We had plans today to head downtown to see museums and monuments on the national mall, but it was a poor sleep night and a bunch of us were fighting colds, so we decided to stay closer to home. We walked down to Brookeway Drive, the street Dave and I lived on as kids in the ’70s. At the end of the cul-de-sac is a path up to the old railway tracks, now repaved as part of the Capital Crescent Trail. (I remember trains going by, and often put coins on the tracks for flattening.) The kids had a blast in and around the creek for a couple of hours, though I didn’t get the camera out for the epic meltdowns they had after one too many daring maneuvers led to cold, wet feet (and a butt, in Griffin’s case).
We didn’t let a little snow and frigid temperatures interfere with our Thanksgiving Bocce game. Grandpa Jeff got out the snow blower and made us a court. The teams:
Griffin, Nik, Alli, Pam
Maggie, Andrew, Sarah, Jeff
We played to 11, and it was close to the very end. In the final round, 10-9, team 2 landed the clinching point. They simply had superior mastery of snow-braking techniques.
The teams arrayed.
Bocce balls in the snow.
Coach Maggie
Grandma “Bocce Wizard”
Snow is fun!
Look at that technique!
Perfect follow-through.
The intensity was palpable.
Great sportsmanship to the end.
On the Roy side, the bocce tradition began at a rental house in Fort Bragg, California, on the Mendocino coast. We used to rent the place for Thanksgiving in the early 2000s, inviting friends and family for feast and fun. Here are two pictures from that era (with a slightly different climate!):
2002 – bocce court with the house and hot tub in the background2004 – bocce court with the glorious Pacific
“How do people actually get made?
Like how did the first people get made?”
This was not a question about reproduction—we’ve had a few conversations about that—but more of an ontological question about how humanity came into being in the first place.
Sarah gave a masterful overview of evolution and we looked at pictures on Wikipedia of various stages of human evolution. Before losing interest in the details, Griffin got far enough to state, “So, we’re related to fish.”
Sarah investigated some breakfast options this morning that would make progress on our basket of aging apples. One of our favorite breakfasts is Pannukakku, so she chose something similar. It was delicious, the kids loved it, and it filled the house with the delectable scent of baking apples and cinnamon.
Ingredients
1/3 cup butter
2 large tart apples, cored and sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
5 eggs
Powdered sugar, to serve
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Saute the apples until they start to get soft, then add the sugar and cinnamon and cook until golden.
Whisk the flour with the salt and nutmeg. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly with a large wire whisk to beat out any lumps. Beat in the vanilla and the eggs one at a time. Beat by hand for 2 minutes, or until foamy. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes.
Pour the batter over the apples. Bake for 20 minutes, or until puffed and golden
I’ve had a lingering paranoia since moving to Minnesota: what if I can’t skate? I skated as a kid, sure, but that was long ago. Now I’m older and stiffer and more fragile. I’ll probably fall immediately and break my wrist or my head. Today I banished this demon by slowly working my way around my school’s ice rink with the 8th graders zipping past. They were a supportive crowd.
Now I can’t wait to finally buy a pair of skates that fits. (There is only one pair at school, and I had to share them with a large-footed student.) I’m hopeful that Griffin will get comfortable on his skates this winter too, so this will be another winter activity we can enjoy together.
The video is hardly worth watching, but I was so ridiculously proud of myself that I thought I should preserve the moment.
It began with my August update about our summer family pilgrimage to the Franconia Sculpture Park. A friend and teaching colleague, Carrie Clark, saw the post and left this comment:
“Andrew, can’t we take the eighth grade there?”
I put Franconia on the agenda at one of our planning meetings in August and the 8th grade team was excited about the concept. Large scale sculptures provide an awesome array of interdisciplinary connections, fusing the social commentary and communication skills of  social studies and English with the engineering of math and science. (Indeed, right after the trip I sent an email to the entire grade resolving a lively debate at the park about the density of cement and thus how much a sculpture weighed). Moreover, the park ties into our newly hatched 8th grade design thinking program, with each sculpture representing the latest of a series of prototypes that the artists experimented with along the way. The playful and interactive nature of the park dovetails with our design focus on recreational spaces with our cardboard arcade and playground design projects.
