It’s one of those American milestones:  8th grade graduation!  The kids–mostly 14 and 13 years old (for those of you not in the US to have an idea) finish their “lower and middle school” years to go on to High School.  This past week-plus has been very hectic with dances, parties, end-of-year activities, graduation and all that!  I won’t subject you to ALL the photos–just a lot of them, GRIN!   I’ll try to tell the story in the captions:

Festivities began the night before graduation at Harper’s house, where her mom invited a bunch of Harper’s friends for a quick supper before the traditional 8th Grade Dance at the Yacht Club on the harbor. Eli is at the far right….wearing dad’s suit and his feet squished into Paul’s too-small-for-Eli shoes.

Asst. Principal Matt Smith is also an accomplished singer and musician. He played for the first part of the dance…I’d buy a CD!

Eli and good friend and wrestling-team co-captain Hilary went to the dance together…they look fabulous!

I guess every year the teachers and staff let the parents come for the first half  hour of the 7-10 pm dance to take pictures, including the requisite all of the boys, all of the girls, and the entire 8th grade class:

The Boys of the Class of 2012–Eli is on the right about halfway back

The girls of the Class of 2012

The Camden-Rockport Middle School Class of 2012—just LOVE these kids!

And all the parents and teachers and staff on the lawn taking the photographs!

Left to right: Nate Dunton, Eli Smith, Jake Chamberlain, Principal Maria Libby, Taylor Crosby, and Laszlo Steinhoff

The start of the “Promotion” ceremony (why they call it that instead of Graduation I’m not sure, but it’s really the same thing) in the Gym. Matt Smith, Asst. Principal, gave the opening remarks.

The 8th Grade Vocal Ensemble sings, did a great job on the song (after Eli said he thought it was the best they had sung it!). Eli is just to the left of the tallest boy in the back row.

One boy and one girl each gave an address (and did great!), there was music by the choral ensemble and one of the students, then Principal Maria Libby gave a wonderful address.

Eli (wearing Paul’s fancy double breasted blue blazer which is only a little too big) looks natty and grown up as he shakes hands and receives his promotion certificate from Maria Libby and Matt Smith.

At the dance I snagged Eli and Kienan Brown. They were in first grade together and have been friends on the soccer team (school and travel / league!). Told them I want to do this again in 4 years and then in 8 years…. will enjoy every minute of the intervening years, but will look fondly on them maturing into fine young men.

After the promotion ceremony, I snagged Eli and his friends Kyle and Ben Winchenbach—Ben was in Mrs. Baker’s first grade class with Eli, and the twins were his first friends here in Camden. They’ve been friends ever since, and Eli and Ben have been on the wresting team together as well as Cross Country and Track.

At home in his usual dress, Eli unwraps his gifts, including Cross Country running spikes (the lime and orange ones on the left)  for the upcoming season in high school.

We moved to Maine for a great education for our boys, and we succeeded.  In the ceremony, Principal Maria Libby said this 8th grade class had the highest reading scores (on the statewide test) in the ENTIRE state of Maine!   When we arrived in summer of 2004, Joshua was starting 5th grade at CRMS.  We’ve had first Joshua, then Eli, in school there ever since.  It is hard to believe we won’t be making the trek down Knowlton Street daily any more….GULP (lump in throat).  A huge thanks to the teachers and staff — and to the kids.  We are so glad we are here!   Next:  summer vacation!

Eli met his biggest challenge in the Busline League Track and Field Championships...see below for all the glorious details!

Preface:  I should follow my husband’s example on FaceBook and start with with a “Parental Pride Alert”!  We now have a three-sport champion at home!

Back in September, about halfway through the Cross-Country running season, Eli had just won another meet.  From the back seat of the car on the way home, he said something to this effect:

“You know, I think I want to go out of 8th grade with a bang!

• Be on  the equivalent of honor roll [note from mom:  they changed the grading system and eliminated honor roll…do NOT get me started!]
• Win the Cross-Country championship
• Repeat as Eastern Regional Champion in wrestling and
• Win States in Wrestling [the Pine Tree League covers about 70 percent of the state, minus only the big class A schools down near Portland, Maine]
• and win one individual blue ribbon in Track and Field.”

