January and February of this year has been interesting. With both Basketball and Volleyball running in parallel, we require a level of coordination that means nearly every morning we have a meeting to confirm who is doing what, picking up who, covering the to’s and from’s for anything that is not sports related and then double-checking all of that to make sure there have been no last minute changes to the schedule or location of events. Fortunately, Margaret is really only interested in soccer and riding horses. Soccer won’t start until the snow melts and we’ve been unsuccessful at finding a place to get her into English riding so we’re only managing two of three at the moment. This year has been both easier and harder with our proximity to Cranbrook. Trips into Cranbrook for volleyball means better access to groceries and a means of killing the 2 hours while I wait for practice to end. One might say I’m even saving time. Two birds, one stone. The sane part of my brain recognizes that right now, boxes get added faster than they can be checked. Stuff just doesn’t happen.
Despite having missed a few school permission forms and forgotten a pick-up here and there, we are doing pretty well. The girls wrapped up their first term of school with great report cards and Margaret’s final art project made it to the ceiling of the art hallway.
Lizzie’s woodworking project turned out beautifully too.
Mary continues to work on growing and is dangerously close to passing both of her sisters. She and Lizzie are now the same height and she is only a couple of inches away from me. I think Margaret has stopped growing at 5’6″ so at least I won’t be the shortest…at least until me shrink rate puts me in danger of passing her in the other direction!
In volleyball…Lizzie and I B-lined it for Nelson last weekend so we could join her volleyball team in a funsies tournament for the day. “Funsies” because they didn’t even have their jerseys yet, there were only 4 teams, 2 were U16, 2 were U15, and one of the teams was only 5 players. They barely kept score (but the parents did!) We rose very early and braved a rather nasty Kootenay Pass to get there, but the day was great and it gave them a chance to shake the rust off and find out where maybe they needed to fill a gap or two. Worth the trip and perfectly low pressure for a newly formed team. Consensus among the families (and drivers!) was that the pass was not the way to go home, so we made our way up to the Balfour ferry to avoid the sketchy weather and the likely even sketchier roads. We didn’t quite avoid the sketchy weather, encountering dense fog and black ice for much of the trip, but definitely better than what we expected in the pass. The girls got some extra time together, and so did the parents. Win-win, despite our very late arrival home.
We followed her Nelson tournament with a HIIT Camp as preparation for the competitive season that is starting in a couple of weeks. She got three days of intense training with her team and a few players that had signed on from other teams. A long weekend of hard work but they learned a lot.
Basketball is essentially done for Lizzie and she’s heading for a practice/wrap up party on Monday. Phew!
Mary is still a couple of weeks away from her last games, having gone through another tournament this weekend, placing 2nd with her Grade 7 team. She’s really enjoying it and I’m looking forward to seeing her keep playing. She’s gained some confidence and her ball handling and since she’s one of the bigger players on the court, she gets paired up with some pretty strong checks. Showing a lot less fear there now though, so I think she’s found her feet. She gets lots of court time and is pretty effective on defense. I can’t wait to see the snow melt so we can get the basketball hoop back in operation at home!
Jeff and I took a couple of days off to join Mike, Chrissy, Donny and Tanya in Whitefish to celebrate Mike’s 50th birthday. They took a train from Seattle with Don and Tanya and we drove the short trip from Jaffray after work on Tuesday. I’ll admit now that I brought my skis in spirit only and with little or no intention of putting them on. I’m sure that’s breaking some law of living where we do, but my goal was to enjoy the company of other humans above all else. I felt guilt about that on our last day for a few seconds…but only a bit. We ate, drank, laughed A LOT and observed little in the way of schedule for a few days. A much needed respite from the pace of our usual life and in the company of some of my favorite people. Jeff got a day’s worth of cat-skiing with Mike and Don, while Tanya, Chrissy and I walked the town, mostly window-shopping and winding up in a pub for drinks and snacks in the afternoon when we had exhausted the streets. I added seeing wild turkeys (like the properly stereo-typical thanksgiving turkeys) to my list of odd things in town. The day before, we took the short drive to see Glacier National Park, passing through a town called Hungry Horse (who’s mascot is an emaciated horse ?!) only to find it closed. The Sun Road was open however, so we drove to the resort and explored. We found some vintage buildings and two properly working pay phones. The lodge there was a step back in time and after we explored the closed the resort, we decided to check out one of the trails. It turned out to be a bit more trail than we had bargained for and we tapped out early – Mike would have happily kept going, but this crew was not game for adding a rescue to the experience.
Such a great time, cut shorter than we wanted, but we would take what we could get. Grandma and the girls did well while we were away. Everybody made it to the bus in each morning and home again, they were all alive and the house didn’t burn down. I’ll take it as a win.
Back home on Friday evening to run the gauntlet of practices and games, and Jeff on a queasy stomach from perhaps something amiss on his plate at dinner the night before. We made it safely home though and are back on all things build-related. Mopping up from a few days away will take a few days more!