March Madness

http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/en/entry?entryID=3646358

That is the link to my NCAA tournament bracket.  We usually make a group with our friends and this year my bracket won.  By a lot.  I was in the top 7,600 people, that's the top .1%!  So this post is just so I can brag about it.  I killed it.  Oh yeah!

Nym-gastics

No, you didn't read the title wrong, that's what Sophie calls gymnastics.  Starting last fall (?) we enrolled Sophie in a community gymnastics class to help her get some energy out during the cold weather.  She loved the gymnastics part, but struggled with the warming up and stretching part.  She's very physically gifted, but not the best at listening to and following instructions.  Not the best, yet.  We're working on it.  She did two sessions of class, but we dropped the ball on signing her up again so her gymnastics days in Cambridge are over.  Out of all those classes I think these are the only pictures we got.  Ooops!  Oh well, enjoy Sophie in action.

Bear crawl

Hollow banana, done with a smile

With her wonderful teacher, Marco, on the bars

 

Balance beam was one of her favorite things, here on the small one

 

Now on the big beam.  She was one of the only kids who would do the tall one and always wanted me to let go of her.  No fear!

Holiday Races

We just got back from a wonderful trip to New York City where we stayed with Loren's brother and his family, whom we love very much, plus, my parents and sister came for her Spring Break, so we got to hit both sides of the family, which doesn't happen very often due to geography.  But...  I have a few more backlogged posts I want to do first, so you'll have to wait to hear all the juicy details.

After running multiple races last fall, I took a break and just ran for fun.  (Let's be honest, even when I do run a race it's still just for fun, because I am by no means good enough to be a competitive runner)  Then February rolled around and I didn't want to break my two-year streak of running the Bradford Valentine's Race, so it was off to the races once more.  This year Loren and Sophie couldn't come, but I ran behind with my friends Colin and Ariel.  I ran the 5 mile race in 43:00, which I was reasonably happy with.

Ariel and I after the race.  As you can see, there was zero snow.

In March I decided to try a new race for St. Patrick's Day.  It was a 4 miler in Norwell, which is south of Boston.  The weather was lovely and cool, the course was hilly and lush and this time Loren and Sophie came!

Sophie remembered that she had cowbells from last year's Boston Marathon, so she rang them to her heart's content to cheer on the runners!

Action shot - that's me in the green, ha ha.  And yes, I passed that woman just before the finish line

It was hosted by a tavern (of course, it's St. Patrick's Day)

 We all had a good time and my time was 33:40, which I was very happy with.  However, Loren has forbidden me from participating in any more races before we move (because of the time factor) so I guess that just leaves cheering at the Boston Marathon next week.

Winter Sports

Don't worry.  I know today is April Fool's Day, but this is a real post, not a trick.  This winter was extremely mild (read: lame) and so we didn't ever have a chance to enjoy any snow.  We even bought Sophie some real snow pants, which she never got to use.  So, in lieu of playing in the fluffy white stuff, we turned to the smooth, frozen white stuff for our entertainment.

We were able to go to two hockey games to support our friend Alisa.  Alisa was the only senior on, AND the captain of, the Harvard Women's Ice Hockey team!  The first game we went to was against BU, at BU and was part of an annual hockey tournament called the Beanpot.  These are our attempts to get a good picture (we failed):

Sophie had fun running up and down the rows, although she did narrowly miss getting hit by a puck (!) and Loren and I enjoyed watching the game.  I was actually surprised by how exciting it was and really enjoyed spectating.  Unfortunately Harvard lost, but our tickets were free (courtesy of Alisa) so we counted it as a successful outing.

Only Sophie and I went to the second game, which was Harvard's last regular season home game and was against Yale.  Harvard won this time, Alisa got sent to the penalty box and they had a heartfelt senior tribute to her at the end of the game, so it was really great!

Sophie took this picture!

After watching others skate, we decided to try it for ourselves.  We first went to a small rink at Harvard that was put up in celebration of the school's 375th anniversary.  375 years, wow!  We went with our friends Alex and Celeste.  It was Sophie's first time ice skating and she was pretty hesitant, but as long as people were holding on to her, she did alright.

Our second ice skating excursion was at the Boston Common Frog Pond.  I have wanted to go ice skating here for a long time, so I'm glad we were able to do it before moving.  Because of the warm weather the rink actually ended it's season early, so we made it on the last day!  I could tell that Sophie was more comfortable on the ice this time and she was able to skate between Loren and I by herself a few times.