Boy and Girl

Nan applied for a job at the Chesterfield Gorge and he got the job he applied for: so like his dad he is working for the state of New Hampshire–in his case, for the Recreation and Park Association.

So four days each week he is working in the little store selling NH memorabilia, walking the trails, maintaining the bathrooms and parking, mowing the lawn, and so on.

Nan is also working for a friend (and former student) of Mark’s at New Dawn Farm in Westmoreland. In addition to the CSA, the farm has partnered with food shelves to provide local families with high quality produce. Throughout the growing season New Dawn Farm is donating 30% of all its produce to local food shelves and community kitchens.

Nan also used some of his graduation gift to purchase a summer membership at the Brattleboro Country Club and he is out every afternoon playing golf with his friends Max, Peter-Owen and Johnny. The plan is to save enough money to help finance the gap-year trip to Uruguay.

But then Nan is a teenage boy. And alas, on his way to work the other morning, he came into the blind intersection at the top of our road and, well, as you can see, the school bus (yes, a school bus) got the better of our Subaru. (The school bus was not even scratched and everyone was ok.)

Ellie, as it happens, is spending Monday and Wednesday mornings this summer in driver’s education class and driving with an instructor one or two days a week. She has been driving with us since last summer, but this is the first time we have been able to get her free from other commitments to enroll in the class.

She is also playing hockey. Her Shamrocks team had a successful weekend in the Stars Summer Tournament up in Burlington, Vermont, winning three games and losing in the final to an extremely talented team stacked with AA and AAA players from around New England. Her game is showing her hard work. Just this afternoon, in fact, we spent an hour shooting together in the barn that Mark has set up for practice. Her snap shot and slap shot are increasing in velocity as she grows stronger, and her mechanics improve. And her summer Shamrocks U-19 team will be practicing in the next few weeks and then playing in the late-July Beantown Summer Showcase down in Marlborough, Massachusetts.