If I Only Had A Heart.........

Well the results from the auditions are in. Sharon will be an Ozian in the Emerald City - and maybe a tree, too, - Wendy will be a Munchkin - and maybe a Snowflake or Poppy or Jitterbug, too, - and I get to be the Tinman! Performances will be at the end of February and the beginning of March. Rehearsals won't really get going till after New Year's. Should be tons of fun, but now I've got to learn all those lines. "Do you think the Wizard will give me a heart, Dorothy?"
Randy

Off To See The Wizard?

All three of us - Sharon, Randy, and Wendy - auditioned for parts in Playhouse In The Park's upcoming production of The Wizard of Oz on this icy cold night. Sharon sang "You're Just In Love" from "Call Me Madam", Randy sang "If I Only Had A Brain" from "Oz", and Wendy sang "The Wind Began To Switch", also from "Oz". I fondly remember Wendy's very first audition, as a 3-year-old for "The King And I", in Flagstaff.

Speaking of Flagstaff, at the audition we met another couple who had brought their children to audition, and who said that they had just moved to Murray from Flagstaff! Turns out he's the new offensive coordinator for the Murray State football team....who was filling a position opened when the father of one of Wendy's good friends was released as offensive coordinator last winter. They have since moved to Pennsylvania.

Wendy would like to be on the Munchkin Committee (someone who says or sings a line), Sharon would like to be the Witch, or Glinda, or Auntie Em, and Randy's top choices are the Scarecrow, the Tinman, or the Emerald City Guard. But we'll wait and see what happens....ah, the delicious uncertainty of theater!

Wendy Appears On Local Television

Because she was honored for outstanding citizenship in the fourth grade at Murray Middle School, Wendy was asked to appear on the Rotary Telethon on November 10, which was broadcast live from the campus of Murray State University. She was interviewed along with a few other students from the Middle School who were being honored in such areas as enthusiasm and tolerance. She was a bit nervous, but did a fine job. And weren't Mommy and Daddy proud!


To see more photos from this event, click on this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/RAWaltrip/WendyAppearsOnTheRotaryTelethon#

The Wildcats: Undefeated Champions!

November 1, 2008. A lovely morning at the Bee Creek Soccer Fields. On Field 7, it's the Wildcats vs. The Heat...and it's the last game of the season.

Would The Heat - fresh off a tie with the tough Mustangs - upset the Cats, or would the Cats win one more match, and become the undefeated, and undisputed, champions of U-10 girl's soccer?

Happily, ladies and gentlemen, I can report that when the match ended, it was the Wildcats 7, The Heat 2. Yes, the Wildcats had done it....they had finished the season a perfect 8-0!

They were the Champs.

Mallory, Linda, Sarah, the Kat, Olivia, Pres, Blayne, Chesley, and Wendy Lou - what a terrific assortment of talented, good-hearted, and fun-loving girls. It wasn't always easy, but they never gave up, and they never lost a game. It was an honor to coach them.

They all played their hearts out in this final match, but it was Wendy's shining moment. She was absolutely tenacious when she had the ball, and scored 6 of our team's 7 points, a personal best. She led the team in scoring this season, with 16 goals in 8 games. Mallory was second with 10 goals, and Blayne third with 7.

Here's a smattering of photos from this last game. I apologize for the quality; there was a smudge on the camera lens. You can click on any photo to enlarge it.

The game begins. Wendy and Blayne begin the game on the bench, like tigers - or Wildcats - waiting to spring.



Blayne enters the game, and finesses the ball past an opponent.

The Cats in action.

Wendy and Chesley take a rest.

Blayne and Olivia wait to go in.

Hannah of The Heat turns the ball, and the Wildcat defense springs into action.

The whistle blows....game over. And the Wildcats are the undefeated champs!

The Champs.

Wendy's Halloween Party

This afternoon, not long after our final soccer game of the season, we threw a big Halloween party for Wendy and her friends. Interestingly, there were 6 Wildcats and 3 girls from The Heat among the attendees. Other than a few nailbiter moments trying to get everything ready in time (including a complicated scavanger hunt that had 3 groups looking for 13 clues in different orders), everything went well. The weather certainly cooperated; it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, with a high of 73 degrees. We had a costumed version of Farmer In The Dell, a Broom Race, bobbing for apples, the scavanger hunt, an animal relay, and a fortune teller. And plates full of goodies. Here's a shot of a motley and highly suspicious group of mothers (click on photos to enlarge):



Here's some of the goodies:



And here's the kids in serious and crazy pose:






All in all, a sweet and colorful bash!

The Tennesse Aquarium

Hello again,

Now that was one fine aquarium.

We spent the day here in Chattanooga at the Tennessee Aquarium, and it was a dazzling experience, the kind that leaves you feeling bigger and brighter and popping with a new sense of the earth's marvelous diversity.

