Being made in America means really being made in America, in this case, Allentown, Pennsylvania, where the whole Bear Hill Sports support team drove this past weekend, to pull the pre-orders from the production line, and send them off into the world.

We can’t say enough about being able to do this.  Being able to actually get in your car and drive to the factory where your product, our product, is being made, and meet the people responsible for producing it.  Cringing all the while, as a nearly thirteen year old daughter/VP Product Development, aims a seven year old sibling/VP Marketing and Social Outreach– holding fast to the hydraulic pallet mover— toward rows of boxes stacked floor to ceiling.

The factory in this case being  Sarah Lynn Sportswear, Inc, named at the time of the birth of the owner’s second child, and the timely, concurrent founding of the company. In the near future we hope to post some pictures and history of the company.

But in the meantime, click on over to the Bear HIll Sports site, and order your pair before the second half of the production run is also sold out.

Stop by the bearhillsports.com web site and pre-order your pair now!

Is finished and up for viewing:

This week in the New England Regional Figure Skating Championships, Oct. 21-25 at Leddy Park Arena in Burlington.  Rachel Skates on Thursday.

http://charlottecitizen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1985&Itemid=87

http://www.willistonobserver.com/index.php/Figure-skaters-to-vie-for-regional-title-10/15/09.html

Not to be left out, Bear Hill Sports’ #2 daughter, Beatrice, is competing on Wednesday at the same event.  The local press did not cover her participation in as great a detail.  Calls are being made.

After finishing our collaboration with Tai Babilonia on a new line of georgette skirts, we decided that we really needed to do a studio photo shoot to present this wonderfully fresh set of skirts. It was a great and exhausting day and a real learning experience for all of us at BHS about what can realistically get accomplished in a single day. While we had a lot of fun doing the shoot (see below), it really was a lot of hard work for everyone on the set.

We shot the skirts in a studio space in New York City and were fortunate to have the woman who designed the lotus t-shirt in our ladies section also model those shirts as well. Tai, who is very warm and open, had some down time in the studio with our daughters and with some of the other models. She also has so much experience in front of the camera that she was extremely helpful in getting the look just right in so many of the shots as well as getting the models to appear natural. Her spirit really comes through in so many of the images.

It was amazing to me just how many shots we took in order to get what we needed. Here are a few of my favorite shots of Rachel and Tai together modeling the new skirts.

It was also a blast to have Tina and her daughter on the set in matching hip huggers. What can I say? I crack up every time I see the out takes of the two of them joking around on the set.

Please check out the skirts on the Tai Collection area of the Bear Hill Sports web site. The skirts will also be available at Northwest Regionals in conjunction with a book signing with Tai and possibly at New England Regionals.

When I left my corporate 60 hr/week job a few years ago and started BHS, I had this deluded vision of being able to spend more time with my kids before they became teenagers. (Although some of my friends tell me when your kids are teenagers, they need you even more.) Experienced entrepreneurs know, and I now believe it, that a successful small business can be even more consuming than working for someone else.
I have to admit that I still carry the baggage of a corporate career. I’m still not completely unplugged. Printing out my kids summer activities each week from electronic shared calendar that my husband and I use to make sure everyone is where they need to be should have been the first clue. Answering emails to my daughter’s coach in numbered responses as if she were a client, should have been the second. Oh well.

But this summer I’ve really tried to make our time more creative and to hand off to others some of the BHS tasks. To be honest. It’s been challenging. My kids know I am not hip but it amuses them (most of the time). Sometimes, I feel like I am in a Disney movie that shouldn’t have been approved. You know the one. Former corporate mom tries to be cool outdoorsy type and the kids subject her to antic after antic. The pink “bunny” milk spills in the back seat … then the tent collapses … then they make a wrong turn in the woods and end up on the “most difficult” instead of the easy trail … I could write the script in my sleep.

I think I realized I was trying too hard when my 7 year old announced from the back seat: “You know, Mom. When Dad tells a joke it’s funny. When you tell the same joke … it’s not always funny. Harsh. I thought I left performance reviews back with dry cleaning, sales pitches, and product launches.

