Early Halloween

Bode had his school carnival last weekend.  The kids get to wear their costumes, and there are various games and prizes and food.  The carnival helps raise money, so we go and spend some bucks and have fun.  Mommy, as you know, really gets into Halloween, much more than I do.  I don't really know what she was in costume--some sort of cross between a western and science fiction chick, but she looked pretty cool.  Bode, in keeping with the Star Wars theme from last year when he was Darth Maul, was The Inquisitor, the evil bad buy from Star Wars Rebels season one.  We took some pictures before heading down to the school.

We arrived right at the start and bought our tickets to participate in the many games and activities.  We think Bode is at the point where the games will be boring next year--there are things like a football toss and ring toss and face painting.  He still enjoyed doing it this year, so we will have to what the future holds.  I say this because the other morning, I thought Bode was going to wear his Cars sweatshirt with Lightening McQueen on the front.  He informed me he is told old for stuff like that.  Sheesh.

At the carnival, we stopped by Ms Radke's room.  Bode spun the wheel of destiny and won a prize--they always win prizes like candy or something no matter what they do, so we filled a sack with candy by the night's end.  We also took a picture of Bode, Ms Radke, and his buddy, LaSean, who was an awesome looking minion while Ms Radke was a character from one of the stories the kids read in school.

We also took a cool picture of Mommy and Bode.  Adorable.

Bode had dinner at the carnival and sat with his buddy, Cayson.  Ashley and I didn't eat--hot dogs weren't ringing our bell, but I did have a yummy slice of pie.  We went home after a couple hours and lamented Auburn's 4-OT loss to Arkansas :-(

Bode has had the past two days off from school--parent-teacher conference time.  We had our meeting with Bode's teacher on Wednesday.  We could not have been more pleased.  Ms Radke had wonderful things to say about Bode--how helpful he is, how well he writes, how knowledgeable he is about science, how polite he is; and at that point, we had to verify she knew we were Bode's parents and not some other student's.  She assured us she was talking about Bode, and when she mentioned he does have a small problem of talking a lot, we knew it was our kid :-)  As a reward, Bode and Mommy spent yesterday at some space symposium/learning center.  Bode loved it and learned lots about the planets and space, and they even had a Minecraft modification that was space-related, which he played for an hour.  They also made some goofy hats.

Bode has his final soccer game of the year today, so we'll be heading there in an hour.  Auburn plays Ole Miss today, so I'm not too optimistic.  It'd be nice to see Auburn get a win, as it's been a tough year for Ashley considering the high expectations with which the season started.  Otherwise, it should be a nice quiet day.  Maybe I'll go out and mulch up the garden.  Pleasant day.

Corn Maze

With Halloween just around the corner, we decided to go to a corn maze, and not just any corn maze.  Thirty (30) acres of corn maze located at Anderson Farms just north of Denver.  We met up with Dave, Teddy, and Charlie early on Sunday morning, early because we wanted to beat the crowds.  Here are a couple good pictures of the cousins (Charlie is in the mask).

The farm is huge, but I don't know if they do any harvesting of the corn.  I think they can make much more money growing corning, cutting it into a maze, and then charging $15 per person to visit (plus concessions, etc) for a couple months.  Maybe I should look into something like this for my retirement...but I digress.  There were chickens...

and also some goofy signs.

The farm is kind enough to provide a map, which was rather accurate, both on a piece of paper and at the start of the maze, which Bode immediately committed to his photographic memory.

If you can't tell, the pattern is a skier (bottom) and a snow-boarder riding a chair lift.  All the lines in the picture are the maze paths.  We headed out, with the goal of reaching all eighteen checkpoints.  There was a nice lookout platform at the start.  I headed up and snapped a picture of Bode and Mommy.  It looks like we are miles and miles from civilization (or in Nebraska), when in reality, we're only a few miles from your normal suburban-type structures (strip malls, Subway, gas stations).

We took turns playing the part of navigator.  Bode nor Charlie wasn't very interested in finding our way through the maze; they did love the stalks and stalks of corn that were lying around.  Teddy tried his hand at navigating, with some success (and an assist from Uncle Dave).