Any public aquarium is a window into a realm of life that is usually out of sight and out of mind.....and I have fond childhood memories of visits to California's Marineland, which was always on the itinery when relatives visited, along with Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, the Los Angeles County Museum, and oftimes the San Diego Zoo, too. But the best of the new aquariums are designed to enlighten as well as showcase, and that was certainly the case here.

One of the two main buildings, for instance, begins with a ride up a long escalator. Then you begin to follow the journey of a raindrop as it moves from the mountain streams to the rivers and finally to the sea, experiencing the kinds of lifeforms that live along that raindrop's path, from stream fish and river otters to turtles and alligators and lake sturgeon that can live up to 100 years. There are huge tanks full of huge and various fish, and smaller tanks with astonishing lifeforms such as weedy seadragons and long-necked turtles. One entire room was devoted to the fascinating story of seahorses.

The other building takes you on an exploration of the ocean life on our planet, and while there are no whales or dolphins in this downtown facility (this isn't Sea World, after all) there is a wondrous array of fish life and more. Some of the "more" include a penguin exhibit, and a delightful Butterfly World enclosure, where dozens of different butterfly species from all over the world flit above your head.

As I said, it's an amazing place. We stayed there from it's opening at 10:00 a.m. till 6:30 p.m. - with time out for a lunch at the nearby "Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger".

I took - surprise, surprise - some photographs during our visit, but it's late at night as I write this in our hotel room at the Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo Choo, so I'll have to share them later. For now, I'll content myself with this shot we took this morning of Wendy on one of the original Chattanooga Choo Choos. Tomorrow we head to the Nantahala National Forest, in the Great Smokies, for two nights of camping. Our highlight looks to be a self-guided trip on an 8-mile stretch of the Nantahala River that we signed up for, a stretch that has class 2 and 3 rapids. It has been a long time since we last paddled a raft through rapids, and Wendy never has, so we'll see how that turns out! We won't have internet out there, so you may not learn the outcome for a few days.

And then, on Thursday, we plan to drive to Nashville for the Olympic Champions gymnastic show. Wendy's really excited about the chance to see Shawn Johnson perform in person.

Talk to you later. Bye for now,

Randy

Our Chattanooga Excursion, part one

Hello everyone. It's Sunday, October 12, and it's the beginning of Wendy's Fall Break - a nice interlude in the academic year that's part of the Murray school system, and which we've taken advantage of every fall that we've been out here. Two years ago we traveled to Washington D.C., introducing our daughter to the nation's capitol. Last year we ventured down to Florida, to a place called Panama City......just in time for a rather noxious red tide, as it turns out.

Well, this year we decided to wander down into our neighboring state of Tennessee, to Chattanooga, a city made famous by a song, and spend three days enjoying this picturesque town on the banks of the Tennessee River, before heading to the Smokies on a camping trip.

We left Murray yesterday around 5 p.m. for Henry Horton State Park about an hour below Nashville, which is where our neice Sarah, her husband Tres, and their little boy Jet live. It's usually a 3-hour trip, but yesterday it was a 7-hour trip - mainly because it took us 3 hours - I kid you not - to travel one 7-mile stretch of I-24 due to an accident up ahead. We still don't know the exact nature of the accident, since we were detoured off the highway before reaching it, but it must have been major, since traffic was held up so long. We either sat unmoving or inched along during that time, since we were trapped on the Interstate; there were no offramps at all in that section.

But we did arrive at their home sometime after midnight, and after visiting this morning, embarked for Chattanooga.

Some of you may remember the Glenn Miller song "Chattanooga Choo Choo", which was popular in the 1940's. It's a great song - a far sight better than most of the slapdash slop you hear on the airwaves today - and it's pretty much the theme song of the city. It's also the theme of the hotel we're staying in here - the Holiday Inn Chattanooga Choo Choo, part of which is actually the old Chattanooga railroad station the song mentions. Here's what it looks like as you enter from the street. As with any pictures, you can click on it to enlarge the view:





We parked at the Chattanooga Choo Choo station, then, and walked down towards the river, heading for the excellent children's Science Discovery Center.



Inside, Wendy had a ball trying out the many fascinating and fun hands-on experiences in the Discovery Center. Here's the view as we approached it, and the observation tower we later climbed:



There was an interesting musical exhibit:





And one large section that helped the kids develope empathy and respect for the challenges handicapped children face:






As I said, we climbed the Observation Tower, and here are two views from that lofty lookout:





There were several other fascinating things to do at the Discovery Center:

Five o'clock came too quickly, the Discovery Center closed, and so we caught the free trolly back to our Choo Choo hotel. The weather, by the way, was very sociable; clear skies, with temperatures in the low 80's.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting the Tennessee Aquarium.

Check back for an update. Time to turn in, so cheers from Chattanooga.

