Kevin: He now has his Class 1 Drivers Permit; he has to collect 30 hrs of drive time with parents (at least 2 at night) and wait 3 months before he can move on to the 2nd phase of Drivers Ed. He’s still super-geeked every time he gets behind the wheel and I’ve only had to raise my voice on two trips so far. Biggest weakness right now is a consistent habit of taking up both sides of a driveway as he pulls in and out of parking lots, restaurants, etc.
High school all-state auditions were this weekend….I need to make the time to tape him playing the etude that he had to play on Sunday. It seemed, to me, to be really challenging and I was very impressed by how he played at times….he was really ‘forceful’ and ‘confident’ on certain notes and I just haven’t heard him play that way. Ever.
He said he did ok on the scales and described the sight reading as really difficult; viola is mostly alto clef and the sight reading was in treble clef (I’d like to think that last year’s adventures in violin helped here) and Kevin says the piece was meant to be played in second position….something he’s not done a lot of. Kevin thought he did ok, he knows he kind of missed one passage but when that passage repeated he got it, so, that’s something I guess. His fellow viola-ist at school said he didn’t even use second position for it…not sure what to think of that, whether Kevin misunderstood how to play the piece or the other kid did.
We’re not really expecting him to make it this year…it is a big step up. Would be nice though.
Matthew: Outdoor soccer is over, so, that means, indoor soccer must be starting. We had two games this weekend, lost the first 5-2 to a TNT team that formed at the last minute (kind of irked about this…I may not have done indoor soccer if I knew there was going to be a TNT team…..I guess I had the chance to switch him but decided to keep him with Cpher and the rest of the team) and tied the second game 2-2.
Matthew volunteered to be goalie in the first game…gave up two goals, one that he had no chance on and one that he had every chance to get and didn’t. He’s certainly not the best goalie in the world; it takes a while for him to get aggressive and get into the game (the two goals were early) and once he did get aggressive he was much more involved and ‘steady’ in the net.
One of the TNT parents submitted a story for the local papers about the team….
Christopher: Played in the two games mentioned above; had two good shots on goal in the last minute of the final game but both deflected off of the defense and we settled for the tie. Not much to report here; he played ok but he’s certainly limited by his size and speed in a wide open game. I wish he understood a bit more that his time in soccer (at least at this level) was coming to an end….he really enjoys it and understands the game, but, when kids can just blow by you it’s not going to be a good thing as he continues on.
He’ll get his chance to play goalie next weekend; I like to have everyone get a chance to play at some point and have chosen the weakest team in the group of indoor for Cpher’s shot at it. It’s going to be a challenging 24 minutes…..
Not much else is new with the big guy…..he’s lost his TV for the long-term until his ‘chatter’ with the family loses its harshness and improves. I’m not sure it’s working out that well (I think he doesn’t miss it that much)…not much improvement in the last week…we’ll keep going though (and step up the restrictions to match).
Basketball practice begins this week…..that ought to be interesting.
Coming Soon:
- P/T Conferences, Fall 2010
- I have a really tough work assignment coming up next week, 3 days and nights in Puerto Rico. More than one post and a few pictures are almost a certainty.
- Holly Update – haven’t talked about the dog that I think we should have named ‘Princess’ or ‘Diva’….will do that as we near her birthday.
- Halloween – not much to report here, but, I guess a post on it isn’t out of the quetion.
