Summer Vacation 2025

This year, we returned to New Hampshire for our annual summer vacation. It was a little bit strange to be on a family vacation without Elizabeth, but we soon fell into a routine that worked for the three of us. Although it was cold, we all swam in the ocean every day, which was great. We did a lot of walking and just relaxing. Overall, it was a great week. 

Emily loves to swim the length of the beach every day.

After all these years, I've finally gotten Lee to come around to just letting me get my morning coffee on vacation. The lattes at La Mulita are superb.

Best thing about vacationing in New Hampshire is catching up with old friends.

Because our vacation was so close to preseason, Emily had to workout almost every day. We figured out a way to make it a little bit more palatable - every morning, she ran to a coffee place and we would meet her there, get a snack, and then drive back to our place.

Jumping off the bridge at Rye Harbor. This photo is at least 15 years in the making - she's been wanting to do this since she first laid eyes on teenagers making the jump when she was a toddler.

Friday morning, Emily ran from the Beach Plum to Hampton Beach. She then got breakfast from the shop where one of her college teammates works.

Summer Soccer

As she has for the last three summers, Emily again played for SportingCT's semi-professional women's soccer team. She practiced three mornings a week and played in six games, earning more playing time and looking more and more confident as the summer went on. She played holding mid almost exclusively but even so, was able to score two goals - both of them game winners. She played the full 90 away against Albany, scoring in the 72nd minute to give her team a 1-0 win; and then in the final game of the season, she scored a header in the 79th minute to give her team a 3-2 win at Hudson Valley (and was +3 for the game). Despite the fact that I love to watch her score, her best game, in my opinion, was a 4-1 loss to Vale. She was on the field when Vale scored 3 goals early in the first half and was the cause of at least one of those. When she was subbed out, she took in what her coach had to say and when she returned to the field for the second half, she was lights out, so much so that her coach didn't sub her out in the second half and told her after the game how pleased she was with how good she looked and how she adapted. All of this work - plus all of the running and lifting - is in preparation for her sophomore season at Clarkson, which starts in two weeks!

Big game winner!

The smile says it all here - she was so pumped about how well she played and because she scored a header goal to win the game in the waning minutes.

Last day of training