Girls and Women in Sports Day

On Sunday, Colby College was having an event to celebrate National Girls and Women in Sports Day. They invited any interested local girls between the ages of 6 and 16 to come to a free sports clinic at the college, hosted by the Colby athletic department. Naturally we signed Emily and Kate up for it.

The clinic was from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., which is a pretty long day for our kids. We packed them lots of snacks, a big lunch, and extra clothes and shoes in case they went outside.

They each received an awesome blue t-shirt for the event, which they affixed their nametags to. Thankfully, several of their friends from school were also in attendance, which helped ease their anxiety about Mom dropping them off and leaving.

The crowd of participants was smaller than we expected--who wouldn't want to come to a free sports clinic put on by college coaches? We were kind of surprised.

The clinic started out with the Colby Volleyball coach talking about National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and Title IX. Then the varsity volleyball players were introduced, and they got the kids going on some volleyball skill drills.

At this point Mom left, and the girls' day continued with basketball and field hockey instruction from the actual Colby coaches and athletes--pretty awesome!
When Mama came back at 4:00 to pick up the kids, they were doing even more fun stuff: Archery!

Their last activity was a balloon popping game that had everyone shrieking.

Finally they gathered the kids together for one final cheer, then sent them off.

Emily and Kate said they loved the clinic! They were totally exhausted and hungry though (despite the big lunches), so a quick trip to Sweet Frog was in order.

Thank you to Colby College for the fantastic free event on Sunday!

Kate's Salon

Kate has established a salon (named "Kate's Salon", of course) in case any of our local blog readers are interested in getting a "mani-peti" or a "hair due". She is hoping to raise enough money to buy herself a horse. Dream on, Kate!

She actually does a pretty good job of painting fingernails and toenails (she did Mama's and her own, except for her right hand, which Mom finished for her).

Emily, who has been enlisted as an apprentice salon "professionalist", as Kate calls herself, got to do Mom's toenails. They were a little bit messy, but not too bad.

 Come on over, locals, and bring your cash!

Shooting Pool at TJ's

Ever since the kids played their first game of billiards at the End Zone this winter, they have been badgering us to take them to a pool hall. There happens to be one in Waterville, so we decided to give it a try on Saturday afternoon.

We arrived shortly after they opened at 1:00, and we were the only ones there. It turns out that early Saturday afternoon is the perfect time to take your young children to a pool hall--no shady characters, and every single table was open. It was also nice to find that the place was smoke-free, since Mom and Mama's pool-playing memories include lots of clouds of cigarette smoke.

Almost unbelievably, there was a small children's arcade at the pool hall! Apparently they put it in recently, in hopes of luring families now that the only bowling alley in town is closing down. The girls were thrilled--they promptly found a roll of unused tickets and started playing all the arcade games.

This meant that Mom and Mama could play pool together in peace, which was a first for us and very enjoyable. We aren't that good, but we aren't that bad either, and it was nice to play on a decent table with relatively decent equipment.

Eventually the girls ran out of game tickets and joined us at the table, which changed the dynamic of the game quite a bit. Because, basically, they are terrible.

They don't really want to be instructed (i.e. lectured) on proper form, so they just do it however they want. 

We quickly realized that it wasn't worth arguing about, and just let them use whatever form they wanted. They didn't hit many balls in the pockets, but they really enjoyed playing anyway.

Mama even showed them her behind-the-back shot, and also how to use a bridge, which they really liked.

What was their favorite part, you ask? There seemed to be an awful lot of time spent chalking the cue stick tips.

The four of us played for an hour, and it cost us about twelve dollars--it's pretty cheap entertainment, really. Mom and Mama decided that we would really like to come back to the pool hall with some grownups sometime (they sell beer and wine), as it would probably be more fun than going with our kiddos.

First Earring Change

Kate made good on her promise to take better care of her pierced ears this time around, and Saturday marked the end of the six-week "starter earrings" stage. She was eager to change out the sparkly flowers for something else, so we did it right after breakfast. Here is the before photo:

For her first "real" earrings she chose the pretty pink flowers from the set she got for her birthday (thanks Cadence!).

After a little help from Mom removing the old ones, she carefully cleaned the new flowers...

...and popped them right in.

They looked great!

Kate is thrilled with her pierced ears. She has another set of different-colored gems, and she plans to change them out every day for school. According to Claire's, she needs to continue wearing earrings with posts for one year, then she can try out some thinner hoops and "dangly" ones, as she calls them.

Congratulations Kate, on making it to this milestone!

Horseback Riding with the Girl Scouts

The final event of spring break week was the Girl Scout horse adventure, at Broken Willow Stables in Albion. Mom had hoped to take the morning off work for it, but she was too busy so Mama took the girls.

First they listened to the stable manager describe how to take care of horses, including food, care, and shelter.

Then they watched a demonstration of the proper way to muck out a stall...

...and they got to have a try at it.

They also moved some grain--it was heavier than it looked!

After all that, it was time to actually meet some horses.

The stable manager explained that the girls would need to stay calm and quiet around the horses--this is always kind of difficult for some of the girls.

They got to brush and comb the horses...

...and they learned how saddles are put on...

...and then it was time to ride!

The girls were all a little intimidated by the horses at first, but eventually most of them climbed aboard for a short ride. Emily didn't want to do it, but Kate got up on Peach, the big brown mare and took her for a spin.

She loved it!

Most of the girls had never been around horses before, so the experience was pretty amazing for them.

Congratulations to all the scouts who earned their Equine badge on Friday!

Spring Break Staycation

All this week the girls have been home from school for spring break. Since we didn't have plans to go anywhere, and Mom still had to go to work everyday, it wasn't much of a break for Mama at all. Unlike years past, though, the kids are old enough now to do more fun things, and they no longer require constant adult supervision.

Both girls have expressed interest in training to run a 5k, so Mama got them out running a few times on the road up behind our place (Molly of course joined in).

On Tuesday Mama took them to Skowhegan, where they went to the Bankery for a doughnut, bought flour from Maine Grains, and also visited the Margaret Chase Smith museum--fun!
On Thursday, Mama took them down to Augusta for Scout Appreciation Day at the state house. They posed with all the other scouts in attendance...

...took a tour around the state house, where they quickly found this portrait of MCS herself...

...took some photos with their troop banners in the Hall of Flags...

...and kicked back in the rocking chairs just outside the house and senate chambers.

The kids really enjoyed their visit to the capitol.

While in Augusta, they swung by Uncle Seth's house and picked up Lili and Alana, who were also on spring break for the week.

The cousins decided to come to our house for a sleepover! Of course Mama got everyone out for a nice walk in the woods...

...and the girls took advantage of their captive audience by giving the cousins a full and complete introduction to every single Monster High doll.

Emily and Kate absolutely LOVE spending time with their teenage cousins. Having them stay the night was pretty much the icing on the cake.

Today was the final big event of the week (blog post coming!), and now Mama will be able to get back to her regular schedule when they go back to school on Monday.

Although we didn't really go anywhere for spring break, the girls will still have lots of fun stories to tell their friends about what they did this week.