With his first event today at the Track and Field Championships for our portion of the Maine Coast, Eli achieved his goal, and then some!  He began the day at the Shotput:

Eli ready to heave the 8-lb shotput 34' 6" feet; despite a couple of good kids from Belfast, he won!

Next up:  Triple Jump!  For several years, we lived near the Vitagliano’s; Eli would play with Chris and admire Matt’s athletic abilities.  When the family moved down to Virginia, the boys kept in touch by Facebook.  Eli copied Matt and set up a throwing zone in our yard, weighing rocks that were from 10-12 pounds to practice!  Matt told Eli that he had looked up Olympic athletes on the internet to study their form, and Eli promptly did the same, to the benefit of his field events.

Even though a lady almost walked in front of me, blocking my shot, I managed to get this great shot of Eli airborne! Makes my ankles and knees hurt just to think about the landing!

Eli landed a personal best of 32′ 7″ and WON!  Second first place ribbon!

Skipping the running for just a moment to complete the field events, Eli came in third in the discus (his last event…he was tired by then and the overcast skies had cleared and the heat soared to near 80):

Throwing the discus for 3rd

and in the Turbo Javelin (a new event last year, the middle school boys use a plastic javelin that has blades on the back like an arrow) got a second place, logging a personal best in competition and breaking his own record at school to hit 133 feet (about 50 feet more than most of the other kids! to qualify for the middle school championship competition you had to throw over 6o feet!).

But saving the best and sweetest for last:  the 1600 metre race, about a mile.  When Eli began track three years ago, then 8th-grader Ben Trapani would lead in so many races, by such a long distance, that he seemed unbeatable.  He held the school record in several events, including the 1600 metre with a time of 5 minutes 19 seconds.  Eli wanted to beat that record and trained hard, going to the high school on Sundays where Coach Morse would run optional extra practices and time intervals so the kids could learn to “feel” if they were running a lap at 1 minute 21 seconds, 1 minute 26, 1 minute 15 and so on….. how they can do that I have NO idea!  Right off the opening shot, a kid from Medomak took the lead:

A large pack for the 1600 metre race. The boy on the left (Med. for Medomak) with red arrow (not the boys in yellow in the foreground) is the one who took and held the lead for 3 1/2 laps. Eli is the arrow on the right.

I took photos of the clock, and Eli’s first lap was EXACTLY what he wanted:  1 minute 20 seconds.  If he could maintain that through 3 laps, he would increase at the start of the fourth, then “book it” for the last half-lap.  By halfway through the third lap, Coach Morse hollered at him to close the gap of over 100 feet (maybe 50 yards?) sooner.

Rounding the end of the track for the last half lap, you could watch Eli kick it into gear–he and the Medomak boy were wwwwwwaaaaaayyyyyy ahead of everyone else.  Eli mustered heart and guts and closed in, to the screams of many of his teammates, and with maybe 15 metres to go pulled even and then passed him!   The photo at the top shows how close the two were.

Eli WON with a time of 5 minutes 16.16 seconds, beating Ben T’s school record by 3 full seconds!!!!!!!  And the boy in 2nd (previously undefeated this season) finished also in 5 min. 16 seconds, but still second.  Both boys were gracious after the race, and Eli correctly noted it was good to be pushed.  Without the Medomak kid, Eli would have won, but he might not have had the push he needed to beat Ben’s record.  After the race, many parents came up to us and said that was “THE” race and finish of the meet! Well done to all!

After the meet, we waited for team results.

The kids gather to hear team results

The girls’ team has incredible depth, and had a commanding lead in team standings.  Both boys and girls teams are, by the way, made up of kids from Camden-Rockport plus the H-A-L (Hope, Appleton and Lincolnville) schools, as those are too small to have their own teams.  The girls won, again, with an undefeated season:

The Girls team wins!

