Easter Egg Chickens

Our Araucanas laid their very first egg today!

It's a soft blue-green color. So pretty!

The chicks have grown up to become beautiful little hens.  "Mellow" is the orange-black one and "Noisy" is white and black.  They are easily distinguished by their colors and their very particular personalities.  I love their feather-beards especially.  And these colored eggs are SO fun!  The Araucanas are not nearly as smart as the Rhode Island Reds -- Mellow keeps getting her head stuck through the fence, or she jumps out and can't figure out how to get back in -- but I think they are a great addition to our family farm.



Soccer Star

This fall, Lucy decided she wanted to play on the Northfield Dynamos girls soccer team.  Considering the fact that she probably couldn't even identify a soccer ball until a couple of months ago, it was a pretty steep learning curve. We supplemented the practices by having our own Gray Family soccer games most nights.  Gradually, she stopped saying "eeeep" whenever the ball came her way, and learned to avoid the impulse to use her hands.  Austin made her watch soccer with him on TV.  Considering where she was when she started, she was pretty great by the time the season ended with a final big win on Saturday.

She absolutely had a blast.  Lots of her good friends from 3rd and 4th grade were on the team.

 Home games were at a field next to a cemetery.  (They aren't actually playing in the cemetery, it just looks that way from these pictures.)

Thank goodness Grandma sent her a red sweatshirt so she didn't freeze on chilly days!  Though most of the time she appeared to be playing for Team Snowbird.

 The coach was wonderful.  He was one of the girls' dad, but also coach of the Montpelier High School boys soccer team.  He taught them very well and spent practices running drills.  (Gavin: "I don't get it Mom.  When are they going to get out the drills?"  Evidently he thought there would be power equipment involved.)  Even though the coach was a "pro" he did a great job of keeping it fun and emphasizing inclusiveness and sportsmanship.

Who wouldn't love playing with these silly girls?

Pumpkin Party 2011

Lots of wonderful old friends and new friends at this year's Gray Family pumpkin carving night.

 

As usual in Vermont, it was too chilly to carve outdoors.  But the kids went out to the porch for the all-important Jack-O-Lantern lighting.

No jacket, no shoes -- Gavin is oblivious to the cold.  Lucky him.

 Lucy's Jack-O-Lantern is covering up the one on her shirt.

oooooooh, SPOOOOKY!!!!

Lucy's Birthday Party

I was wondering what interesting birthday party theme Lucy would come up with this year.  She generally chooses something you can't find at the party store.  And this year was no exception.  She came to me in July and announced that this year she was having a

Nancy Drew Birthday Party.

(At least she gave me plenty of notice.)

After racking my brains for several weeks, a friend told me about a website that provides all the materials needed for an elaborate non-murder-mystery role-play game.  The girls all play different characters and have to find "whodunit" from among the group.  Perfect!  So last night, ten little girls showed up to play the "Kitty Kidnapping Caper."

But first, we played Cheeto-head.  A girl wears a shower cap covered in shaving cream.  Her friends throw Cheetos at her trying to get them to stick to the shaving cream.  After a pre-party trial run, we added sunglasses for safety.  There's no mystery about why the girls loved this game!  (The chickens loved it too.  They got to enjoy a Cheeto feast on the lawn the next day.)

No picture better captures my Lucy as a nine-year-old.

When the Cheetos and shaving cream were gone, we went inside to begin investigating the Kitty Caper.  Each girl got a Sleuth Kit with flashlight, magnifying glass, notebook, and pen.  They also got nametags to help them stay in character.  They got clues about their character and each others', and had to figure out what was relevant and what wasn't.

Running around outside looking for the hidden ransom notes.

Deciphering the clues.  Look how intent they all are.  I couldn't believe how much they got into the game.

After the culprit was caught, and the kitty located up in the treehouse (an exciting search just after dusk that required flashlights for a run through the spooky woods), the girls celebrated with cake and presents.

