Andy Smallman

Which one is one of the 365 faces of Celeste? This big one with the knife? Or the one that appeared an hour or so later, with the jagged teeth and orange complexion?

I dare you, I mean, I challenge you to find a more adorable Halloween costume photo than this one of Ella from 1997. She was 10 months old and both she and Chloe spent part of each weekday at a place called The Learning Garden.

The night before Halloween, there was a Halloween costume contest at The Learning Garden, one that included adults and families. As you can tell from this photo, Ella was a dalmatian puppy. Chloe was Cruella de Vil, complete with blue eye shadow. And Melinda and I dressed as Cruella’s henchmen.

It probably goes without saying that we won the contest.

As you can tell from this photo, it was a highly competitive soccer match today. Celeste, there on the left, is about to make one of her patented “now you see me, now you don’t” moves on Chloe. Dipsy-doodle and another goal for Celeste!

Truthfully, Celeste did play soccer today and Chloe did not. With all their injuries, Celeste’s team had no subs so she and her 10 teammates played the entire game. Meanwhile, the opposing team regularly made substitutions, sometimes three players at a time, ensuring they were always well-rested. It’s no surprise that the team with multiple subs won 5-0.

Of additional interest, at least to me, is that the opposing team from today is named the Storm. Celeste’s team is called the Tsunamis, as you might recall. Has any team ever chosen the Raindrops? We had some of those today, too.

If you’re a regular follower of this blog you may have noticed I’m posting late tonight. That’s because Melinda, Celeste and I just got back home from a Friday night out. And this wasn’t any Friday night out, especially for Celeste. This was the Friday night in which her American roots took deep hold. She attended an American high school football game, the stuff TV shows are made of.

At school today, she and a new friend chatted about the game. And when her soccer practice was cancelled due to limited availability of players, Celeste jumped at the chance to attend the Roosevelt Roughriders football game. Melinda and I drove her to the Seattle Center to Memorial Stadium (where we once saw Elvis Costello perform, by the way) where many of the Seattle high schools play their football games. It’s quite picturesque in that the stadium is under the shadow of the Space Needle.

I made sure Celeste located her friends and then Melinda and I drove further into town to have dinner. We came back, thinking the game must be close to being over, only to discover there was still another quarter to play. We took a seat in the bleachers and tried not to be discovered by Celeste (we didn’t want to embarrass her!), texting that we were “nearby.” We thought we’d hop up and head to the car just before the game was over.

But what happened, you wonder?

Right toward us came Celeste and her friends! I’d like to say that I quickly embraced Melinda in a passionate kiss in order not to be seen by Celeste, you know, like they do in the movies, but I wasn’t that quick-thinking. Instead, I just turned my head away. Celeste walked past us, not noticing. So much for the movies and those kisses…

We hustled back to the car, but not before receiving a text from Celeste, “Where are you?”

Oh, Roosevelt was losing 30-14 at the point we left, which was with about 2 minutes to go in the game. It didn’t look good for the Roughriders and it was a bit chilly, hence the early departure for Celeste and her friends. But you should have seen her grin.