The boys race to the finish was tight–we weren’t sure up until they announced the second place team who would win…literally every single kid who placed 6th or higher contributed an essential point or several to THE WIN…yes, another undefeated season!

The boys collect their plaque for the school

Oprah Winfrey is quoted as saying “Surround yourself with people who will lift you higher.”

At first I thought how this applies to how Coach Morse has helped Eli, but then I realized it really applies to ALL the team:  To Coach Jim Morse, Coach Dee Kopesky, and ALL the kids are ALL lifting each other higher.  Mr. Morse (the School’s awesome 6th grade Social Studies teacher, and who seems to me a bit like a pied piper–Jim, we’re so glad for all you’ve given to Eli and that we had one more season with you) recruited a huge team…nearly 90 kids!  What is more amazing, I think we had something like 60 (?) kids qualify for the championships (meet certain times or distances/heights for the various events)–not sure how many, but it was a HUGE squad!  The training and dedication of both coaches and kids together lifted them all higher.  WELL DONE, everyone!  And Eli…. we are so proud of you!  Even more than your sports ability, we admire your brains, determination, dedication, and good sportsmanship.  WOW!

Here’s to a three-sport honor-roll champion–you deserve a rest!  Want waffles for breakfast whenever you wake up tomorrow?

Wow has time whoooshed by faster than the usual blindingly-fast disappearing that it usually does!  I’ve returned from a fun teaching trip to two guilds in Arkansas, a visit with an internet friend, gone to a 5-day dyeing silk workshop in Massachusetts, attempted to get caught up on paperwork (but not the accounting…UGH), and launch into Eli’s track season, his last sports season of Middle School… it is hard to believe in 5 weeks or so he will be a Freshman-at-the-end-of-summer!   So I guess I’ll start with the oldest news first:  Little Rock!

While heading out to lunch one day from class, one of my students pointed out a building across from the library (where the workshop was held) because she had a piece in the SAQA / Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibit!  On my day off between the two teaching jobs, I got to hang out with an internet friend whom I finally got to meet in the real.  Sherri D. took me to the exhibit and a few other places, so let’s  begin with the SAQA exhibit and Georgia’s  fabulous small piece!

Butterfly by Georgia Manning Lewis

She used many surface design techniques on the background and has been doing some wire-work for 3-D shaping.

The first piece I photographed in the exhibit is for my friend Kathy, who loves birds and makes wonderful bird quilts.  So Kath…here is an Arkansas wren for you:

Studio Wren by Sheri Marshall

I loved the stunning simplicity and calm of this piece:

Shamrocks by Ruth Ann Yax

I hadn’t realized that Arkansas is right next to Louisiana and, hence, close to the Gulf.  This artist is from (I think) Mississippi, where the BP oil spill wreaked so much environmental damage.

Guardian of the Gulf by Sarah Scott

A trip to China (according to the blurb card on the wall) was the inspiration for this garden-inspiring quilt:

The lotus by Darlene Garstecki

The artist made this quilt as a mourning quilt after his mother passed away.  On the card he noted: “We used to walk a road in North Carolina and talk.  I have since thought that maybe the words we spoke were captured in the trees; and if I was very quiet and listened very hard, I would hear the words falling back down on me, as I walked alone.”  …… I so love that thought…..

The View from the Road by Murray Johnston

On the other side of the building, I spotted these small kimono which (if I have deciphered the enlarged photo correctly) are by Judy Tipton Rush–really stunning quilting:

Judy Tipton Rush's pieces in the gallery store

The building is a craft/arts center, and had this gorgeous light fixture (I don’t even want to know how much it was for sale!…. and it’s not like there would be a place for it in my house!)

Way cool light fixture

And I’ve been having fun in my working sketchbook/notebook of ideas messing around with collage and magazine pages, so I really enjoyed these two sets of mixed media collages by Kathy Bay.  From looking at the photo closely, I believe they are acrylic paint plus paint on paper that she painted (as opposed to “found” papers).

