Braces

Haley got her braces today. It was pretty cool, though probably a lot more interesting from my point of view than from hers... A nice assistant was in charge of Haley on this visit.

First she pulled Haley's lips away from her teeth to help keep them dry.


Then she glued the little brackets onto her teeth, one at a time.


Once the brackets were all in place, she used a cool blue light to harden the glue.


Once that was done, she freed Haley's lips. Yay! Then she laid a wire over the brackets, and hooked neat colored rubber bands over each one, holding the wire in place.


Here is the final result!


Haley picked heart shaped brackets for her two front teeth, and pink and red bands, so she's in good shape for Valentine's Day. Every time she goes in for a checkup, she'll have the opportunity to pick different colors of bands, so she can get a new look every couple of months :)

Basketball

What is the phrase again? Maybe "glutton for punishment", Although "sucker" is nicely succinct. Yes, I've signed Haley up for another sport. Goodbye Saturday morning sleep-ins...

Actually, basketball isn't too bad so far. Of course it hasn't started yet, but still... You see, we're early. The only practices are 1/2 an hour before the games (which is astonishingly low key). Anyhow, I assumed that meant we were to show up 1/2 an hour early for our game time, and then the kids would practice. Nope, the given time is actually the time they want us there (astonishingly practical!) So we're early. If this were an 8am game, I'd be a bit resentful over the mixup, but since it's 2pm, I find myself sitting in the sunshine, taking the time to blog a bit. Yeah, I think our earliest game is going to be at 11 :)

Also, as everyone knows, basketball is an indoor sport. The benefits of not having to sit in the drizzle to watch her games cannot be understated. Of course, gyms are noisier, but nothing's perfect :)

For years, Haley hoped that her soccer uniform would be purple. And for years it has been a wide variety of colors, none of them purple. Yellow, lime green, grey... Naturally, her first basketball team is purple :)



Her coach teaches 7th grade history at my school. His wife coached one of the opposing soccer teams this year. It'll be good having him as Haley's coach; teachers tend to make pretty good coaches, since they already have so much experience dealing with & directing kids.


The kids are practicing now -- more info and photos to come when the game starts.

***

Well, Haley's team won. Haley didn't "score any goals" but she did shoot once, and was able to make a couple of blocks when her team was defending. Luckily it looks like the kids get a lot of exercise -- the court is a lot smaller than a soccer field, but they're running the whole time :)

Coming Home

It's always nice coming home. The view of Crescent City was particularly beautiful this time. The sun had set, but the glow of the sunset lingered.


It was so beautiful Haley wanted her photo taken!

New Year's Eve

It's become a tradition for my group of friends to gather to celebrate New Year's Eve together. The cool thing about being a grownup is that the potlucks get a lot better. Everybody brings real food, instead of just bread and chips. I brought beef potpie, chips, and carrot cake. We also had two salads, homemade salsa, and roast pork. For dessert there was homemade lemon pie, apple crisp, cookies, and fresh whipped cream. Yummy!

This year a lot of us left before the ball dropped, but Nancy, Cynthia, and I stuck it out. All of our kids managed to stay awake until the big moment. We poured pear cider into plastic champagne flutes, and counted down while watching the ball drop. Then we toasted the new year.

Nancy's neighbor then set off a lot of fireworks. The kids gathered around the open sliding glass door, cheering for each bottle rocket. I'm sure the neighbors knew exactly how much their unexpected audience enjoyed the show.