A quick swimming post --- Last weekend we visited our Loomis friends and swam against them... Christian's good friend RJ swims for Loomis (he swam for Folsom for two years until they moved) - those first couple of years RJ was a significantly faster swimmer than Christian, but these days Christian can challenge him.
Below you see Christian and RJ side-by-side in the backstroke leg of the Medley relay. Christian touched the wall first in this event, but later in the 25 yard backstroke event itself, RJ came back and beat Christian - both times the difference was hundreths of a second apart from each other, how fun!! As for the other events, Christian beat RJ in both the 100 IM and 25 yd Free, though I'm sure RJ will fight back and challenge Christian at Champs!
Thanks, everyone, for the birthday wishes! It's been a great couple of days - starting with a family visit over weekend, and taking today and next couple of days off from work... Today was filled with lots of time around pools --- relaxing by them for Christian's swim practice and clinic, replacing a pump for our pool or cooling off in the pool. Spent time with Christian, did dinner and had a great day overall
Nine years old, yes that's right - Christian turned nine back in February! I can't believe it!! Six years ago today (June 6) is when life changed as Christian moved in and I became a single-dad... Like everyone, we have our share of good times and bad, and we wouldn't have it any other way!
So as my little guy gets bigger what does he want to do for his birthday? He wants to head to Sunsplash with a small group of friends and have fun with the water slides, especially double dare! As we pass his actual birthday (with a family celebration) March rolls around and he realizes that June (when Sunsplash opens for the summer) is a LONG time away still! In the end he changes his mind and he wants to have a few friends over for a sleepover --- okay, truth be told he wanted to invite a whole bunch of friends over for a sleepover but I limited him to three friends. In the end I let him invite ten friends to a movie (the Croods on opening weekend), pizza and fun at the house and then let three spend the night.
Everything went AMAZINGLY well. It was a holiday weekend so only half could come, but everything went off without a hitch. I was most worried about what the kids would do around the house --- go figure, we had enough tablets so they could all connect and play Minecraft together and that's what they did for hours upon hours. It was the simplest party ever as everyone just did what they enjoyed together - no one was left out and I didn't have to do anything!
Wow! Has it really been three months since I’ve posted an update! Ugh, falling behind again… Look for a series of updates coming over the next couple of days…
Basketball came to a close in March, not too soon for me! Christian had a good coach, decent teammates and it was overall it was fun to watch him do something new. He actually started off doing really well, listening and playing. However, since it was a new activity that meant Christian would go from having fun to being lost and “creating” his own fun in matter of seconds – especially as the season went on. He wanted to be the highlight of the team but knew others were better than him and as the coach went from letting everyone try everything to more set positions Christian wasn’t happy in his role. He stopped listening and even stopped playing --- even in the middle of a game. I can’t coach him as he won’t listen to me and when he shuts down he doesn’t only impact himself, but the whole team suffers... Anyway...
Overall he had fun and we now have a basketball hoop out front, hopefully we can work on some skills in the off-season and come back stronger next season and have a better go at it…
(yes, that smile is the result of making a basket)
And after 2 months of rehearsals on Saturday mornings, missing almost half of our basketball games we come to show time. Wednesday we had dress rehearsals and things went as well as can be expected. Some bumps in the road, some quick things to change, some notes taken to make things better for the shows.
Thursday night was opening night for us! Working backstage I don't really get to watch the show though we have to follow along. I'm in the wings of the stage so I can see most of the stage and we can hear it a little bit but we're focused on our jobs as we ought to be. I'm looking forward to Saturday night when I see the show for myself as a ticket holder.
Everything seemed to go well. It sounds like a couple of the kids forgot their lines (doh!) but they recovered and kept going. I heard them laughing about it after the show. After the show the kids go out to the front of the stage for a "meet and greet" and Christian was very excited to see one of his friends out there! Thank you for coming!!! He's really enjoying the show and the experience and it's fun to watch him on stage, signing and dancing.
We hope you can make out to a show, two more opportunities - Saturday morning at 11am or Saturday evening at 5:30pm at Pleasant Grove Middle School in Rescue (just head up Blue Ravine/Green Valley road about 15 minutes).