Crayola Land by Kathy Bay

By Kathy Bay, these remind me of icebergs

Now, of course, I wish I’d taken photos of ALL the quilts, but at least you have a sampling! Enjoy, and I promise to be back without such a long gap between posts!

End of the Championship Match....ELI WINS!

AND you better believe I am shouting as loud as I can!   We are so immensely proud of Eli…. there was a lot of pressure on him to do well this season (mostly from himself but so many others believed he could be a champ, too), and he was strong physically, mentally, and emotionally!  Eli won the Pine Tree Wrestling League State Championships, 138-lb. weight class today with an undefeated season! Eli is the first kid since 2003 (when Eli was in kindergarten) to win a State title from the Camden-Rockport Middle School (Oliver Bradeen in 2003 was the last–he went on to be a three-time runner up to State Champion in high school, too).

Here is a YouTube video of Eli’s Championship match.  Camden-Rockport coaches Paul and True are just to the right of the screen, the Bath team coaches are just to the left of the screen.  Eli is in red, the Bath boy is Justin Johnson, in blue.  (If you want to see it full screen click in the lower right of the embedded video to enlarge; press Escape to return to exit full screen mode).  FYI…at about 5 minutes in, you’ll see a break in the action.  The Bath kid tried a move, but Eli held him tight; when the Bath boy went down, he got squeezed and it hurt, so they took a medical time out.  Fortunately, he was OK.  Then after they resume wrestling you’ll hear me say “come on that was 7 seconds”–the scoring table forgot to re-start the clock!  The refs realized they had been wrestling enough time, so moved the clock forward to 2 seconds left, the match re-started, then  Eli  got the win officially, score 9-1, which is considered a “Major Decision” (i.e. by a big margin).

With forfeits and exhibition matches (4 of those, two with 145-lb kids, two with 131), Eli finishes his season at 34-0!  WOW!   I am totally impressed, and especially at the comments of the other adults.  After his first match, the REFEREE complimented him on his takedown.  During the course of the day and after Eli won, other coaches congratulated Paul (dad and Asst. Coach) and True (coach) on how good a wrestler he is, and how nice a kid he is, too!   Can you tell I am absolutely popping with pride?

This may be my favorite photo I've ever taken of Eli wrestling...it really captures the speed of the action, the strength and determination of the athletes!

MAJOR THANKS to Paul for the incredible amount of time he has given to CRMS over the past seven seasons, first with Joshua and now with Eli, and the time and devotion to honing Eli’s physical abilities and mental outlook, to True Bragg (coach) for what he has given not just to Eli but to the team over the years he  has been coach, and to Eli’s practice partners and the other coaches from the area who have helped Eli.   We are so blessed to live in a wrestling hotbed that, more than anything, is a welcoming (to us folks from away!), warm, caring community that takes care of and celebrates its own.

Here are some photos of the championship match:

The opening whistle sounds!

Eli dominated the match from start to finish, with one brief (scary for mom except it was over so fast) blip in the third period

As Eli said -- it's hard to do anything is someone grabs your ankle, hence using the move!

Look at the stretch on both boys! They need strength, flexibility, speed, mental agility, mental toughness...

End of the Championship Match....ELI WINS!--it's worth repeating again here GRIN!

Two happy and now-relaxed coaches!

Photo is a tad blurry, but I like it anyway...Eli (L), Paul (back), True (R)

Eli adds another bracket sheet to his room... Bath kid is next, and 3rd place with white ribbon. Congrats to all!

Paul looks at Eli's first place medal--the middle spins around

I cajoled the kids who went into a photo when we stopped at McD's on the way home. Far left is Elvis B. who also made it into the States, Coach True, teammate E., Eli, Paul behind Teammate H., and jovial chatterbox teammate T.

Thanks to the teammates who were able to attend today.  We’ll see everyone we hope at the end-of-season potluck on Wednesday at the school.   WOOOHOOOOOHOOOOOO!

CONGRATULATIONS ELI!

