THE JEWEL'S FIRST TROPHY

Real soccer football!

DOWN ON THE FARM

Tuesday Raul had off from school, so we went to visit our friend Elizabeth who lives and works at Blooming Hill Farm in Blooming Grove on the other side of the Hudson.

Swung on trees, fed carrots to the rabbits Junior, Wobbles, Chocolate and Buttercup, ate some squash soup. Some of us fell in the creek.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HOW IT STARTS

HALLOWEEN: MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

PLUS! Real grampires vampires


PLUS! Real witches

"YOU COULD ONLY CHOOSE BETWEEN 'NICE' AND 'SPOOKY'"



BLACK LOVE IS BLACK WEALTH

...that's a 20th century line from the incomparable Nikki Giovanni.

And that's 21st century Raul filling his friend Nailah in on the words to a song at CAMBA, the afterschool program at PS 249 in the People's Republic of Brooklyn.

ITHACA IS GORGES

FIVE ALIVE

BIRTHDAY WEEKEND: PART 1

For his birthday*, Raul said all he wanted to do was ride his bike across the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

Crazy!

*Officially 22 Sept yall.

BROOKLYN SOCCER: THIS IS JADA!!!

Everyone remembers Jada right? (If you're just joining us now, click back to March 10, 2007!)

BROOKLYN SOCCER: THESE ARE THE BLUE DRAGONS

Schedule here. We're Team 9; come check a game!

YOUNG AUTHORS

Start kindergarten—in a dual-language program—and suddenly you're a grammarian.

¡Eish!

GIANT

School's cool and all...but you can't miss out on a weekend in Beacon!

SCHOOL!

It's a new day. Raul started kindergarten at The Caton School ("where college begins in kindergarten"...yikes!) in Brooklyn today. He's in K-109, Ms Duncan's class—that'd be her on the left—and she gets great reviews.

Thanks to everyone who helped him get this far!

RAUL THE JEWEL ON THE HUDSON PART II

Today we went down and kicked the ball around at River Park before we took a dip in the River Pool at Beacon—an actual-factual fresh water pool floating in the Hudson!

The water was a bit murky and there were some big kids horsing around, so Raul was a little slow to get in at first. But once he realized just how shallow 30 inches he got right in and had a great time...soon enough he was splashing and taunting the older boys and Dad had to pull him out of there before things got hectic.

NICE SUNSET TOO

AHOY MATEY: JEWEL ON THE HUDSON

Turns out Dad's friend Carlo is not just a home restorer, kayak instructor, AT hiker and general bro-about-town...he's on the crew of the Woody Guthrie, which, as you know, is a replica of the popular gaff-rigged Hudson River sloop from days of yore. Tonight Carlo swung by and took Raul and Dad out on the WG with some other members of the Beacon Sloop Club for a two hours of jibing, tacking, some Hudson River history and a lot of good clean slooping (?) out on the water. A perfect day for sailing it was!

IN BEACON...JUST KICKIN IT

Raul spent the mornings of his first week in the B at a great soccer camp called "Just For Kicks." By his account the coaches were nice, he really liked all the kids there and he played lots of fun games like cups and saucers, a bee-fly game, and a treasure hunt with the inevitable lollipop at parent pick-up. Check out Coach Matt below with the official pirate eye patch. That's legit!

Soccer-wise the Jewel spent time practicing dribbling, shooting on goal and playing goalie, plus the expected skills like side kicks and backwards kicks..."like when you kick it with your heel. Isn't that amazing?

"And know what I'm trying to learn now, for real? To kick with the OTHER side of my foot."

Camp ended this morning on the 4th of July. And what would soccer camp be without a visit from the Beacon Fire Chief with a message about fire safety?