Fitting the trip into our packed fall calendar was no mean feat, and our first try fell apart in September. Fortunately, however, we were able to get out  there on November 4, a beautiful, blustery fall day. (An arctic blast of snow and freezing wind arrived less than a week later, so we were lucky!)
The trip was a hit with both teachers and students. The artist-guides were engaging and knowledgeable.  There was a good mix of time spent on the official tour and free time to explore and climb and think. We didn’t bog things down with faux academic worksheets or other artificial baloney. (Despite this, multiple students, independently and unprompted, asked me for paper and a pencil so that they could jot down some design ideas for their work at school.) It felt, to me, exactly like what a field trip should be: students and teachers sharing an authentic experience of the world.
See below for a few pictures of the trip, taken by either me or my colleagues (some on phones, some on better cameras). Click on any image to see a larger slideshow.
Stunning photo by Neil Bray (from his phone, no less).
Just told Griffin that friends are coming this weekend to play D&D and he got REALLY excited. Then he tried to “get” me as a goblin, so I cast a spell on him. Then he said, “well, I have 100 hit points and you have only 5, so I won.”
Meh… Griff enjoyed it, but I was disappointed.The new Player’s Handbook — a top-notch rewrite of the core rules.The boxed intro with basic rules, dice, sample characters, and an adventure to get you started.
A week before heading up to the cabin, Griffin and I walked to our local comic shop to pick up a new graphic novel (he chose Journey to the Center of the Earth). While browsing, I noticed that the latest (fifth) edition of Dungeons and Dragons was out. I couldn’t resist picking up the Player’s Handbook and the introductory boxed set. I wanted to read over the new rules, and I rationalized that I’d use them when the D&D activity gets going again at my school this winter. (Also, the fourth edition was garbage, so I hoped the fifth would do better.) Of course I didn’t have time to read them during the week, so I tossed them into my reading bag for the cabin. It wasn’t until we got there that it occurred to me that Griffin might be old enough to get into it. Sarah was game, so after our hike on Saturday, I opened the boxed set and had them choose from the five pre-generated characters. For posterity, here’s the group for our first ever family D&D game:
Griffin played an elf wizard named… Griffin!
Sarah played a halfling rogue named Sarafina.
Maggie played a human fighter named Maggie. (Armed with a two-handed sword, no less.)
Andrew, besides being the dungeon master, played a dwarf cleric named Amber. (Those who gamed with me in ages past may recall my appreciation for dwarf clerics.)
A bunch of goblins, some wolves, and a bugbear later and everyone gained a level. Griffin’s first request when we got home was, “Can we play some more D&D today?” (The answer was no, but the request warmed my heart.)
It was neat seeing how Griffin’s five-year-old mind grappled with the complexities of the game. His favorite part was definitely rolling the dice: at one point the group rescued a kidnapped knight and he offered to tell the story of his capture; Griffin responded with, “Can I roll the 20-sided die?” But he definitely followed the story, and has a remarkable memory for detail. He instantly grasped some fairly complicated mechanics around how often he can cast his spells, and a week later he can explain the overall quest and the names of the characters and places in the story. (Including a number of details that I had forgotten!)
Maggie, naturally, had only a loose grasp of things, but also enjoyed rolling the dice and paging through the rulebooks to see the pictures.
With Sarah gone this weekend, we haven’t had a chance for a followup game, but this adds a great new activity to our family menu, especially when the snows blow in. (I always hear Ned Stark… “Winter is coming…”)
Oh, and in case any gamers stumble on this post, my first impression of 5th edition is overwhelmingly positive. The core rules are elegant with an emphasis on flexibility, role-playing, and imaginative fun. The writers captured the spirit of what made the original AD&D so compelling, while streamlining the rules and updating them for the current generation.