He’s done it again!  Eli is now 25-0 for the season, and has repeated as Eastern Regional Champion in his weight class!!!!  This year, Camden-Rockport Middle School was the sponsoring school for the event, which was held in the high school gym.  There were 3 mats set up, and it went surprisingly smoothly and quickly.   Here’s how Saturday went for Eli:

In wrestling with 8-person brackets, the rule is that if you want to end up in the championship match (for first and second place), you need to win two before you lose two.  So here’s Eli’s first match:

First match, ended in 30 seconds with a pin. It happened so fast I had barely hit "On" on the camera that I didn't get any video....

I managed to mess up the photography, alas, despite doing test-runs last week.  I brought out the GOOD camera, the DSLR Nikon and I really need to spend more time learning how to make it do what I want!  But I got some good shots.  And I took video…or so I thought…on my everyday digital, but I had taken it off Video and put it on still photo during the week and forgot to switch it back.  So this first match ended so fast I didn’t get a chance to correct my error.

Second match:  this one took a little longer.  Remember there are 3 periods in wrestling; in middle school the first period is 2 minutes, then 2nd and 3rd are one minute long.  In high school, matches are 3 2-minute periods; in college, it is 3-2-2-.

Second match: PIN! At 1 minute 31 seconds in the first period.

At least I got a really good photo…. the point of the match is to win.  A great way to win instantly and end the match is to pin the opponent’s shoulders to the mat.  That is why Eli is “T”‘d off on the kid on the bottom—you get the best leverage being chest-to-chest (Eli is a little far over) and at right angles–like a T–to the kid on the bottom.  The Ref is using the hand with the red band to smack the mat to show Eli (in red…the other kid has on the green ankle band on his rear leg, but it is hard to see because he’s wearing tights under the singlet) wins by fall (pin).

Next:  the championship round against a kid from Hermon, whom he had not wrestled during the season.  This boy was also–up until Saturday–undefeated, but had fewer matches than Eli.

Murphy's Law lives at wrestling meets. No matter WHERE in the gym the parent is, the ref is ALWAYS immediately blocking the parent's line of sight to their kid as here. By the way...we LOVE this ref. He is one of the best in Maine, and happens to head up the Ref's association. He is fair, compassionate, understands kids, and when ref-ing--even when the kids make mistakes--takes the time to instruct ant teach while making calls. He's "the bee's knees!"

Here is a few moments earlier in the match, but a better shot:

Eli nearly gets the Hermon boy in a "cradle" for a pin. Alas, the Hermon boy got Eli in an illegal headlock which the ref did not see, so Eli had a bit of work to get out of it. He did, but the match went into a second period. In the photo above he is just about 2 seconds away from pinning the boy 30 seconds into the second period.

Three matches.  Three wins.  Three pins.  Still undefeated.

The "Win" hands-up went up and down so fast I missed it, so here the refs are checking with the scorekeepers and Eli is running his bout sheet back to the head scoring table after the win.

Eli, as winner, gets to keep the bracket sheet which shows who wrestled in the weight class, with him as Champion:

Eli on the winner's stand! Alas, the camera was having trouble metering with the bright window behind and I missed the shot with the other 3 boys up there....

ALL the kids on the team wrestled their hearts out and did their coaches proud.  One other kid, Elvis B., won his weight class, so he and Eli will continue on to States on March 31.

L to R: Coach True Bragg, Elvis B. 124-lb Champion, Eli at 138-lb Champion, and Asst. Coach Paul Smith (aka dad); photo taken in the high school wrestling room.

The other great news came on Sunday with the results of the Western Regionals.  The winner was the boy from Bath, whom Eli has beaten in each of his three head-to-head matches with him.  So there is a chance for Eli to win states!   Paul reminds the kids that you are one move away from getting pinned by someone you have never heard of, though, so Eli will have to continue to keep his focus and determination.    Stay tuned for results next weekend.  No colds or injuries allowed between now and then!   The Bath kid will have hometown advantage, as the State Finals will be wrestled in Bath, but we know Eli will excel.  As a friend told Eli, TOTAL DOMINATION on the mat!