Sage's First Game of the Season

Sage's team won their first softball game of the season!!!! Sage is the player in purple in each picture. The score was 17-16, an exciting game filled with lots of hits, runs, and of course errors that made the game that much more fun to watch. Sage was starting catcher and did an amazing job, had quite a few great plays at home plate getting the runners out! She was up to bat 4 times and got on base 3 times with hits (should have been 4, got called out at first base where she was clearly safe but it was an ump in training who made a bad call... oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes). But her batting average at the moment is a 750, not too shabby.... Onto dance recital tomorrow night, hopefully will post those photos by the end of the weekend, should be quite the opposite of these - hair, makeup, sparkles!!!!

Busy Week!

Need to add photos, just haven't found time. Dance recital this week, 2 baseball scrimmages, 1 baseball game and a softball game (suppose to be 2, but Sage has to miss one because of dance). Oh, and Mike is out of town..... but you know what, I'm having a fabulous week because I really enjoy the kids stuff! (It also means I don't have time to do housework, too bad..... :) Tonight Chase had a baseball scrimmage. He played second base, pitched, and played catcher. Got a nice hit that earned him an ice cream at Giffords.

Sage has danced for 10 hours this week, spent last night watching her for 4 of those hours. It was really fun to watch her Senior Line dance, this is a group of young ladies that can all dance well. Recital starts Friday night, goes Sat. night, and finishes Sunday afternoon. Miss Heather puts on a fabulous show, I can't wait to see all the dancers in their costumes.

Chase's Ski Team

Chase's ski team is finished for the season, but I finally have a photo of the whole team. Back row: Tim, Hayes, Gifford, Nick (Chase's best friend on the mountain), and Chase. Front row starts with Pat, Chase's awesome coach, Rachel and Kelsea. It was a fabulous season and Chase made some great friends. Mike and I became good friends with some of the parents as well and look forward to catching up with everyone again next season!!!

All 7 Cousins

Lis and the kids visited for a week and we finally got all the kids together for a photo on the last day! Had a great week, shopping, out to eat, visiting with everyone... Jaxson is adorable, I just wanted to give him kisses all the time and Alexa, what an imp, couldn't stop laughing at her antics. Gregg, Meg, Nicolle, Sage, and Chase spent the week visiting, texting, video games, shopping, etc. Gregg and Chase went on a hike with Grandpa and got to roast hot dogs over a fire, while Grammie took the girls (plus Jaxson) shopping and out to lunch. They had to head home on Saturday, we were sad and miss them very much.

Skiing Cousins

Bare and Brooke brought Aidan and Nealy for a day of skiing. They had so much fun skiing together and getting to ski with Chase (Sage only made it back from her ski trip to Saddleback to make it into the pic!). Uncle Steve took Aidan and I took Nealy for a couple of runs and it wasn't long before the Kids wanted to race, so off we went... Neals and I blew by Steve and Aidan, but Aidan wouldn't have any of that so when we slowed down, they blew by us (of course we're on the bunny slope, so speed is relative). It was a sunny day, plenty of goggle tans and laughs!!!

My Daughter, the Performer!

Today was MM's spring musical and Sage was asked to sing a solo as an alum. She sang beautifully and did her alma mater proud!!! This photo is of her with Julia (who writes and composes the whole program and is an alum herself). Sage was honored to wear the MM plaid sash that alums get to wear in performances they've been asked to participate in. The entire program was fabulous, with each class going onstage to sing a song. My Kindergarten class got to sing with their Big Buddies and I got to sing with Chase's 4th grade class (NOT a solo, with the rest of the faculty...). Chase was his usual stoic self onstage (not his favorite place to be unless he has skis on and snow under him).

Big Air

Chase going for big air! Have this photo on my facebook page, but love it so put it out here too! Three more weeks for ski season, can't believe it's almost over. Will try to hit a few days in April if the snow holds!

Sage's Ski Group

This is Sage's ski group, her coach, Casey is the one in the back in the red and blue coat. Then there's Corinne, Fresca, Sophie, Hannah, Chris, Ryan, etc., I can't remember them all.... But she has a blast with them and Casey is an awesome coach! Sage is the one in pink jacket with the funky periwinkle plaid pants.

Matt Home for a Visit

My brother came home for a week at the beginning of the month and spent it at our camp, skiing all week. I was able to take a day off from work and the kids and I went up to meet him and then Mike met us over the weekend for a great few days of skiing. Don't we look alike???

February Vacation at Sugarloaf!

What a great week we had at Sugarloaf. We skied, skated and xc skied all week and believe it or not, we needed to come home to rest.... Sage had a great week with her ski group, her favorite thing is to ski the glades and they tackled CantDog at the end of the week. It's a glade you will never hear me going down, Sage said it's not that it's harder than others they've done, just bigger consequences, like cliffs that you could go over.... Then I found out Chase's group went down the same glade. Glad I didn't know about it until they were both back, safe and sound. Chase had two competitions and he took third in the freestyle and second in the moguls (his best mogul finish ever!!!). Mike and I are happy and worn out from all the activity, guess our bodies are telling us we're not as young as we thought! All in all, a fabulous week!

Sage's Braces Come Off!

Sage had her braces off after two and half years! She's was very excited to have them removed! And to quote Sage, "It looks great!"

Chase Takes Gold, Twice!!!

Chase competed in his second USSA Eastern Freestyle meet this weekend and swept the slopestyle events with firsts in both on Saturday! Here he is sporting his medals with Sugarloaf in the background. It was quite a confidence booster for him and the young ladies on his team also took notice....

Cool Dude.... Here's Chase at his first slopestyle competition of the season (held over Christmas break at Sugarloaf). He started his run on a rail, hit a jump with a spread eagle, then a downward box and finished with a 360 off the last jump (made it all the way around, landed, then caught an edge and fell..). However he still placed 7th out of 25!

