Our building really does it up for Halloween, including a haunted house in the basement storage room, so the girls invited a bunch of friends over and had a ball -- and collected a lot of loot that we're going to give away tomorrow... 

 

The girls had a spectacularly fun weekend. On Saturday, Alison had an early soccer game (she scored and had 2 assists in a 5-0 win) and then everyone went to the Nightingale fair, where they bounced around in inflatable castle and did spin-art (first 7 pics, below).

This morning, they carved a pumpkin and then went to Emily's soccer game. She scored three goals in the first few minutes (see 1st video, attached to the next email, who captures two of them -- the 2nd one was a beaut, as I've been telling her to shoot from afar if there's a defender in the way). Then we told her not to score again, but instead to help her teammates score, and score they did: her friend Greta, who'd never scored in two YEARS, had 4 goals (we were laughing with her parents about reining in "Greta the Scoring Machine"!) and two other girls who'd never scored either had goals as well. Emily was so pleased!

Then we went to the merry go round and afterward discovered a new game: balancing on the metal fence nearby (see pics below and attached video). Emily took quite a tumble and did a flip onto the dirt, but (after a good cry) got right up and hopped back on.

Then we biked home, got our skates, and went skating for the first time this year at Lasker Rink (at the far northern tip of Central Park -- it's much less crowded and half the price of Wolman Rink, which is in the more touristy southeast corner of the park). Katharine did great! Last year, we got her the tiniest, cutest pair of skates, but she clung to me and cried whenever I skated a few feet ahead and made her skate to me. What a difference a year makes! After a quick loop around the ice, I let go and we spent most of the next half hour with Emily or me skating 15-30' ahead and then she'd skate to us. Meanwhile, Alison practiced skating on one leg and doing twirls. (See video attached).

Then we met up with their 3rd cousins, the Suskins, and played in the park and went to dinner.

PHEW!!!! 

 

We're with Liya Kebede in the first pic at a Fistula Hospital dinner -- she's Ethiopian and her husband is the Chairman of the Fistula Foundation (I'm Vice Chair). Those of you who read Vogue might recognize her from a recent cover (pic #2) -- she's one of the world's top supermodels, though she doesn't behave like one -- just a really nice, down-to-earth mom who just had her 2nd child a couple of months ago.

A few months ago, Alison moved into the single room that Katharine used to have (e.g., Emily swapped sisters as roommates), but they all love to sleep together, so Alison sleeps in Katharine's bed -- with often hilarious results, as pic #3 shows...

Pic #4 shows the hat Alison made for Halloween, which the girls are VERY excited for. Lots of their friends are coming over, and Susan and another mom in the building organized great decorations, etc.

Finally, the opposing team's soccer coach yelling after Emily scored a goal last week prompted this email from the head of the league to all coaches (not the first and I'm sure not the last time that Emily's been in the center of all sorts of chaos!):
I would like to remind everyone to please listen to the refs. Please do not argue with the refs. This is fundamental to playing soccer. Also, if a coach believes that another coach is doing something improper, please speak to the ref. Do not argue with the other coach. If there is no ref, please stay calm and polite. Our six year old girls are watching, and the adults should create a friendly and calm atmosphere. Please remember that we are not keeping score. Lopsided games are not as fun, but it is often hard to keep a six year old from scoring. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the season, and look forward to seeing you on Awards Day. 

Emily Playing Soccer

 
 

Here are pictures from my sister, Dana, in Kenya. That's my nephew, Benjamin -- what a doll!!!

Here's what Dana wrote:

We camped in Naivasha and Hell's Gate last weekend. Benjamin has a bed in the back of the combi. The evil baboons terrorized us in Hell's Gate and chased us out of the park. They are attracted to campers and the food so they are very aggressive. They kept coming and harrassing us. They will come right up to the car and try to steal things off the table or from inside the car. Peter kept chasing them away by throwing stones at them (they are not afraid of me in the least since I have such bad aim - they are masters at playing "dodge the rock"). Finally we packed everything up and closed the combi and went for a walk for 15 min. When we got back, 3 baboons were in the car EATING ALL OUR FOOD!! They had opened the sliding door (yes they opened it - scary!) and had a huge party tearing open everything and eating all. They ate bags of gummies, potato chips (yum yum), granola, carrots, onions, and even sat on our seat and peeled oranges before eating. See disaster when we arrived.

Love, Danos

More pics from the coast and our flight down there with Benjamin in the Sinus. He has a seat belt like the ones you get for the baby on commercial airlines. 

The Tilson Family on Mitzvah Day