Kyle and his buddy Seth are attending Lacrosse camp this week. This is Kyle’s first formal training in the sport and he is picking it up very quickly. He seems to have a natural affinity to sports in which you get to hit people.

My brother sent us this photo of my neice Sophia. In our family it is essential that we have photos of our children eating pasta and holding a bocce ball. I will see this cutie pie for the first time this summer at my parents wedding anniversary.

Kyle drives for two of his eight points this evening, in a lop sided win. His team only had one sub so all of the boys got a great work out. By the end of the game Kyle looked a little tired. Probably worth mentioning he spent the entire day at lacrosse camp where they worked kids pretty hard.

The weekend weather (rain, rain, rain) prompted me to tackle two major archiving projects. The first involves scanning old photos provided by my parents so that I can assemble a slide show to be presented at their upcoming 50th wedding anniversary. This was one of my favorites. The second project is the transfer of all my videotape footage to DVD. It has been quite a trip down memory lane.

Greg, Nicolai’s soccer buddy, demonstrates fine technique in the “Water Cup Relay Race”. I spent my lunch hour photographing as many kids as possible but was cut short when it began to pour.

Here is another member of the band, lead guitarist Andrew.

Another relay event involves dressing up in a costume and running about 50 yards before returning to your team and taking the outfit off and quickly dressing the next team member. Pictured here is Sam, one of Nico’s friends and lead singer in his band.

Today was Willard Fun Day which is something of a silly Olympiad for graduating fifth graders. Here, Nicolai participates in the “Lunch Lady Relay”. Each team member must in turn run to the lunch table, put on food service gloves, don a hair net, grab a tray and plate, and proceed down the food line serving themselves spaghetti, sauce, green beans and fruit cocktail. Finally, they poor a glass of water and race back to their waiting team with a full tray so that the next person can begin the routine anew.

When you take the time to look, you start finding these strange little critters everywhere.

While I was looking around I encountered this little fellow.

This morning I went into the garden to capture some of Jeanine’s roses.

This evening, Nicolai and his band, “Breaking the Ice,” were the closing act at the Thoreau Talent Show. They performed “Sweet Home Alabama” and as an encore “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Not shown in the photograph is their keyboard player Jeremy. The boys brought down the house.

This evening Kyle performed at the Acton Jazz Club for a crowd of 40 backed by his guitar teacher’s band. It was his first performance and he was more than a little nervous before he took the stage. Once he started playing he was terrific.

Jeanine and I attended Maya’s Writer’s Workshop at her school. She has written several stories over the last year and she read to the audience from her favorites including “A trap will not work,” the story of a drowning Guinea pig saved in the nick of time by the father. Jeanine is not pleased with the fact that I am the only parent featured in her stories. Maya’s stories are quite good, but nothing compared to her dramatic presentation style.