The girl has joined the Mont Ripley Racing Team, and today... was her first race. She did so good! I was proud of her! Over the course of her four trials, she improved her time by a total of 4", which is amazing in ski-racing terms! Her coach was thoroughly impressed at the improvement, as was her mama.
This week has been the first week since March, 2020 that has felt... dare I say it??... almost normal. Normal, as in all three kids are back to school face-to-face full time. Normal as in Reagan is participating in rock climbing and skiing, Quinn is diving, snowboarding, and taking piano/organ lessons, and Colby has robotics. Normal as in we leave the house at 7:30 am and get home at 9:30 pm several nights a week. BUSY. It's taking some getting used to, this busy-ness. We've had nearly a year without BUSY. But the kids are active and engaged, and this is good. This is normal.
Here is Quinn's first diving meet for the season. It was postponed for over a month when the Governor once again shut down all sports (except college and professional), and the kids have had all of one week of practice to get ready for it, but I thought they did great, all things considered. It was so good seeing kids be kids again. Masks, altered timing of events, no audience, but competing! Another super-cool thing? Because singing is outlawed these days (and subsequently no National Anthem to kick off the meet), it is now considered a rebellious act of teenagerhood to sing the Star Spangled Banner. So that's what these kids did... in the locker room, where no one could see them. At the top of their ever-loving lungs. It brought me to tears, hearing a locker room full of boys sing like that. I wanted to video tape it, but thought that might be creepy, so didn't. But it was super super cool. Take my word for it.
I fear that our kids, who are at least risk for all this COVID stuff, have had to shoulder a lot of the load of the remediation strategies, and that bothers me. I am so glad that we are - kind of - back to normal, or at least an approximation of normal. I'll take it! And pray that normal comes the rest of the way in the very near future!!
I can't help it. She looks like a spider crawling up that wall. Rock climbing is definitely her thing... the thing her body is designed for, and the thing she is good at. Her instructor told her she climbs higher and quicker than most of the adults he knows. No mystery there.... long limbs, no fear, and no body mass make for a good climber. Her big goal is to master the overhang. She can get to the top along all the different "colored courses" that they use during competition, but she has only got half way across the overhang, which has her climbing essentially upside down. I can't even envision how climbing the thing is possible, as I've never seen it done, but that doesn't stop her from trying! Go, go spider!
... and the bandage is off. YIKES, that's a long incision. UGH. Well, our scars tell stories, don't they? Colby will have a story to tell.
Katie, Theresa, and I travelled up to Copper Harbor to visit Liz! What a fabulous weekend this was!! We rented an adorable little cottage, went cross country skiing, toured Liz's yurt and property, went hiking along Lake Superior, warmed ourselves with chili and sourdough bread, and then chit chatted the night away with some other Copper Harbor girlfriends, and it was all just so perfect and beautiful. I will have a smile on my face for a long time! How I love these ladies!
