After work on Thursday, I took Sophia and Avery to their soccer practices. Avery is a really fast runner. He’s quite competitive. He keeps an eye on who’s behind him and is willing to put out an arm to stop someone from overtaking him. 
Sophia’s practice:
On Friday, Avery had his first game. We got the the soccer field early, so there was time to try out the swings.
Making my heart flutter as I say to myself, “Hang on tight.”
Monthly Archives: September 2016
Project Ride Smart
at Natomas Park Elementary. 
I am co-teaching with Gina Silvernale, a recently graduated LCI, this is her first Project Ride Smart teaching assignment. We meet with just two classes (out of 5 total) per day for about 70 minutes each. We watch a lot of informational videos followed by discussion and review.
For this lesson, while Gina and I fit helmets on each student individually – at an incredible pace of about 2 minutes/helmet fit. Meanwhile, the rest of the students were divided into groups of 3 or 4 and given the task of labeling 26 bicycle parts using address labels (which didn’t come off the bike very easily after being wound tightly around certain bike parts by certain “industrious” students) or post-it notes (far easier to remove).
Centennial Celebration
of the Rio Linda branch of the Sacramento Public Library – which was relocated to this site only a few years old and, part of which is located in my old 4th grade classroom at Rio Linda Elementary School (now closed).
The Good Time Players:
There was a quiche throwdown with LOTS of entries.
The judges: author Maryellen Burns and the manager of RLOnline John Todd.
They chose three winners: a staff member at the RL Library (man in black shirt), Deb Crowe (smiling), and Charlea Moore (laughing). At the far right is Sally McGrath, the RL Library branch manager.
Director of the entire Sacramento Library system, Rivkah K Sass (wearing a burgundy blouse) welcomed everyone to the event.
Nicole Brogdon from the Rio Linda Elverta Historical Society shared a brief history of the library as it grew in Rio Linda. I remember as a kindergartener walking across M Street to the cutest little house which served as the library in 1953. 
When I taught 4th grade at Rio Linda Elementary in the early 1970s, John Todd was one of my students! 
Back to Sac
Lunch at the Highland on the way to the airport.
Goodbye Bakersfield.
Back at McClellan Airfield.
Thank you Carol and Jerry for a very special weekend. Total fun!
Saturday at Carol & Jerry’s
A morning walk to the river.
Phyl would NOT take one more step onto the rickety dock. That’s the Kern River, by the way.
A tour of the shop.
Carol’s painting studio:
Upstairs a movie-watching area: 
Lunch at a Basque restaurant:
My third “first” of the weekend: I drove Jerry’s Prowler! Yee-haw!
Next, an art show featuring 33 cast pickups painted and embellished by local artists to celebrate Bakersfield.
The main purpose for this weekend was to celebrate Carol’s birthday. Four birthdays from the 11th-22nd!
To Bakersfield
This was a first for me – a ride in Jerry’s plane from McClellan to Bakersfield with Dave and Phyl.
This is the way to fly! No long security lines, no waiting, drive your vehicle up to the plane to load luggage, and take off within 15 minutes. Love it! Jerry and his 6-passenger Duke.
We flew at 17,500 feet and arrived in ONE hour thanks to a terrific tailwind.
Evening activities:
Feeding cats,
Bonnie the mule,
and quite a few raccoons.
Another first for me:
That was my first and, most likely, my last 1/4 of a cigar.
Soccer practice
Monday afternoon was Sophia’s soccer practice:
On Tuesday, it was Avery’s turn:
And then we went to the fabric store looking for good Halloween costume material – that was fun!
Breakfast with Ade
We met at Early Toast Restaurant and Mimosa House – long name but delicious food! And about 20 different kinds of mimosas. 
From the Sewing Cave
Vogue 8938 is still the pattern I sew the most often. In August, I finished two more and sent them to Billie.
Then I spotted the perfect periwinkle color in a voile to use with last year’s Breathe Bike Trek t-shirt.
A board member for SABA asked me to make t-shirts for this year’s Velo Ball as a raffle item. I decided to make three of them in small, medium, and large sizes.
Walnut gathering begins!
I found the first walnuts on the ground yesterday. I love this season. 
The husk should be well- cracked before picking from the tree:
Even better:
arletelouise 