The motley crew I spend Sunday mornings with. Photo credits to Ruth Glidden who took this photo after our last home game.

 
Meet the Penguin, a gift from the family to me for Father’s Day. You would be hard pressed to guess that this device is used for carbonating water. It contains a CO2 cartridge which charges a 1L carafe of water in about 5 seconds. Given the amount of carbonated water I drink, this present will also benefit the environment by saving 100’s of plastic bottles and the fuel used to ship them around. My day started with an early morning soccer scrimmage against the over 40 Concord team. I scored three very pretty goals (pivoting full volley over the keeper, low hard half volley after beating the wing fullback, nice trap and move to dribble around the keeper finishing just inside the post). The day ended on a high note as well with a family dinner at my new favorite Mexican restaurant, Acapulco’s in Sudbury.

We could not be prouder of our short-haired beauty.

Maya made her donation in the names of Kate Yoder (the mother of her close friend Lydia) and Kathy Kobos (our next-door neighbor).

The 16 hour birthday event has come to a close. Maya and her friends seemed to have a fantastic time, the house remained in tact, and the parents were left standing, if a little sleep deprived.

Maya’s birthday slumber party spills over into day two, according to plan. Maya made a poster-sized schedule of events and party rules, which we followed to the letter.

Some of my favorite shots from the evening.

Nicolai was extremely helpful throughout the evening and is seen here coordinating the Capture the Flag game after dinner. When darkness ended the competition the girls returned to the house, opened presents and settled into the basement for their movie and slumber party. Jeanine stayed up to supervise and was to be found asleep on the living room couch the next morning.

A macaroni and cheese and hotdog dinner was served, followed by ice cream and cupcakes decorated as dogs (see an earlier posting for a close up). Vegetables and fruits were also served but seemed to provide little more than decoration for the table, given the level of interest in the less healthy parts of the meal.

Next was a massive indoor/outdoor scavenger hunt which culminated with a race to the bird house in our field where the rubber chicken prize was roosting.

During the first activity my workshop was requisitioned for use as an art studio in which the girls decorated pillow cases.

Even before officially starting, the first party event appeared to be horse riding of the birthday girl.

As of today, our little girl requires two digits to write down her age. We are celebrating this auspicious milestone with a sleep-over birthday that has entirely dispossessed me of any notion that girls are less rambunctious than boys. What boys exhibit in shear physicality the girls more than make up for with cacophony of sound and kinetic energy.

Despite a very long day in the office, I took time this evening, at his request, to cut Nicolai’s hair. After the first pass he accused me of intentional barbarism (pun intended) declaring that I had butchered his hair. I subsequently did a little more work addressing his bowl cut concerns and am actually very pleased with the outcome. This photo (taken the day after) as he raced for the school bus is being offered in defense of my hair cutting skills. Click on it for a closer inspection.