Last weekend we went to Sunday River for his first USSA Eastern Freestyle Competition. Saturday was the mogul run, lets start with the weather, minus 29 when we started out that morning at 6, warmed all the way up to minus 21 when we pulled into the parking lot and by the time the runs started, it was a balmy minus 5!!!! Anyway, prepped Chase for the fact that this was his first big competition off the mountain, so just have fun and don't worry about placing. He had a nice conservative first run and hit the second run a little harder, fell in one spot, but picked himself up and continued on through moguls that made my knees ache just looking at them and over 3 jumps. Went to the awards ceremony just to check it out and they announced Chase Duguay, fourth place!!! He and I were so excited, he kept saying if only I didn't fall, I would have been on the podium! I was so proud of him!

The next day was his slopestyle event and he had a great run, nice and clean, though conservative and he placed third (correction from earlier post, he got the bronze!) in his age group! It was a fantastic weekend and a great way to start off-mountain competitions.

We stayed at my good friends' Alice and Chris's in Bethel on Saturday night in between the two competitions and had a great time catching up, I hadn't seen them in over a year, maybe longer. Skied with Alice on Sunday (she's on a snowboard!) and just had fun all weekend long!

Christmas Parade

Sage danced in the Christmas Parade tonight. Their costumes were beautiful and the girls all looked like Santa's helpers. Unfortunately, a fuse blew in the speakers so they didn't have music and when it came time for the dance to introduce Santa, beside there being no music, the crowd wouldn't move for them to dance. Because most of their dance included kicks, it was a challenge for them to dance and not take out a kid or two... Oh well, it would have been okay if we hadn't given up our trip to Vermont for Val's cookie party. I guess there's always next year!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Had brunch at Nanny and Bampy's and this is a photo of all the cousins (sans Travis and Chad, so Adam and Chase are holding their pics). Stuffed ourselves silly on popovers, ham, eggs, biscotti, etc, etc, etc,. Then we went to Michelle and Deb's for dinner and ate all over again, turkey, stuffing, rolls, veggies, gravy, etc, etc, etc,.... But, boy was everything yummy!!! Michelle introduced us to letter boxing (kind of a lesser version of geo-caching) and had set up a hunt for the box and gave us clues and stamps. It was a blast and we looked up other sights in the area to try to find on another day. We thought it might be fun to try this when we're visiting a new place to see what that area may have set up. Missed Mom and Dad and Lis and Matt, who are all together at Lissa's today - wished we all lived closer so we could celebrate more holidays together... Oh well, at least we get great places to go on vacation when we go visit them.

Hope everyone had as a great a Thanksgiving as we did!

Ski Season Has Arrived!

Sugarloaf is open!!!!

Football Season

Chase's football season ended last week with a banquet where the teams and players were recognized and got t-shirts with their names on the back! This was Chase's first year playing football, switching from years of soccer and he had a fabulous season! He had the most tackles and according to him, the most sacks (and I think he's right).

Because of his soccer experience he became their kicker/punter as well and this is a pic I got has he kicked for an extra point, successfully!

We were told at the beginning of the season that our local team never wins in football, but luckily Chase didn't hear that and his team won all their games except for one. He loved football, but misses soccer so we'll see what he chooses next season. Though he's now focused on the upcoming ski season that actually starts Friday! Whohoo!

Field Hockey

Sage finished her field hockey season a few weeks ago on a successful note. Last year they struggled to win even one game and this year started a little shaky, but the score board was much closer than last year on each game. Her coach (our good friend Deb) decided to dangle a carrot in front of them (or more like a worm). She promised to eat a worm for every goal scored. It worked, they won the next game 3-0, tied one of the top teams 1-1, and then won their last game 3-1 (I think that was the score). Well Deb never dreamt it'd mean that many worms!!! But, boy were the girls psyched to end on a winning note! Next year it means pre-season as Sage will be starting high school, yikes!

Columbus Day Weekend

Okay, my sister says I'm lame and don't update my blogs enough, she's right. Here are a couple of photos from Columbus Day weekend. We went up to Sugarloaf for the weekend. They were running the SuperQuad and we got to ride up the mountain and then hike down. We packed a lunch and had a great day. As you can see, it was beautiful out! Now we can't wait for the snow to fly. It was too much work on foot when we know how fast we can get down on skis!

Rowe Family Reunion

I'm finally taking some time to update our page. This is our Rowe (my great-grandparents who have long sinced passed away) family reunion representing four generations. At the end of July, we all got together at my parents' house for a day of reconnecting and of course, eating good, home-cooked food.

As my Gram (Grammie Rowe's daughter) passed away just the month before this year's reunion, and her sister a couple of months before that, we spent a lot of time reminiscing. My Gram loved to dance when she was younger and she and her sister danced the Charleston at a celebration one summer when Gram was about 60 (I thought she was old then, but that was over 30 years ago!). Well, the week before Gram passed, Sage serendipitously learned the Charleston at her dance studio. Just before the reunion, she taught her cousins, Sara and Jenna, how to dance it, and they all danced, along w/my mom at the reunion (that's them resting in the photo just above on the right).

And Chase enjoyed playing croquet with the boys, cousins Nicholas, Dominic, and Matthew. I think they just hit the balls and not each other with the mallets....

The other two photos are cousins, Jenna, Sara, Jackson, Peg, Diane and my mom and then a photo of my Mom, Dad, my mom's sister, Aunt Carolyn, and my mom's brother and wife, Uncle Leon and Aunt Betty. They realized they are now the older generation at the reunion, something I don't think they liked very much... Of course, that moved Mike and I up to the middle-aged generation, which I know I don't like at all!