Soccer Continues!

Plastic cups stuck in the fence,
announcing "Senior Night '18!"

Hola!

Just had to give a "Soccer Update" for Kara. Her Wayland Varsity girls' soccer team season finished about a week ago.

Individual posters with soccer pics...

LAST HOME GAME. We had a lovely "Senior Night" 2 weekends ago, where they honor the seniors at the last home game. At halftime, the families go out on the field, and the girls are presented with roses and a certificate, and the presenter says nice things about the seniors. This year the presenter was Alan, one of the Dad's, who has actually coached many of these girls (including Kara) since Elementary School in town soccer. He's awesome, and it was very cool.

Okay I forgot to take a cake picture until it was
almost DARK, for Pete's sake...
the photo in the middle is of all the seniors
gathered around "The Rock" in front of the school,
with "2018 Seniors" painted on it. Very cute.

The rest of the team makes posters for each senior, and they decorate the bleachers, and there's cake. It's a nice evening. (And the girls ALSO won the game! Ha. That always makes it a great Senior Night!)

Of course, that was 2 days after Frank had left for India so he couldn't go. But knowing he'd be gone, I had previously had a parent take a picture of the 3 of us:

After Kara sees the photo she says,
"But I had already taken off my shin guards..."

TOURNAMENT. So here's the process: They take the 16 teams to "Tournament." These teams either have the best records, or if they simply have a certain number of wins, or something. Anyway there are 2 ways to go to "Tournament," and 16 teams go.

 Wayland eeeeeeked in, at #16. So they got to go to "tournament." Yaaaay!

The lame part was, at #16, they were bracketed to play the NUMBER ONE TEAM, right off the bat. Blah! The "worst" record team against the "best" record team! That's just how they set up the brackets. "Sorry girls, but have fun anyway...you'll probably lose..."

Well guess what: Last Friday, #16 Wayland BEAT the #1 team, 4-1! Yaaaaaayy! That was an amazing shocker, and they were so excited to continue.

The next game was last night, Tuesday 7 November. And guess what again: Wayland WON, 3-0! Woo-hoo! It was freezing and raining. Awful. And they passed the ball great, had a lot of shots on goal, and played great as a team, and they won.

So, here's the Shout Out to Kara, and the team is so happy and excited to continue. Next game tomorrow, Thursday 9 Nov.

I really just wanted you to know that it is a big deal to go to "tournament" at ALL, and this is a great way to end the season as a senior. Whether they win, and continue to the finals, or if they lose tomorrow afternoon and they're finished for this year, they have worked really hard and improved a lot. GOOOOO KARA!!!! :) :) :)

Kari

Halloween and India

Hola--
Well surprise, it's a new month! Our October has been so beautiful. We had lots of days in the 70's, and even the 80's some of the time. If people came to visit in October THIS year, they'd say "Wow, it's so nice in the fall here!"

Usually I'm shivering, but even for Kara's soccer games, we've had really great weather.

yep, mornings are cold: maybe 45 degrees here?!

HALLOWEEN. We had a rather quiet Halloween here at the house, not many Trick-or-Treaters. But traditionally at the high school, the seniors get to dress up for the day. The kids are usually pretty funny or creative.

They do costumes in groups... one group was the "Magic School Bus," all with yellow cardboard buses around them.

I liked the hats--down to the details
of the ribbons coming out the top!

There were "The Incredibles," in red tights and capes and masks. Another group dressed in gold, including spraying their faces and hair gold, and were "Trophy Statues:" a golden baseball player, a golden ballerina, etc. Clever. Kara and friends were "Hershey Kisses," wearing everything silver and a ribbon out the top of the hats they made. They handed out Chocolate kisses, too :) :) It was a fun day for them!

Frank has been in India this week. Yep, the other side of the world, just about! They are 9 AND A HALF hours ahead of us, isn't that funny! He went out a few days before the conference started, so he could be a tourist. He sent some photos via Snapchat, and I screen-shotted them. If I can transfer them to the computer, I can post them.

**If you click on the photo, it is bigger...

He started out being able to see the Taj Mahal, so that is in the background on a few of these pics.

It's a very crowded country, and also polluted. I think those photos you see of the Taj Mahal with a clear blue sky behind it, were taken by people who live there. They wait for the ONE or TWO clear days of the year, and take postcard-worthy pics of it!

He also got to see a game of cricket--India played New Zealand. I've never seen cricket!

Fort he visited on Saturday

Inside the fort

Cricket Game

Cricket w/co-workers--I'm laughing at the
photo-bombers, top right, sticking his tongue out

Overall things have gone smoothly so far. Sleep is pretty mixed up, of course, and there are a LOT of people, and a lot of poverty everywhere you look. You have to avoid the water, but the hotels have a never-ending supply of bottled water.

workers hanging on the outer wall of the hotel--!!

Well this is just a smattering. Time to get on with the OTHER parts of the day! Frank gets back to Boston Sunday evening.

Have a great rest of the week!
Kari