Groovee!

Maggie was one of three selected from her school for a regional Honor Band program.  Here is one of their songs: Groovee.  Of course, I forgot the regular camera and had only my phone, but it worked pretty well.  You can't see Maggie at all...she is second row on the right, third saxophone back.  The only girl! 

Jazz Band

Maggie has a solo!  This is called Chili Pepper 101, and Maggie said they played it waaaaaaaaaaaay too slow.

Max's birthday!

 Max had a quiet birthday, with one good buddy over for dinner and cake.  Here he displays a Nanoblock penguin building set....he loves penguins in case you don't know!

 I predict there will be many more Lego sets of this type in his near future.

 Arrrrrrgh!!  Something tells me maybe cousin V wanted Max to have this pirate getup??

 Mark can make anything out of cake....even when it's not cake!  Ice cream Lego men.

Max and his good buddy H.  It was a nice, Max-paced birthday.  Tomorrow we'll go see The Hobbit as another part of the birthday celebration.  We also took a cake to the tae kwon do holiday party, and everyone sang to him there.

Halloween!

Union soldier died at the Battle of Gettysburg and was resurrected by a necromancer.  (According to Max.)  The ghost flapper didn't know how she died, so I figured she Charlestoned to death in a danceathon.  I actually found documentation that authorities thought the Charleston was "violent exercise" and blamed it for the death of at least one person.

XC

 

Maggie is doing cross country this fall.  Her friends are all doing it is well, and it seems like she's having fun!  But this picture shows the agony of the first meet, at which is was nearly 100 degrees with horrible humidity.  I only saw one girl vomit.  Maggie survived, and this week in the cooler weather she was the most improved on her team!  Go Tigers!

 

 Serious at the start!  Check out Mairead and Phoenix on their mark!

  

It was a beautiful setting this week!

Size comparison

Hopefully Rumpus won't roll over and accidentally squash Oliver someday.

New Grinnellian!

As the three of you who look at this blog probably already know, we were thrilled when we found out that Sarah, oldest daughter of our good friends from Madison days, Pete and Paula, chose to come to Grinnell College this fall!  Of course, we think Grinnell is an awesome school, and she is going to have a great time there.  But this means Pete and Paula and Norah will have to come visit!  Woot!  They live much too far away in Maine.  AND we will hopefully be able to steal Sarah away from campus every once in while, even though she will be monumentally busy with classes, friends, and activities! 

It's only the beginning of the semester, so we stole her away last night and took her to the annual heirloom tomato tasting at Grinnell Heritage Farm just on the edge of town.  It's the source of our CSA veggie share, but they sell organic produce to places like the New Pioneer Co-op and Whole Foods as well.  Anyway, it was too hot, but it was still fun to go out, walk among the kale, listen to a little bluegrass music, and enjoy a potluck dinner with folks from all over central Iowa.  We were hoping to give Sarah a little (and literal) taste of Grinnell!  And we're just really happy to have her here in G-town.