Maya helped her team to a 5-2 win today showing fine form throughout the hard fought match. Pound for pound she may be the toughest of the Calabria’s on a soccer pitch.

Jeanine poses with her new beds. Later on we fill them with compost and top soil. Tomorrow they will be ready to plant.

 
The entire family pitched in to complete Jeanine’s new vegetble garden. I started by leveling three pads for the raised beds which Jeanine helped me to set in place. The kids transported and installed wood chips around the beds to create a three foot wide path on all sides.

As an early Mother’s Day present I built three raised garden beds for Jeanine. Tomorrow I will install them in the rototilled soil in the background. Each bed is 6ft x 3ft x 1ft tall. She would also like me to make her a new composting bin. I am trying to talk her into an elevated drum based design but she seems to be leaning towards a more traditional multiple bin approach.

Jeanine’s dear friend Aliza (center) celebrates her 50th birthday with a potluck dinner. Jeanine prepared an almond espresso chocolate cake which was simply out of this world (we got to sample the left overs).

I changed up my commute this evening and took Memorial Drive which follows the Charles River. While stopped in traffic I grabbed a quick shot of two women crew teams training on the water. Telephoto compression makes it appear that they are very close and that the river is very narrow. Just the opposite is true.

 
Although we get four distinct seasons here in New England, spring is by far the shortest. In a matter of a few weeks we enjoy an explosion of color before everything turns green. This scene is of the horse farm that is across the street from our house.

 
My favorite piece of art was without a doubt Renoir’s, Dance at Bougival. The woman in the painting reminds me of a young Jeanine.

Strategically placed throughout the museum were some 50 magnificent floral arrangements created by local designers to complement their surroundings.

 
With Jeanine and the kids returning from Minnesota this evening I elected to stay in Boston until their 10pm flight arrived. The Museum of Fine Arts was celebrating Arts in Bloom with a special evening open house and I am really glad I took advantage of the opportunity to visit the museum for the first time.

Last week, we both scored goals for our teams. This week, we both left our games with injuries. Late in his match, Kyle went down after being kicked in the shin. He blocked a hard shot on goal but got tagged by the shooter’s foot on the follow-through. He wears flimsy, lightweight shin pads, believing he has better touch with them. I may have to enforce his use of a more protective guard in the future.

 
It’s been a while since we have had a good snake sighting. I am pretty sure this little fellow is harmless but I kept a safe distance just in case. I saw him on the way to Kyle’s soccer game. Three shrieking girls made for a pretty good homing beacon.

 
There are some days when you are better off simply staying in bed. My left foot is still bruised from last week’s game and despite the discoloration I felt it was not going to affect my play. Ten minutes into the game, I managed to roll my left ankle. I decide to play through the pain but ten minutes later was taken out entirely with an injury to my right knee (on a late tackle which earned the other team a yellow card). Left toes, left ankle, right knee. It is starting to get easier to list the part that aren’t injured. With a little luck and rigorous PT I might be back for next week’s game. More than likely I am going to miss a few while I mend. We lost 3-1 and every goal of the game was scored off a penalty call which should give you some idea of the quality of officiating (or lack thereof).

Kyle and I both had a great time and significantly improved our driving skills. The course is not inexpensive but I can honestly say it was worth every penny and was another shared adventure Kyle and I will look back on with fond memories. For the record, which would otherwise be distorted over time, the father performed all events at full speed and did not take out a single cone all day. The son did a very admirable job for a newly minted driver but racked up a small family of dead cones.