Our Front Yard

Here are the beautiful things in our front yard!

When we bought this house there was no landscaping at all. Most of what you see was transplanted from our previous house or from friends' gardens by Lee Ann.

School's Out

What an easy week it was for the Annemeister. Monday was a holiday (MEMORIAL Day) so she got to stay home. On Tuesday she had no exams scheduled so she stayed home again. Wednesday and Thursday required just a few hours at school to knock off a couple of easy final exams. And then she was done.

The light schedule during Annie's last week of tenth grade allows her to ease into her summer routine of sloth and indolence without the shock to her system that a more abrupt transition might cause - whew.

Lee Ann has taken a first day of school picture of Annie every year since kindergarten. Here is a last day of school picture as Annie sets off for the feared band final exam.

Annie at Andrews

Here is Annie with a friend while visiting the Andrews campus in Willoughby, OH on Friday. Annie is the tall good-looking one. This photo was taken on the dorm circle, and you can see a couple of the girls' dorms in the background.

The Andrews School has been an all-girls boarding school since it was founded back in about 1912, until this year. As a result of a merger with another school, the combined entity now is called The Andrews-Osborne Academy and is coed. So, when Annie attended her half-year there in the spring of 2007, she was with the last all-girls class ever.

The Week In Review

Here is what has been happening up to and through the Labor Day weekend:

• Scott flew to Tampa on Wednesday night and on Thursday interviewed safety manager candidates for his company's Florida operations. Boy was it hot and sticky down there! He returned Thursday night. The trip was typical in requiring eight hours in transit, eight hours in a motel and four hours of milling around to do two hours of actual work.
• On Thursday, the Lebanon lacrosse team lost their second round tournament game to a very good Milford squad. (I have discreetly forgotten the score.) The good news is that the Warriors won seven of their last nine games and had a way better season than anyone expected. Annie is determined to play again next year and is looking at camps and clinics to attend this summer. (Annie would want me to say this - she is a BEAST.)
• Armed with her new driver's license, Annie drove to Willoughby OH (east of Cleveland) on Friday to visit her friends at The Andrews School, which she attended for half of ninth grade. Dad rode along to navigate but Annie planned the trip and paid her own way. While Annie was visiting on campus Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning, Dad took long walks in Mentor and charming downtown Willoughby. Both got home safely Saturday, having logged 520 driving miles in two days (and for Scott, about 10 miles on foot). Annie had a spectacularly good time. Dad is still limping a bit.
• Lee Ann competed in a local horse show on Saturday and Sunday. Her horse Ruler is lame (a bit like Scott, actually) so she borrowed a friend's gigantic draft cross, Kelso. Together they won a big handful of ribbons ranging from second place to sixth - a very successful show.
• The current house project is the small bedroom in our East Main Street house, where Scott spent much of Sunday and Monday dutifully removing wallpaper. The hard part is scraping it off the ceiling, along with several layers of paint, after which the neck pain from craning one's head upward for hours is very effective in distracting one from any lingering foot pain one might have. It's funny how these things take care of themselves.

Big News!

Today Annie took the maneuverability portion of her driver's test in Hamilton (a town about 20 miles from here). She passed the test, and now has her license. WooHooooo! Tonight she drove herself to work and back, and cruised around Lebanon a bit to enjoy her new freedom.

This should make life easier for the parental units.

Last night, Annie held down the fort at home while the parents attended the "Angels of Music" dinner and music show at the Cincinnati Zoo. The dinner and silent auction were to raise money for The Angel Fund, which supports efforts to protect cheetahs in the wild and the Zoo's captive breeding program. This was a fun event for about 700 people, which we never could have afforded to attend except that Lee Ann rides with Cathryn Hilker, who is the driving force behind the whole cheetah program, and she gave us free tickets. The event was in a giant tent and most people came in safari attire - I never knew there were that many bush jackets and pith helmets in Cincinnati. The music lasted until 10 p.m. and was live Broadway performers singing mostly show tunes and standards. They were terrific. Emcee was Erich Kunzel, director of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. It was one of those society pages type events that we never go to, very interesting and different from our usual big night out of Taco Bell and a movie.

