A No School Day

Eliza and Luke enjoyed the last day of their random long weekend on the same day Jack had school-from-home, so we were able to do a few fun things together.  In the morning we spent about an hour and a half at our favorite trampoline park, which was a bit eerie, since we spent some time at the same trampoline park a year earlier just before everything closed down - I remember trying to hurry to get the kids some good play time expecting we'd be unable to get out in the near future.

We had fun with some slow-mo and time lapse video recording...

The kids did dodgeball at the very end and Jack was so confident that he and his younger siblings would conquer any opponents that even though they were outnumbered, when another kid came to play Jack insisted he join the other team.  Team JEL was unfortunately defeated rather quickly (at the end of the video above) and apparently Luke decided to adopt a new tactic for the next game.  Cat was with us, just hanging out at a table and doing schoolwork while the other kids played.  After the second game, Luke came to the table where Cat and I were sitting, slammed his hands on the table and announced, "LAST. ONE. STANDING." Then he admitted that the other team was all standing. "My stra-ge-dy was to watch for the ball and dodge, not throw."

Eliza likes the tradition of tying her wristband to the railing outside of the gym.
She noticed that there were a lot less than last year, so apparently they'd been cleared off,
and E was happy to help get it going again.

We just hung out at home for a couple of hours before heading out to piano lessons, which are right by a fun playground.  Suz and Whit met us at the playground and I shuttled kids back and forth to piano lessons while the others played and enjoyed the warmer weather.

The day before this, Eliza saw a recipe for playdough cookies that was tucked in my big baked-goods recipe binder and asked if we could make them.  She helped me make the dough in the afternoon and after it had chilled for a few hours, the kids made some fun colorful cookies.

Pi Day

We started Pi Day off with personal breakfast quiches, which I thought were wonderful, and the rest of the family... didn't eat.  They sure looked cute, though, didn't they?

I encouraged the kids to each make a pie and told them I'd help.  Luke wasn't interested, but Eliza made a Mixed Berry Pie with lattice crust, Jack made a Peanut Butter Fudge Pie (family favorite), and Cat was completely independent making a yummy new recipe: Magnolia Lemon Pie (like Lemon Cream).  

That afternoon we had a cookout with Ben's two Utah brothers and it was so great to all be together (mostly outside - though I didn't take pictures of the outside activities of course) for the first time in months!  There were board games, games of football/catch, giant Jenga, piano/Clavinova playing, attempts at Spikeball, and lots of talking and hanging out.  And everyone was extra helpful so that I wasn't walking around on my bad knee too much!

We had a yummy grilled dinner followed by a smorgasbord of pies, including the two GF pies Keturah brought: Pecan and Cherry.  I enjoyed sampling the pies and they were all delicious!

Hooray for pie, and double hooray for cousin time!

Ski Season Wrap-Up

We had lots of fun at Sundance this year!  I was hoping we'd accomplish two goals we weren't able to reach last year: to get all the kids to ski on the back mountain, and to ski for longer than 2 hours.  While I don't think we reached the 2+ hours mark, we did actually get everyone on the back mountain once.  Eliza and Luke had both been during their lessons and felt fine about going, but it was a little more challenging for Jack.  After a couple of falls on the blue-level run straight down the mountain he decided it would be best to just walk down sideways in his skis.  While this approach took a lot longer, it was a safe and practical solution!

Ben also took the younger three night skiing at the beginning of March (I stayed home with Cat, who had a sprained ankle) and they really enjoyed that.

Taking advantage of an online school day
to do a little skiing with my favorite 12-year-old.

We thought we were smart to arrive early for skiing on President's Day,
but the line for the lift was long before the lift even started!  We waited
in the car for a while to let the line die down, then just braved the crowds.
Also, Ben switched to snowboarding mid-season.

Cat had a ski day with a bunch of friends from school
and they were eager to ski on the back mountain, and
even tried out a couple of black diamond runs.  Scary!

Ben and I took the kids one Saturday morning while Cat stayed home to do homework.
There was SO MUCH POWDER.

On this fated day, I realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket while
Jack and I were skiing when I attempted to take a picture of him going down
a little blue run.  Thankfully, someone turned it in just before we left, so we
took our selfie in the car.

Then we had our last winter day at Sundance on 3/11.  Perhaps I should have learned from the bad luck of losing my phone, because it just got worse.

Eliza and Luke didn't have school so I took the two of them skiing for a couple of hours.  I told them we'd drive through for lunch on the way home and challenged them (bribed?) to complete four runs to earn milkshakes.  On the fourth run, I was behind the kids and fell and twisted my knee really bad.