It took us close to 90 minutes to complete the maze, which isn't too bad.  We did take some short cuts through the rows of corn rather than following all the paths.  We tried to eat lunch at the farm, but the lines were horrendous.  Instead, we opted for a nearby Firehouse Subs, which, as luck would have it, was also televising the Bronco game (note Uncle Dave's shirt--he's a big fan).

Bode has his school's Fall Carnival tomorrow, and then only three days of school next week (parent-teacher conferences).  I think Ashley and Bode might head up to the mountain estate.  The ski lifts aren't yet open, but Breckenridge did get some snow yesterday.  Winter is coming :-)

First Swim Meet

Bode had his first swim meet today.  We could not be more proud of how he did.  This was our first swim meet as parents, so it was a bit of a learning experience.  First, Bode is in the 8-and-under age group.  Thus, he swimsagainst boys over a year older than him, so we had to temper our expectations.  Bode signed up for four events:  the 25-yard butterfly, the 25-yard backstroke, the 25-yard freestyle, and the 100-yard individual medley.

If you've never been to a swim meet, you must realize it is organized chaos.  Every child competing has two or three family members cheering them on, there are tons of swimmers, and a pool deck is only so big.  It was very crowded, but I was very impressed with the efficiency the officials conducted the events--very German-like, although by the end of the day, I was very tired of hearing a whistle blow.  We arrived a little after 7 am, and Bode and his team swam for 25 minutes to warm up.  This seemed odd to me, because some kids' events were until two hours later, so it wasn't clear to me how the warm-up was helpful.  But being a newbie, I kept my mouth shut.  Soon, it was time to race.

First up is a picture of Bode getting ready.  Next time, we need to get him a cap for his head and some bike shorts to swim in to cut down on the drag.  No speedos thought--a small number of kids wore them, and, in short, it looks horrible.

His first event was the butterfly.  Ashley brought the good camera and took videos of each race.  However, the file sizes are huge, so I had to reduce the resolution.  If you want the HD video, you'll have to come to the house to watch :-)  But I think the below accurately capture the events.  

Note he gets second in his heat.  He was third, but he had a strong second half of the race and passed that other boy.  Ultimately, he was 7th out of 12 boys, but he beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of one boy, Max, who is a ridiculously awesome swimmer, and he's six months younger than Bode.  Max was the overall winner in the butterfly.  Bode knows Max from his days at Donna's Dolphins, and I think the two of them enjoyed hanging out together between races more than the meet itself.  You can see Max in the first frames of the above movie--he's the blond boy leaning against the diving board.  Bode's second race was the back-stroke.  We think this is his best stroke, and he did very well, winning his heat by a large margin.

He was 9th (I think) out of 22 boys, and, like before, beat all the other seven year olds with the exception of Max, who was the overall winner (the kid is a beast).  Next up is the freestyle.  He won his heat by a large margin.  Note at the next meet, Bode will be in faster heats because he will now have an official time and will seeded accordingly.

Like the backstroke, he was ~9th (I think), but this time, another seven-year old (and Max) beat him.  Max must have swum poorly because he only got second--he's slipping :-)  Bode's final race was the 100-yard IM.  This consists of a 25-yard butterfly, a 25-yard backstroke, a 25-yard breaststroke, and finishing up with a 25-yard freestyle.  There is no IM for 8-and-under, so Bode was swimming against other boys who were 10 years old.  Thus, the reason for him looking slow.

He swam great, but sadly, he was DQed :-(  Apparently he didn't do his turn off the breaststroke properly--he needs to put two hands on the wall instead of only one.  He wasn't bothered by this--understood why, said he'll do better, and was his happy self.

It's getting darker earlier, the weather is a bit cooler, and the garden has stopped producing.  Winter must be coming :-)  Pleasant evening to all.

Cross Country

Bode finished his second year running cross country.  As I've said in previous posts, Bode is more of a social runner--the type of guy that shows up for the evening runs at the local pub just for the beer and the company and believes the run is just something to get over with.  The team had six meets this year, but two were cancelled due to rain and/or lightening.  The last one was somewhat annoying, as both Ashley and I raced to get to the meet.  The kindergarteners and first grade races went, and as the second graders were getting ready, the meet was called.  And I've no issue with the meet being cancelled--it was fixin' to pour down.  We even got some large hail on the cars as we were driving home (which is the primary reason for my annoyance).  As always, we are very proud of our little dude.  Here's his certificate...

and here's the team photo.  Bode is in the second row from the back towards the right-hand side.

We spent Columbus Day weekend up in the mountains, doing a little work on the mountain estate.  The weather was amazing.  Ten years ago, Ashley and I went up to Breckenridge over Columbus Day, and we almost were stranded because we got 20 inches of snow.  A little different this weekend--highs in the 60s and maybe even the 70s.

The trees in the picture above were painted blue to raise environmental awareness.  It was a water based paint, and there were signs up saying the paint didn't hurt the trees...but I'd sure be ticked off if someone painted me all blue even if the paint was water soluble...but I digress.  We walked around the town, and even went ice-skating (sadly, no pictures).  This week is a big week.  I'm sure I don't have to remind people of the Auburn game Thursday night (not been a great season thus far).  Then, on Saturday, Bode has his first real swim meet.  He will swim the 25-yard freestyle, 25-yard butterfly, the 25-yard backstroke, and the 100-yard individual medley.  We are excited to see him in action.  Not much else is going on here.  The dogs are fine, Ashley is fine (smoking fine if you ask me), and I'm still teaching.  I also received a new charger for my camera battery today, which is the reason for the dearth of pictures--just in time for the big swimathon, so look for a lot of pictures next Sunday!  Pleasant week to all :-)

Bode's Recital

Bode had his first piano recital yesterday.  Fifteen thousand people from Colorado Springs packed World Arena to hear him play (a bit of an exaggeration).  Actually, there were probably 50 people and 12 players at a local church.  Still, it was very enjoyable.  In the morning, Bode told me he was scared of the recital because playing in front of people was hard.  I told him not to worry about it, and he seemed fine, although I was concerned after he said this.  Still, we knew he could do well because he'd been practicing so hard.  Bode got to the recital early, and spent some time with Miss Pat going over things and loosening up.  We all then gathered in the church, and Miss Pat said some opening remarks. I snapped a quick photo of Bode and Mommy.

Miss Pat then said the first player would be Bode McGuirk.  Little Dude gets up and calmly walks to the front.  I told him to bring his bag which contains his music.  He had told me he had everything memorized, but I thought he might want it in case he froze up (although I didn't tell him this).  Miss Pat introduced Bode to the crowd (small group of people), and said he'd be playing three pieces.  I took the opportunity to snap another photo.  No signs of nerves in this little guy.

His first piece was Pop Goes the Weasel.  Only a couple mistakes, and those were with the dreaded left hand.  Plus, no need for any sheet music.  The kid has a memory!

His next piece is a song called The Accompaniment.  I started the camera late, so I didn't get the beginning.  Because of this error, I decided to just keep rolling and include his third piece in this clip (yes, I know there are easy movie editing software packages that would cut and splice the footage; I'm too lazy to do this).  His third song is called Go For the Gold, and I think he played both pieces amazingly well AND all from memory!

Obviously he needs to work on his bow at the end--he just sort of dropped the microphone and walked off :-)  The whole ensemble posed for a group picture afterwards

We are very proud of how hard Bode has worked on the piano.  We don't really have to bother him to practice--he'll sit down and play a few songs, although we think he does this just to butter us up so we'll let him play Agario, a very addicting and simple computer game.  We don't have much else going on right now.  The garden is winding down a productive year.  We even got a few stalks of corn and some peppers to go along with the tomatoes and broccoli.

The corn was ok--a little rough and chewy.  I don't know if it makes sense to grow it here.  I think next year I'll start six seeds in cups in March, and then transplant them.  Otherwise, I don't think the growing season is long enough.  I spent a couple days this week at the mountain estate cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood.  I think we have close to three cords of wood ready to go.  It took me all of Thursday and part of Friday morning to do this.

We are going up again over Columbus Day weekend in a couple weeks.  I still have about 100 more logs to cut.

Obviously the weather was gorgeous the two days I was there.  In Colorado Springs, it's been great--almost annoyingly hot, as the high for today is predicted to be 87.  A week ago, I took Bode on a short bike ride.  I didn't know if he really liked it or not until last night when he said, "Daddy, can we go on a bike ride tomorrow?"  Of course we will be going.  Pleasant week, and Happy October to all.