This weekend I took the gang for a hike along the Ausable River in the Adirondacks. I decided to let them take the lead and not worry about how far we went. The trail was full of small things to stop and examine. When we got to a beaver pond I eavesdropped as my older son explained to his younger brother :

“You know, we don’t eat butterflies,” my 5 year old announced.
“How come?” asked his brother.
“Because they don’t have a lot of meat on them,” he replied.

A great moment. For the rest of the hike we wandered mostly along the river, stopping to have lunch and swim. Afterward we drove into Lake Placid and went for another swim in Mirror Lake. I left the iPhone in the car. I built a sand castle. Maybe “hip” isn’t isn’t my future but it was a great day.

Received this great photo of Emily Hughes from Chrissy and Linda at the Lake Placid Skate Shop. We have lots of elite level skaters who wear our leggings, but we usually don’t get a real candid. Yes, that’s Linda Fratianne in the painting on the wall. Doing a death drop?

Anyway, I love Linda and Chrissy’s new shop. They have a great second hand collection as well. Be sure to keep out the shop when you are in town. They are great folks and very knowledgeable.

See Chrissy’s blog for more info.

Breakaway pants are finally back in stock. I’ve always thought that they would be great for camping but have never tried them out on an actual trip. Okay, the honest truth is, I’ve never actually taken all four of my kids (age 12, 9, 7 and 5) camping (unless the backyard counts). But … with my husband out of town and optimistic visions of “sibling team building” dancing in my head, I stuffed the back of the car last weekend with blankets and a tent (that hadn’t been unrolled for at least four years). Come on, this is camping. How hard could this be?

The next morning I carefully selected what I thought would be be nicest site at the nicest nearby campground. With the enthusiasm of an 18 year old camp counselor I dialed a great campground, then another, and then another. “What do you mean? No room?” Long story sort, I was finally able to get the last tent site for one night at Half Moon Pond State Park on Lake Bomoseen … but the ranger advised me that the night before the adjoining site had a crew of party goers that didn’t adhere to the 10 pm “all quiet” rule. How bad could it really be, I thought?

So we headed south. We stopped at the wonderful Middlebury, VT farmers market. I bought my daughter a great handmade sweater that she has skated in every day ever since. We explored the Falls near the Old Marble Works and then continued to head south to the Park. When we arrived, my kids were amazed. The campground is beautiful. We didn’t end up with one of the “primo” tent sites but it was fine for our first venture. The crooners at the next site turned out to be nothing more than young wannabe musicians who while they played until 10:30 were harmless.

One of the things I learned about camping is that it as definitely gone upscale since I was a kid. We came with a tent, some sleeping bags, and a cooler of food. All around us were folks who brought separate structures to put over their picnic tables, clothes line (makes sense), serious inflatable mattresses, bikes, signs with their name/home town, fancy trailers, and so on. In spite of our first timer status, the trip was great. I managed to make a camp fire and keep it going long enough for us to roast marshmallows. I remembered to bring extra D batteries for the lantern so I could read to all four of them in the tent at night.

There were only two downsides. First, while I brought a pair of our breakaway pants to stay warm at night (we really do wear our products!) and in the morning, some sort of mattress under the sleeping bag would have been better. I hate to say it but while the product testing opportunity was great, the pants just aren’t a substitute for proper padding under a sleeping bag (unless you are wearing six pairs simultaneously). Lastly, as the fearless leader, I took them on a 2 mile hike around the lake (some people in our party referred to it as a death march). My curiosity about why we were the only ones making this trek disappeared when my sweet seven year old daughter Bea was attacked by a swarm of killer black flies. Luckily a couple from Montreal took pity on us and soaked her in cortisone cream.

The next morning we headed home and stopped at Branbury State Park on Lake Dunmore (one of the “primo” areas that I had called). It’s another beautiful camping area with a great sandy beach. I asked the ranger if we could drive through and also how much notice was needed for a reservation. “Six to eight ma’am, he replied.” “Six to eight days,” I asked? “No ma’am, six to eight months.” (Okay, so I am still getting the hang of this.)

Bottom line? They’d go again in a heartbeat and so would I. I learned that four kids can put up a tent together, that the laundry generated from this type of trip is basically the same whether you go for 1 night or 3, those netted houses over the the picnic table are … priceless, bring more fire starters, and reading to your kids in a tent until they fall asleep is really cool.