November Birthdays, Etc

 

There were a couple of very important birthdays celebrated in November.

 

One of which was Laura's. She chose to have Nestle Drumsticks for her dessert. We stuck a candle right in the top so she had something to blow out.

 

Then of course there was my birthday. I chose to have cupcakes. After a big Thanksgiving week full of way too much food, cupcakes seemed like a "smaller" option. They were delicious!

 

 

In other news, I found this great dog bed at Aldi for $7 over the weekend. Of course Jenny doesn't seem to like it. I even put her favorite blanket on top of it. But she's chosing to sit next to the bed instead of on the bed. Maybe eventually she'll like it.

 

This was the beautiful sunrise on Thanksgiving morning.

 

 

And this was the lovely snowfall on the morning of my birthday. There isn't a lot of snow left now, and a warm up is on its way. But it won't be long before the snow is up to the top of the deck rail...

 

 

Thanksgiving 2012



I know, I'm slow with the blogging. But we've been busy! We had a house full of people for Thanksgiving. Alex and Jeff enjoyed the appetizers. Jenny enjoyed the turkey that "accidentally" fell off the counter by my dad...

 

Laura and Kelly made sure their places were set.

 

Dad once again made a perfect turkey.

 

 

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving together. My parents and brother were here for the holiday, and Gary, Paula and the girls were able to join us too. It was a fabulous time!

 

Eric had gone to Boston to spend time with Kelsey at Greg & Dianes. They still made an appearance via Skype.

 

After dinner, Mom and Kelly enjoyed watching some Tom & Jerry.

We all searched the classifieds to figure out what we "needed" during Black Friday. Turns out we needed nothing, so we all slept in instead.

 

Earlier in the day, we did the Turkey Trot in Baldwinsville.

Here are Dad & Jeff, ready to run! Dad came in first for his age group and finished in 43 minutes. I stayed right with him the whole way.

 

And Alex had a great showing. 13th out of almost 2,000 runners.

 

This was our view from the starting line. When the gun went off, which we actually never even heard, it took almost 4 minutes to even get to the starting line.

 

On Friday, we all went out and bought new running shoes. These were mine. Aren't they fun? They're the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned. Now I need to use them for what they are intended...

 

Federations

Yesterday was the NY State Federation Cross Country meet down in Wappinger's Falls, NY. It's on the banks of the Hudson River, in Bowdoin Park. The photo above is a nice panoramic of the park. The Federation Championships is a big meet. Only the best teams in the state get to go. The fact that Liverpool was even invited to run in the Federation meet is an huge honor. They only invite the top 25 teams in the whole state.

 

Eric and I drove down the night before the meet and stayed in a hotel in Poughkeepsie. Which was only a few miles north of Wappinger's Falls. We found this fun diner to have dinner. The food was excellent.

 

And they even served beer. Even better!

 

 

We always pass the time taking silly pictures of each other. I love the perspective of the plate in the picture I took vs. the picture that Eric took. It's the same plate. Really.

 

Here's a picture from the park the morning of the big race. It weather was beautiful, for November 17th. Temperatures were in the 50s and there was not a cloud in the sky.

 

I posted the race photos on Facebook, if you haven't seen them yet. This is after the race during the awards ceremony. The team placed 6th overall. Which is excellent. It's actually the 3rd best place that a Liverpool team has ever achieved at this meet. The meet itself was insane. I have never witnessed anything like it. 250 of the fastest kids in the entire state running as fast as they could for 3.1 miles. They were neck and neck the entire way. I can't imagine just trying not to fall or get tripped. It was elbow-to-elbow pretty much the whole way. There was only 58 seconds between 2nd place and 75th place. Which means kids were finishing faster than 1 per second. And trying to take pictures was crazy too, there were just so many kids all crammed together.

 

 

I actually managed to get a picture of 2 Liverpool kids, including Alex, in this shot. I think I took 20 pictures from this spot, and only had 3 with any Liverpool runners in it.

Here's a fun picture of all the parents that made the trek down. These are a great group of people. It's fun to have created friendships with all of them. It's going to be strange not to see them all every week. Only half of the boys do indoor track (3 of the top 7 are swimmers), so I guess I'll see the rest in the Spring...

XC Banquet

 

Tonight was the annual end of the season Cross Country banquet. Although, the season isn't quite over just yet... looks like the Top 7 are going to Federations on Saturday. So we've got another road trip this weekend!

 

These are the juniors on the team, getting their awards/letters.

 

Alex (or AC as his team calls him) got another pin for his letter. He got a few certificates too. 1st Team All League and 2nd Team All Conference. (I think that's what they were called.)

 

 

Yesterday Alex and I took a trip to Buffalo to watch the State XC meet. It was quite an event. Two of Alex's teammates had qualified to run. Ben the Freshman (above) finished 15th overall, quite an accomplishment for just a 14 year old kid!

Weekend Update

 

I can't even tell you how awful the weather was yesterday for the Section III Championships. This photo doesn't do it justice. It was 38 degrees and sleeting at the start of the race. I felt awful for the kids who were running. I'm pretty sure Alex wishes he had worn gloves or some sleeves or something. But he still did really well. It wasn't the fastest race of the year, but it was by far the most difficult. Alex came in 22nd overall, and 4th for his team. I loved the retro orange uniforms they wore.

 

Two kids from Liverpool made it to the State meet as Individuals. (Ben and Dan, top row... the short guys. One is a freshman, one is a sophomore.) And of course Fayetteville-Manlius qualified their whole team... next year might have a different outcome... Liverpool is only graduating 1 senior from their Top 7. But this year, the season isn't quite over yet. They're waiting to see if they're going to get a bid to run in the Federation Meet. We'll find out next Saturday. Meanwhile, they keep on running.

 

And look who came up for the weekend to see Alex run. My parents and my brother! I'm sure they were wishing for warmer weather yesterday too, but it was fun having them here. And I'm glad they got to see Alex run, even if the weather didn't cooperate. We're looking forward to having them again in 2 weeks for Thanksgiving.