Luke can't resist fresh snow.
This didn't bother me too much until I remembered that people
would need to put their hands on that railing and made him stop.

Do you see the mountain peeking through the clouds?

Just another beautiful day at Sundance...

Enjoying the Outlaw trail.

Since the kids were ahead of me, they didn't know that I'd fallen but just waited for several minutes until a Good Samaratin who had stopped to check on me went ahead to tell the kids what happened.

Another Good Samaritan stayed with me until ski patrol arrived, put my knee in a brace, and wrapped me up in a toboggan (like the picture below, except my head was covered too) and skied me down the mountain.

The kids were waiting with ski patrol at the base and one of the first things the ski patrol said was that I needed to make good on my milkshake promise.  Well, at least my right knee was in tact so after filling out some forms and with considerable assistance from ski patrol we made it back to our car, got loaded up, and drove to Apollo Burger.  Eliza helped me get into the house and we all enjoyed hot lunch, then Ben took me to the hospital where I got an x-ray, a brace, and a set of crutches.

The next week I got an MRI and found out that I have a complete tear in my ACL and a near-complete tear in my MCL.  And did you know that while the MCL will repair itself, the ACL never will?  So, I'll be having surgery next week to get fixed up.

I'm sad about the injury and the lengthy recovery it will require, but I'm thankful it's a fixable issue!  I'm also sad that I know I might not want to ski anymore.  I'll just have to make that decision next winter.  The kids enjoyed skiing a bit more than last year, I'd say, but it still took a bit of coaxing to get them to go most of the time.  Even considering this injury, though, I'm glad we tried skiing again this year and had a fun winter activity to get us outside and enjoy the beauty of the mountains together!

Between the injury and the warming weather, we decided to turn in our rental equipment a couple of weeks early.  We're done for the year.

The Gymnast

Eliza was so excited to be able to compete in away meets this year!  She wanted to do it last year but we weren't willing to pay the extra fees to participate.  So she worked to save up $100 to contribute so that she could be on the traveling team this year.  (She also paid for her own warm-up jacket, which we also did not pay for last year.)

She's worked really hard and mastered several new skills, and ended the season with a lot of bling.  Her favorite event is still uneven bars, with vault as the second-favorite.

Uneven Bars
Look for pullover, cast, back hip circle, cast, squat on jump to high bar,
tap swing, and a twist dismount.  

Beam

Look for handstand, split jump, half turn, and a twist dismount.

Vault

Front handspring over the mat.

 

Floor

Look for cartwheel, round-off back handspring, leap pass, and a front walkover round-off.
 

The big hiccup this year was that she sprained her ankle in early February, the week after the first of four meets.  Her coaches encouraged her to continue to attend gym but to just scale back her training.  Against my better judgment, we went along with this plan, but it took Eliza's sprained ankle about five weeks to heal.  She wore a brace when training and competing.  She felt she was fully healed just before the final meet.  

For the fist meet, we not only did hair but also glitter and a little makeup.
Cat helped with the mascara, which was... tricky.

I'm proud of the job I did on that competition bun!
I watched a couple of YouTube videos and found out that the
secret is lots of hair gel.  Who knew?!?

First meet (called "Aspire to go Higher Invitational")
at AirTime in Spanish Fork!

Another mom attending the meet commented on how
Eliza smiled so much while she competed.  Someone else
admired how Eliza looked so graceful.  I completely agree.

Uneven bars is Eliza's favorite event.

2nd Place in Bars!

For this meet, like most of the meets, each competitor
was allowed to have two spectators because of Covid.
It was a fun date night, hanging out and watching our favorite gymnast!

Academy West's "Flip Out! Invitational" at the Davis County Convention Center.

Cat accompanied me to this meet, which was on a Friday afternoon.

Afterward we met up for dinner with Alysa and Brooke!

"This Girl is on Fire" meet at North Davis Gymnastics.  Everyone
attending was given a matching leotard and a different colored scrunchy.

It was harder to see which event Eliza was competing in at this meet since all of the
teams looked exactly the same, but oh well.  At least I was sitting near the bars!

We got faster and faster getting hair done.  By the fourth meet
we had time to admire the different shades of blonde in Eliza's hair.

I guess I take a lot of pictures of bars...
This was at the fourth and final meet, "Lucky Charm Meet,"
at Mountain West Gymnastics in Bountiful.

Suz was my buddy at this meet and she even made embarrassing signs for us to hold up
while we cheered really loudly for Eliza.  Deep, deep, deep down I know Eliza loved it.

The coach said Eliza could keep the team award because she did
such a great job on her bars routine!

I finally got a picture, just me and the superstar!

And check out these great pictures Suz took at the last meet: