Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica

That's a line from the Office, which Maggie loves. Over the summer Maggie's classmates had to submit names to their advisor for their class. It had to be a vegetable. Maggie submitted beets and the first day of school, Mr. Cross asked the entire assembly who Maggie was, she raised her hand, he congratulated her, he had chosen Beets as the class name, the class vegetable, the class mascot? I don't know. The class something. Anyway, on her birthday, Maggie's friends gave her this beet. Go beets!

Maggie is a writer

Maggie wrote this poem for a 7th grade English class. It is about the field trip they took to the LA river. I think it's just amazing.

The ground is blue. Bluer than a mailbox, than Eeyore. Industrial streaks of night claw through the blue, creating fissures in the earth that give infinity a new meaning.

Far off in the sky, the king stands regally on a rock, his orange bill quacking orders at the underlings. A small gaggle of buffleheads floating in the sky. They fight over grass. The ripples distort the clouds.

A picturesque miniature, the small river flows steadily, unaware of the ruckus of the urban greenery. It burbles along and meets the universe in which buffleheads play.

The failing sun causes people to blend with their opposites. Dark nothings grow like trees. The chatter of the creek sends me into a trance. When I stare at moss, I see everything but moss. Everything has a tiny, gently beating heart.

A teacher yells. The serenity I experienced just a moment ago washes downstream along with a grungy tennis ball.

Gone.

Beauty is dead.

Lake pictures

Maggie, Claire, Mary at the fair
Sally, Elizabeth, Anne on the boat
Maggie, Claire, Mary and Matt after a swim
Sue and I on the dock. I'm wearing the scarf she just gave me for my birthday
Feeding the ducks
Doing yoga in the morning
Kate leads yoga
Early morning donut run, girls still in their pjs
At the Silvercrest
At the Silvercrest
Maggie poses
15 minus 1. Max is the only cousin who didn't make it to the lake this year.
Cousins
Dinner at Silvercrest
Sally and I went for a swim
At the Goose Blind
Dinner at the Goose Blind
More dinner at the Goose Blind
Making s'mores around the fire
Campfire

Campfire
Campfire
Collecting firewood
campfire




at the fair


I'm cleaning out my inbox and trying to organize. I have a lot of pictures of our week at the lake and I'm just going to put them all here.

maggie climbing

My friend Dawn sent me these pictures but I have no idea where they're from. Did the class take a field trip to a climbing wall? Hmmm ...

More pictures from Walden Spring play(belated post)

Maggie graduates (belated post)

Maggie graduated from Walden last June. She started in Kindergarten in Stephanie's K-1 class(the same class Sally is in right now), then she had Mark for 2nd grade, Anna for 3rd, she went to Westridge for half of fourth and then returned to Walden and had Jason for half of fourth and fifth and then Danica for sixth. Walden has played a big part in shaping Maggie into the confidant, funny, self assured person she is today. The classes were small, the teachers were loving and the mission to inspire kids to be lifelong learners made school a fun place to be. Maggie and her friends sang a song at graduation(can't remember what) and then the whole class sang seasons of love from Rent, with some of the lyrics changed to reflect their graduation. Also, Maggie gave a speech at graduation that was funny and self aware and captured her time at Walden. The principal Matt told me later that in the staff meeting the next day all the teachers were talking about Maggie and her speech and Matt commented that Maggie is so mature she could probably run the school. Grandma Kitty and Grandpa Tony came to the graduation, which was followed by a lunch at the Altadena Country Club. Congratulations Maggie!

Thanksgiving

Sadly, I didn't get many pictures this Thanksgiving, probably because I wasn't feeling well. Too bad, because we had a great weekend. Tony's parents and brother and sisters all came which meant Maggie and Sally got to spend some time with Molly and Chloe. We went to the botanic gardens to feed the ducks, we celebrated Kate and Maggie;s birthday with a traditional pink angel food cake, thanks to grandma Kitty, and we handled a Thanksgiving crisis with grace. When we went to sit down to eat, Tony started carving the turkey only to realize it wasn't completely done. At this point, all the side dishes were out and hot, the candles were lit, the wine was poured, and everyone was starving. Luckily Martin remembered that we had a ham in the fridge in the garage, that we were planning on eating the next night, so we got out the ham and all was well. Thank you Martin! And thanks to all the Phelans for traveling from far and wide for a Thanksgiving in California.

Swinging Sally

Sally LOVES the air pogo. Here's a shot Kate got of her swinging at Thanksgiving.

Maggie's Birthday

Unofficially, Maggie has been a teenager for awhile, but now it's official, Maggie turned 13! She had a sleepover with 9 friends on December 5 and they had a ball. First they went and saw New Moon, then they came home and we had pasta and birthday pies (apple and fudge) and then they watched movies and ate candy and finally fell asleep around 1 or 2. I don't really know because I was asleep by 11. Maggie got all her friends leopard print Snuggies, so in the morning, after pancakes and bacon, they went around the block wearing their Snuggies in a kind of Snuggie parade. They stopped at the bus stop and held up their sign -"Honk for Snuggies" - and they got a lot of honks.