Aliya, Norah, and I spent the afternoon with our friends at the Yarmaloff’s pool. Aliya showed off her excellent diving and surfing skills. Now that all of the girls have left NGCC we’ll have to work harder to stay in touch, but not to worry…Aliya, Maren, Reece, and Erin are all on the same soccer team. Look out coach!

Yesterday we spent the day at the Spencer Fair. Highlights included:

~ a sheep-sheering exhibition complete with a vigilant sheepdog

~ hands-on cow grooming – Adlani brushed, Aliya combed

~ a calf pooping (Adlani’s favorite)

~ pony rides

~ guinea pigs and bunnies for sale (another favorite of Adlani’s)

~ gigantic pumpkins

~ various poultry on display

~ karaoke

~ mini-golf

~ tractor and horse team pulling

~ face paint – Lessons learned: Adlani is not old enough to have his face painted and the face painting lady needs to find a new profession. She was not nice and she got mad when he leaned forward and accidentally brushed his red face against her smock. Adlani was supposed to be Spiderman, but he only held still long enough to be a red-faced, white-eyed guy with one black circle. He seemed to like it anyway.

~ rides, rides, rides – Aliya has no fear and went on all of the grown-up rides – ALONE.

~ bags of cotton candy as big as Norah

~ The Flying Wallendas! – They’re really great! Amazing!

Last week, Zoe completed a 4-week program of private lessons at Alpha-Dog K9 Training in Holliston (http://alphadogk9.com/). Thanks to our extremely patient instructor, Sheila, Zoe passed with flying colors and got an A+ on her final exam! Even Aliya can walk her now! We’re planning to continue her training and work toward certification as a therapy dog, but as you can see from this video, we may need to go back for remedial swimming lessons.