for the hood. Unable to determine who the guilty party was they split the cost of the new part and I made the repairs. Nico who recently managed to drive the blades into the ground while mowing for a neighbor paid for a new set which I installed as well. I am hoping the boys will treat the tractor with greater care in the future especially in light of the fact that they are using it to generate outside income.

Nicolai decided to begin a woodworking project earlier this week. He is using cherry which we harvested from a log I have been saving for about five years now. I provided assistance as we rough cut the blanks but he is doing a lot of the finishing work. Nicolai has asked me to keep the details of the project a secret for reasons that will become apparent in the coming days. Here he is using a router which is mounted to my table saw and features a custom built fence.

Nico has a summer reading assignment of 2000 pages. His plan is to use one eye for each half of the requirement.