Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e had plans to head out of town to Saratoga this coming weekend...  actually, tomorrow through Monday.  Lukey has a hockey tournament in Saratoga so that was our primary reason for this trip.  We also enjoy trips to the Adirondack Mountains anyway and there is a nice inn in Saratoga that we like so we immediately made reservations when we learned of the hockey tournament.   Actually, back in October, we made reservations at this inn within minutes of learning of the hockey tournament! Unfortunately, earlier in the week, I had a lousy night as well as a pretty lousy following day.  I was having great difficulty breathing again.  This was followed by some time spent in the bathroom.  The good news is that my health didn't spiral down into anaphylaxis this time but my health was lousy enough to make me want/need to stick close to home. Needless to say, I simply do not trust my health to head out of town.  The three hour car ride would likely trigger dangerous health problems.  Then

L ukey's hockey team, the Black Bears, had a game against Stowe this past Sunday.  The game was at the Waterbury ice rink so we made the very short drive to the rink to watch Lukey and visit with the rest of the family who attended the game.   Lukey has been playing the goaltender position for the past few years and he is getting good at it!  He has a lot of saves each game and this game was no different.   Even though this Stowe team was a tier above Lukey's Black Bears team, it was a one-sided game in favor of the Black Bears.  This is a pretty solidly balanced team.  Their offensive line is good with some fast skaters and pretty good stick-handlers.  Their defensive line does a good job.  And, Lukey's goaltending has proven to be difficult to penetrate by most teams his age.   I don't often shoot video at his games but I attempted a few clips this time.  Shooting video is tough at these games for a few reasons.  First, the rinks are tight which means you are close to

Back a month ago, we went to one of Lukey's hockey games at Stowe Arena.  After hockey, we all went to a local Christmas Tree farm to cut Christmas trees and then went out to lunch.  I'll write more and share more photos of the tree farm and lunch but this long overdue blog entry is about Lukey's hockey game. Lukey was in goal for this particular game and he did a good job.  It is funny, it seems like every time I started recording video, Lukey let up a goal!  I did happen to capture a few good saves by him but the video is a bit misleading.  He actually did have a lot of saves...  far more than goals scored against him.  Most importantly, Lukey had a great time in goal! So, here are a few photos from the game. At the bottom of the page, there is a short video too... It is difficult to spot at first but, in this photo below, Lukey blocked the shot with his right leg pad...  the hockey puck is blurred because

We've missed most of Lukey's hockey season due to Sheila's health issues over the past seven months but we did manage to get to a couple of games this season. Actually, we've missed most of everything over the past seven months but we were fortunate enough to be able to make a day of Lukey's last hockey game of the season a week ago... Lukey is number 10... Lukey has become a fairly quick skater since we've last seen him play... For Mallory and Kenzie, this was more of a snack and socializing day...  Unfortunately, I was stuck shooting photos through puck-marked glass. This made for less-than-sharp photos, at best. Some of the photos have reflections and some are slightly obscured by puck-marks on the glass. I still managed to capture some decent photos though... These next four photos are a great series...  in the first photo, Lukey is blocking a shot with his skate... the puck is hard to see because it is blen