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?

SUMMER SUIT

Well what would YOU wear to the library?

GUESS WHO'S BIZZACK?

Raul the Jewel aka Wonderwall aka Mr Bad aka Small Man aka Macho Chacho, that's who.

In a sudden turn of events Raul and Mom have moved back to the NYC area—Brooklyn to be precise. Dad is still up in Beacon and Raul is here for the whole month of July.

So things are looking up! Stay tuned!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

Word outta Seattle this a.m. is that Raul scored his first goal in soccer today.

Nice one!

That's Raul above with Logan, his buddy from school AND
soccer.

Logan gets in it on the pitch as well, please believe.