Swim Team

As I said in a previous post, Bode has joined the Rocky Mountain Rapids as a Class I swimmer.  There are five classes, with Class V being a high-school level swimmer.  Bode is doing amazingly well, and I say this as an unbiased observer (really).  I tried taking some pictures and movies yesterday.  They didn't turn out great, but it's not really my fault (yup, this craftsman is blaming his tools).  Bode was swimming on the other side of the pool, and all the parents/observers are sitting in the bleachers on the far side.  I didn't want to be "that parent" that is taking pictures of an ordinary workout.  Therefore, I had to use the zoom feature on my circa 2004 camera.  Thus, things are blurry and shaky.  Still, I think you can get the idea.  First up in Bode just chilling in the pool.

Next is a movie of Bode doing butterfly, turning off the "wall," in quotes because they Class I team only had one lane, so they put in a fake wall in the middle of the pool.

Note how good he looks doing butterfly.  Also note how fast his turn is off the wall as he transitioned to backstroke--just a couple months ago, he would stop, and let his feet touch the bottom of the pool before starting again.  Now, he just goes right in to backstroke, and simply overtakes the swimmer in front of him.  Very nice!  Next is a blurry movie of Bode doing freestyle.  His flip turn is very good, and he looks very smooth.

Towards the end of practice, they work on their starts.  Today was Bode's first time going off the starter's block.

Finally, the team did some sprint racing at the end.  Here's Bode winning his race--I think the person he swam against is about a head taller than he is.

Swim practice again tomorrow and Thursday.  I foresee many hours spent sitting on a pool deck :-) Bode has a meet on 17 October.  He will be swimming the 25-meter freestyle, 25-meter backstroke, 25-meter butterfly, and the 100-meter individual medley.  Should be a great time!  Pleasant day to all.

Lots Going On

...since my last post.  Has it really been over a month since I've put anything on the blog?  Shame on me.  We've seen a lot of activity over the past month.  First and foremost, Bode started 2nd grade on 18 Aug.  Here's a nice shot of him on his first day of school--such a grown up young man.

He has a very nice teacher, and it's her first year teaching, just like his kindergarten teacher was a "rookie."  She's very motivated and excited, so we are confident she will do a fantastic job.  Nothing too exciting has happened in school, which is good.  He says he likes it, although when we ask him about the best part of his day, the answer is always, "Recess."  At first, we thought this was not good, but then he would ask me about the best part of my work day, and my answer is usually, "When I went to the gym," so we can't get too upset with him.

Bode also started swimming for the Rocky Mountain Rapids swim team.  He practices three times a week, and we think he's doing awesome.  We have some videos, but those are on Ashley's camera, and she's yet to upload the videos.  We have practice tomorrow night, so I'll be sure to get some action shots and post them (hopefully before mid-October).  Bode is also running cross-country.  He's more of a social runner--he likes hanging out with his friends, as evidenced by his demeanor at the starting line--not exactly laser-focused on dominating the race.

I did get the below action shot of him on the course.

He ran the whole way, and we are very proud of him.  Bode's friend, Hunter (the tall kid on Bode's left is the pictures above) won first place--he's quite fast and has a nice stride.

Another new event in the McGuirk home is we have a new "manny"--Corey has been taking care of Bode after school.

We spent Labor Day weekend in Breckenridge at the Mountain Estate.  For some reason, I didn't take any pictures (not sure why).  We had some friends visit on Saturday (the Hardman's), and we all enjoyed an Auburn victory.  And even though Auburn won yesterday, we can't really say we enjoyed the game, as going into OT versus an FCS opponent was enough to make Ashley say, "I'm going to the Mountain Estate this week to cool off," (she's going up to work on some things, but it's funnier to say she had to leave town to recover).  The dogs are doing great--Bode really enjoys playing with them.  I'm not sure if they dogs enjoy everything Bode does, but they sure seem to love their boy.

The garden is winding down.  We've had 20+ tomatoes, lots of excellent carrots, peas, lettuce, broccoli (I'm very impressed how this has done), about 15 strawberries, and a couple ears of corn.  The weather is still very warm, and I'm hopeful we'll get five or six more ears before the weather turns.  Our raspberry plants have really grown, but no fruit yet.  Maybe in a couple more years.  Finally, we have a very large pumpkin growing.  It's about the size of a honeydew melon, so I'm hoping it's really large come Halloween.

Pleasant week to all!