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 Last week we had a family vacation out to the Mendocino Coast, and one of my favorite things was time spent with my niece Liesel constructing a crossword puzzle! I had such a blast teaching her about the art of crossword construction - it was so fun working with her to pick out words for filling the grid and discussing different ideas for clues. I interviewed her about the experience...our crossword puzzle is below - please enjoy! Tell me about yourself My name is Liesel Mullerheim - I am 10 years old, going into 5th grade. I live in Tampa Florida with my mom, dad, and pets - my cat Nate and my fish - I have about 19 of them! My favorite subject in school is math; after school I love doing gymnastics, jujitsu, and piano. And I especially love cats🐱🐱🐱 What do you like about crosswords? I love making them with my aunt Katja and it's so fun to make the clues - the whole process is so fun!! 😁😁 Tell us about your trip to California - what was your favorite thing? It was lots of fu...

 We have a big family trip scheduled soon out to the Mendocino Coast...and it feels like summer vacation is finally here. The best part is my 10-year-old niece will be visiting - and while she's here, we're planning to construct a crossword puzzle together! She is already a budding crossword solver, so I'm excited to see if she also gets the constructing bug. Midi-size puzzles are the rage lately, so please enjoy this midi from me - with my niece's name (slightly) hidden in the puzzle...look for our collaboration in a couple weeks! Constructed by using the free crossword creator from Amuse Labs

 It's early July, which means the Tour de France has just begun, and we are into the second week of Wimbledon. I grew up in a tennis family, which means I have played and watched a lot of tennis over the years - this year's Wimbledon has seen a lot of upsets which definitely makes it exciting. The great thing about tennis is it's never too late for a comeback.  Anyways, I was inspired by the phrase "Tennis, anyone?" to make this puzzle - happy solving - and hope you enjoy some of the amazing tennis or cycling or any other sport that brings you joy this month. Created by Katja Brinck using the free cross word creator from Amuse Labs

Well it has been a week of ups and downs for me...and what better way to work through that than with a crossword puzzle...   On Saturday, my husband lost his wedding ring in the Russian River. We have acquired a metal detector and will be out searching for that this week - wish us luck! That was a down.   Then on Sunday, I attended Westwords - the Bay Area Crossword Tournament in its second year in Berkeley, CA.  Since I had not been training for it at all, my plan was to have a chill day with crosswords and friends by competing in the easier "Beach" division - and then I went and won. Congrats to the other winners, especially to Tyler Hinman for winning the "Mountain" division - may I hope to come close to that someday. This was definitely an up!  And then this morning I found out I was laid off from my job, part of a re-org of our business technology team. I know I wasn't the only one impacted, but it was still a shock...and I am still figuring out what w...

 As I've been watching the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition the last few weeks (which concluded a couple days ago with the awarding of the gold medal to Aristo Sham of Hong Kong), I once again have been dreaming about one day owning my own grand piano. I probably need a larger living room. But as I've been dreaming of that, I also started thinking about a lot of my favorite things that are black and white - and thus this puzzle was born. A little too late I also just read about Ed the runaway pet zebra who was finally captured in Tennessee. Just imagine what this ride must have been like: So Ed the Zebra did not make the actual puzzle, but I hope he enjoys his brief brush with fame. And I hope you enjoy the puzzle! Built by Katja Brinck using the online crossword puzzle generator from Amuse Labs

With the weather warming up, and the nicer, longer days, I've gotten back into a running training plan, and am currently planning to run 10k at the end of the month - yes less than a week! Running is never easy to start, and I got away from it for a bit, so about 7 weeks ago I kicked off a new training plan with a goal to run 10k by June 1. I will likely never be a fast runner, but in the end, running is more about facing something difficult and doing it anyways. A fun recent challenge for my Saturday long runs has been "will I finish my run faster or solve the Saturday stumper faster." 🤣  With that in mind, I thought about the phrase 10k, and thought "how hard could it be to put 10 Ks into a puzzle" - actually a little harder than I thought to have a bunch of fun entries featuring a lot of Ks. I ended up expanding the grid to 15x17 - hope you have fun solving my puzzle "Run 10k with me," And wish me luck when I run 10k this coming weekend! (Picture f...