September School

Bryce is getting the full CC experience this year with Joy as his tutor.  All the fun games, different each week.  Starting into the world of Essentials also has been a great challenge for him as well.

Bryce bounces the ball into the egg crate for points after answering a CC question.

Bryce working with Ben and Josh in Essentials.

Garrett sits on the boys side with Noah, Zach, and Jack to get instructions from Morgan on the next activity. 

Ok class, act like you are paying attention?

Anne, the Essentials tutor, demonstrates the parts of  a paper with the cowboy model.

The rings of Saturn science project in Joy's class.

Garrett's class works on an art project--the upside down knights.

Do you really need three computers at once?

Griffin works on tracing the geography map of the world.

Bryce and Noah act out the vocabulary word:  resolved.

September Soccer

We had quite the first month of soccer.  Each of our boys began the season with winning records over the first month.  Griffin started at goalie and didn't allow a goal the first month, while scoring four goals during the first month himself.  Bryce settled in as one of the steadiest defender on his team and assisted on a few of his teams early season goals with good passes.  Garrett anchored the left side of the defense and even scored a huge goal from near midfield  when he had space in a hard fought contest.

I scored my first goal of the season today.

Bryce stops the ball at midfield and prepares to pass it off to one of his teammates.

Bryce does battle near midfield again.

I scored two goals today, one with each foot.

Griffin passes to his friend Elijah.

Fireworks and Fall Baseball

We made it to a few final baseball games in September drawn by the spectacle of fireworks.  First we went to a Modesto Nuts game.  We arrived early for Joy's work BBQ, ran around, and played frisbee before entering the stadium.  The boys collected autographs from some of the Nuts players on our program and then we watched one of the Nuts best pitchers throw a brilliant game which got us to the fireworks faster than usual.  Later in the month we had the opportunity to gratefully use some season tickets to sit 8 rows up from the A's dugout for the final homestand.  The only problem was that we were delayed leaving for the game due to Joy's crazy work day.  Then we hit traffic, bad traffic which caused us to re-route.  As we came in view of the Coliseum, Kendall Graveman was throwing a perfect game through 6 innings.  By the time we parked the car and were walking toward the entrance, the perfecto and shutout were vanquished and quickly the A's were behind 4-0.  We got to our seats for the eighth inning!  But the fireworks were spectacular and themed to Superhero movie theme songs (some of which we had never heard of...)

Nuts fireworks...no longer an affiliate of the Rockies, but now the Mariners.

Dad, is that your "we just arrived and it's the eighth inning look?"

A's fireworks over Mount Davis.

Mommy's little cuddler.

Nuts Win!

Where did the kids go?

An earlier A's game versus the Orioles.

Everybody pile in for a selfie.

The shadows begin to creep across the mostly empty Coliseum, harkening back to when Brett played there.

When you enter through the Season Ticket holder line, you get to see some pretty cool pictures of A's history.

Who did the best Rickey Henderson interpretation?

Modesto Air Show

When you hear the sound of a B29 bomber flying over your town, you take notice, because it is just that loud.  That was the case this month, so we investigated where the bomber, "Fifi," had landed and discovered it was at an air show in Modesto.  Thus, became a historical field trip to see one of the last two B29 bombers that is still flying.  Grammy and Poppy joined us for the field trip which included boarding the bomber and marveling at the inside design.  There were other military planes and vehicles to check out as well.

Grammy, take us for a drive in the army jeep!

"Yes sir, I am old enough to drive."

"Start her up and let's get in the dogfight."

The B29 bomber is so long that it could not be captured in one picture.

The underbelly turret.

400 pound bombs ready to be dropped.

Poppy gives us some perspective of how big the propellers are.

The rear gunner position.

September Highlights 2016

While August was the month of transition and celebrations, September was settling into the rhythm of the new school year.  Soccer practices began to occupy Monday through Thursday and then games all day Saturday.  We attended a few baseball games and saw some fireworks.  Brett and Joy also attended a celebration party hosted by a Brett's colleague, Mark, who was celebratiing his seven year battle to win a law suit.  The funniest thing of the night was hospital staff seeing Brett smiling and laughing (not a common site in the hospital).

Pictures at the photo booth from the party.

Thumbs up on a good breakfast by Mom.

Back log on the slide.