Lucy REALLY wanted sleepover, but that was just a little too much for me, so we compromised by agreeing that the party would go until after bedtime, and the girls could finish up the party by snuggling down in the living room to watch the Nancy Drew movie.

Lucy has already declared this the best birthday party EVER and put me on notice that she intends to do the very same thing for her next birthday.  So I guess that gives me about a year to recover.

Family Heritage Wall

I've been planning to make a "heritage wall" of family pictures for YEARS, and finally got it up yesterday.  I thought finding the pictures would be the hardest part -- I wanted black and white photos, candids if possible, of Austin's and my grandparents and great-grandparents.  That turned out to be easy: the hard part was finding frames I liked.  I spent gobs of money on frames at Pottery Barn but found that the mat overwhelmed the picture, so I took them all back.  Then I found these "float" frames at Jo-Ann's fabrics -- the picture sits between two pieces of glass so there is no mat, just the wall color showing behind the picture.  Perfect.  And all the frames were less than $5 each. 

I have to share some of my favorite pictures.

This is my grandfather, Elden Fisher, as a young teenager.  Check out those skinny arms and legs!

Elden's father, Albert Lee Fisher, is kneeling front right.  He's a coach of the Oxford Basketball team (see the printing on the ball?) Oneida Stake Champions for 1922-23.  Apparently, grandpa Elden didn't make the team.  He probably needed to grow some muscles like these guys first.

Great-grandpa Albert Lee Fisher doing a headstand in his church suit.  Maybe this is where Gavin gets the idea that church clothes are play clothes?

This is Austin's grandfather Robert Sion Reed, a handsome and brooding World War II sailor.

 Robert Sion's father "Pap" Reed (right) making coffee in camp somewhere out in the Eastern Arizona desert.

Simeon Adams Dunn (right), Austin's great-grandfather, heading off to World War I.



My great-grandfather, Jesse H. Nix, also on his way to World War I.



My grandmother, Ruth Carlson Nix, as a nursing student.

I also have pictures of my teenage-grandfather Kenneth Nix eating lunch from a tin lunchbox on a break from Kennecott Copper and some awesome pictures of Austin's grandmother, Alla Pearl Reed.  But for some reason they wouldn't download.  I'll have to try them again later.  Or you can come to my house and see them on the wall.

Exponent II

I've never brought my camera to the Exponent II retreat -- I always leave it home for Austin -- so I never have pictures.  But this year I did better than bring my camera, I brought Sharon.  Who is always attached to a camera.  And as a result, I have some nice pictures from this year's retreat.

Sharon, me and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  The world's best mother-in-law, and the world's nicest Pulitzer-Prize-winning Harvard Historian, past president of the American Historial Association, and founding mother of Exponent.  (Intimidating, much?  But really, so great and down-to-earth.  When I can muster up the courage to talk to her.)

I gave a presentation on "Sacred Spaces in Mormonism."  I spend so much time thinking about the meaning of architecture and sacred space in 16th and 17th century German Lutheranism, that I thought it would be interesting to apply some of those ideas to the churches and temples of my own religious tradition.  And it was very interesting, at least for me! 

The executive board of the Exponent: magazine, blogs, and retreat.  Some very fun, awesome ladies to hang out with!

Tunbridge Fair

Austin and Howard took the kids to the Tunbridge World's Fair last Friday. "World's Fair" might seem like a grandiose name, but I think it really has to be the world's most amazing fair. You step onto the fairgrounds and instantly go back in time at least 100 years. 

These oxen, Doc and Dan, belong to Gavin's first grade teacher, Mrs. Morvan. (Yes, raising oxen is a perfectly usual hobby around here. No, we are not thinking of getting our own pair of 3,000 lb. bovines. No matter how good they are at hauling wood.) 

Uh, Austin, aren't our kids a little close to the back end of this thing?

Lucy proves that she can climb a rock wall even wearing galoshes.

Papa got the kids tickets for the Ferris Wheel.

Later, they couldn't decide if the best part of the fair was the rides, the animals, or the pig races.

Or maybe popcorn at the tractor pulls?

Who wouldn't love watching this dude?