Saturday - First Tournament Game

Annie played Saturday's first-round lacrosse tourney game hoping to lose - and as the goalie, was in a position to influence the outcome quite a bit. Then, somehow, she forgot how tired she is of lacrosse practices and games monopolizing her life. She played a great game and Lebanon won, 9-7. So, the season continues with the next game against Milford scheduled for Thursday.

Here is Annie just before Saturday's game, giving Dale Earnhardt a lesson on how to look intimidating. Don't be fooled by the body armor - she gets blocked shot bruises from every game.

Busy

On Wednesday Annie was scheduled for a lacrosse game at 6:00 p.m. in Springboro and a band concert at Lebanon high school at 7:00. The scheduling was tight, so we knew that Annie (and the other two band members on the team) would be pressed to finish the game in time to make the concert. I (Scott) left work early to make sure I was at the field in plenty of time. But the single referee did not show up until 6:20, delaying the start of the game until 6:30. At the half (with the score 5-2 in our favor) Annie tore off her goalie gear and we made a mad dash to the high school. I got her there only a few minutes after the concert began, so she joined in and it all worked out. And we heard that the team won their lacrosse game 9-2, even without three of our players.

Now the regular season is over and the Lebanon Lady Warriors finished 9 and 4. At first I figured they would have a lopsided losing record (first year team and all), and was philosophical. It really is all about the exercise, and the team effort, right? But then I got caught up in her team's winning and found I was taking an unseemly pride in their success. Generally I look down on the sports-addicted and disapprove of this exercise of clannish us-against-them mentality. Now I am gathering perspective from my own brush with fan-ism.

We Live Here!

This is our current home...

Lacrosse Update - May 12

Another win, this time against Colerain at home. The Lady Warriors scored four goals in rapid succession at the outset and won 8 to 5. Annie was in goal for the whole game, as usual, and had some nice saves.

With a record of 8 wins and 4 losses, Lebanon now has only Wednesday's road game at Springboro left in their regular season, so a winning record for the year is assured. Who would have guessed? Saturday is game 1 of the post-season tournament, in Columbus. Stay tuned.

New to this...

So it begins - another family of amateurs takes its first faltering steps into the blogosphere.

We are Scott and Lee Ann McAlpine, average folks with a remarkable and thoroughly ept teenage kid named Annie currently lighting up our lives. You probably know all about us already (else why visit here?) but in case you found us by accident, here are our most essential details:

Annie: Just turned 16 but forgot the "sweet" part; current nickname "stonewall" refers to prowess as a lacrosse goalie; uncanny parallels to Harry Potter (excepting gender, nationality and that toothy scar) include being unwittingly trapped in a family of muggles.

Lee Ann: Beauty with attitude; grace in motion, especially over a 3 foot double oxer; master of all situations involving photosynthesis, jerky neighbor kids or a glue gun.

Scott: Past his prime, but learning to embrace his inner codger; consumer culture dropout wannabe; inconsistent at finishing anything, but knows that if he gets it started and leaves town Lee Ann can be counted on to punch it out in his absence.

The photos following are of our next house project. "The Tower House," built in 1886 near Wilmington Ohio, is in considerable disrepair but called out to Scott at an auction last fall. This happens to him a lot, a symptom of some deep-seated disorder that keeps our family forever living in a cloud of plaster dust and haunting architectural salvage barns looking for obscure fragments of 19th century millwork.

Here's the news roundup for this week:

• Annie took her driver's test ... and passed 90 percent of it! Attagirl Annie! She will be polishing off the remainder in about a week, no sweat.
• Annie's first-year Lacrosse team has a record of 7-4 and their next game is Monday. Dad will be there to cheer her on and to commiserate with other parents in the stands about how nobody understands the rules or knows what is happening on the field.
• Lee Ann's horse barn is moving to a new location over the next few weeks, so she is very busy. Her special project is digging up and transplanting the landscaping plants from the old place to the new. It's been a workout for our old pickup truck.
• Scott is still in delayed retirement status as he works to get his company through its current rough patch. The latest plan is to reduce to 4 day weeks June 1, then to half time August 1, and then to remain as a part-time employee going forward for a while to help with acquisitions and special training events. This is how people end up working until they die.

It is Sunday morning and raining like crazy in Lebanon, but sunny weather should get here soon.