Randy

Walk To School Day

This was Walk To School Day, and I went along to help out. Wendy and I met the walkers at a local bank, where the kids each got a ticket making them eligible for prize drawings (the grand prize is a new bicycle). After everyone assembled, off we went on the 7-minute perambulation to the school. It had rained yesterday and during the night, so we were lucky all we had were overcast skies.

I was surprised by the number of kids participating; one estimate put the number of students walking our route at about 200!

Here are four photos I shot of the event:

Wendy and her friend Tara waiting for the walk to begin


The crowd of eager walkers grows:


A different kind of Main Street parade:



And arriving at the school:

You can see that Fall has fallen onto the town. Well, that's all for now. Have a good one!

Wildcats Bully the Bulldogs

At the end of week 3 in our U-10 soccer league we were in first place, and the Bulldogs were in second place. They had not lost a game since losing the opener to us, 3-0. They were tough and tenacious, and if they could beat us, they would move into a first-place tie.

We played each other on Saturday, September 27.

It was a swell morning for soccer, and our girls looked swell in their new Wildcat shirts, which I had just picked up from the shop the day before. We were missing one girl, so we had to play with eight.

Neither team scored during the early part of the game, but then Wendy broke through the Bulldog defense and booted a goal. 1-0, Wildcats.

The Bulldogs don't give up, though, and they came back with a goal of their own, tying the score at 1-all. Mallory, and then Wendy, played a strong first half at goalie, scooping up several shot attempts. Towards the end of the half Mallory maneuvered her way through their defenders, and smacked in a goal. The half ended 2-1, Wildcats.

Mallory kicked another one in early in the second half, putting the Cats up 3-1. Meanwhile, Linda was playing an excellent goalie, and the other girls were thwarting Bulldog scoring drives again and again, clearing the ball, stealing the ball, and moving it to our opponent's end of the field. But the Dogs kept coming, and finally scored another goal. Now it was Wildcats 3, Bulldogs 2. There was still a lot of time left on the clock. The tension mounted.

Then Wendy, who had been lobbying to get back on the offensive line, (I'd been playing her as defender, to tighten up our defense), finally got her wish, and got the ball, too. With determination in her eyes, she drove the ball downfield, with three Bulldogs on her heels. The two Bulldog defenders came up to meet her, but she deftly dribbled past them, and sent a solid shot right into the net, past their diving goalie. Wildcats 4, Bulldogs 2.

And that's how the game ended. So the Cats are still undefeated, with a record of 4-0, and the Bulldogs are now tied with the Mustangs at 2-2. It's warm in the cellar, because that's where The Heat are, with a record of 0-4.

Next up are the Mustangs, on Thursday.

Don't you wish you were there to see it?

Here's a handful of photos I shot during the action on Saturday (click on the photo to enlarge):

Warming up:

Kickoff:

Mallory snares the ball:

Wendy drives towards the goal (she scored on this one):

End of the game:

The girl's run through our first "Parent's Arch":

The wonderful Wildcats

The First Blush of Fall

The days are still warm - though far from saunistic - but we've been noticing the first blush of fall around town. A dab of autumnal color here and a wink of autumnal color there. And pumpkins have been appearing in the stores and in the fields, along with aisles full of Halloween costumes. The corn is being harvested, and the tobacco is being dried. It's time to really enjoy the trees in their leafy gowns, because all too soon the gowns will be gone, leaving only stark and gaunt remnants of their summer glory. The insects and frogs are still serenading the night, but soon their songs will fall silent. The last few fireflies weave a path of dying embers. Change is in the air.

Here's the first blush of fall in our backyard:

Wildcats Beat The Boys

In our third game of the season last Saturday, the Wildcats came up against the Fireball Cobras, which is a boy's team. Yep, the girls against the boys. And, guess what? The girls won! It started poorly for us, with the Fireballs making two quick goals, and probably thinking they were going to have an easy go of it against us. But our defense tightened up, our girls stopped being too polite (backing off the ball and letting the boys bull their way into our end of the field), and Mallory scored two goals to bring us even with the Fireballs at the half, 2-2.

The Cats really showed their grit in the second half. With Wendy doing an outstanding job at goalie, stopping everything that came her way; with Linda playing a superb defender, neutralizing their top offensive threat, Bongo; with Mallory chipping a shot right over the head of their goalie for another score, and Blayne smacking two more balls into the net; with everyone playing their hearts out, we came away the winners, 5-2. I was certainly proud of the girls.

So, we're still undefeated, with 3 wins and no losses. Our next opponent Saturday will be The Heat. Check back to see how the Cats do.

I didn't have much chance for photography, but here's a few shots I managed to take (click on the photo to enlarge):

Sharon talks to the team in our last practice before the Big Game:



The teams prepare before the game:



Wendy chases down one of the Fireball Cobras:



Blayne takes off:



Ah, sweet victory: