fun in threes, sometimes fours
the girl
Day 2 in Orlando didn't go quite as well as day 1. We have two more days, but the girls have a bit of a hole to dig about out of tomorrow. The girls are capable of it. It's really just more of a question of will, perhaps. Or maybe there's more going on.
10
Today was a mixed bag for the girls in their first days at nationals. They lost two and won one, but they should really be able to compete with a lot of the teams here. They didn't get their butts kicked: instead, they got outplayed a little and kicked their own butts with silly errors that gave their opponents too many free gifts.
The Girl got some really big hits, and she got at least one monster hit that shot like a bullet to the back corner, the sound of the contact still echoing when the ball hit the court. It was a great hit.
The Boy discovered the joys of riding up an escalator and back down and back up and back down and back up and back down.
E's best friend came over for the afternoon today. At first, they did what boys these days do: play video games. However, we have no gaming console in our house at all. No Xbox, no Play Station, no Nintendo Switch. In fact, I only know those things exist because I hear students and teachers talking about them at school. And of course, E brings them up occasionally.
And it's a little surprising, to be honest, how many adults with no children or with grown children still invest time and money into gaming systems. To each his own, I suppose, but I always thought there was a time when people outgrew video games.
Not having a gaming system has several advantages, not the least of which is the simple fact that since we don't buy games for our PC either, E's gaming options are severely curtailed. Which means he and his friend grow tired of them eventually and head outside to find other things to do.
Like catching minnows in the creek behind our house.
As for the Girl today, she was out of the house for most of the day: physical therapy, volleyball strength training, and driving instruction took almost all her day.
Oh, and this
Today was the final day of school for me. The kids didn't have school, but teachers have to go in for at least one more day to get things squared away for the summer: materials returned, documents completed, papers signed, report cards mailed. During my first year at Hughes, I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we had to do. Since then, teachers' "To Do" list has been drastically simplified. One whole task, which often took hours, has been assigned to others. I use the passive voice there because, quite honestly, I don't know who made that change, but I am grateful nonetheless.
Getting this last day out of the way is such a relief because I reach a point where I can finally stop thinking about school for a while -- I'm not even planning on doing any prep work this summer. For one thing, I have too much to do this summer:
Then there's all the travel:
Still, this is a fairly short list for the summer, but this is all in the next three weeks, for in just 23 days, we'll be heading to Poland as a family of four for the first time since 2017. Five years. Five years. It's the longest period of time I've not visited Poland since I first went in 1996. K and E went last summer; L went on her own in the summer of 2019. (Or was it 2018?) But it's been five long years since we all went.
That means L was E's age the last time we were there. And L has gone from being a pre-teen to an almost-licensed (driver-permitted?) employed teen with all that entails.
The Boy has one from a little five-year-old thrilled with everything new to an increasingly cynical (but still fascinated by many things) ten-year-old.
We'll probably take the same walk we always do on the day we arrive, and we'll definitely enjoy Babcia's rosół the day we arrive, but everything will be just a little different. And that's probably good.
We decided today to visit Greenville's newest park: Unity Park. According to the website,
Greenville’s newest park features four state-of-the-art playgrounds, including a 4,100-square-foot splash pad, two expansive green spaces, covered picnic tables and a 10,000-square-foot welcome center with restrooms, a first-aid station and flexible event space. The 60-acre park also features basketball courts and a historic baseball field located on the site of the former Mayberry Park, which was built in 1925.
Unity Park Site
E and I rode our bikes by it on our last trip on the Swamp Rabbit trail, but it was still under construction at that point.
After exploring the new park for a while, we walked downtown to the tried and true Reedy River Park.
An overall lovely day.
The Girl has her second job: this time, she's working at Dairy Queen. I guess there's a certain continuity with last summer's job at Culver's, but only vaguely.
When she was applying for the job, I suggested that she shouldn't leave the reference section empty.
"They're so desperate for workers," she explained, "that it doesn't matter." I recommended that she reconsidered; she didn't. She got the job.
It helped that she did have experience, though, that she could go straight to work, that she knew how to work a register. The first day on the job, they put her behind a register and got her working with almost no immediate training.
The other afternoon, our family friends went through the drive-thru to get a little snack. L didn't realize it was them until they pulled up.
This is now one of my favorite pictures of her.
Yesterday was tough; today was a little better. At least they won a set. "Look at this way," said a friend, "it can only get better."
Losing builds character, but I think we've built enough character this week.
The Boy -- 10 years old today. A decade of the Boy. Double digits.
In the morning, we had his breakfast of choice: bacon, eggs, and cinnamon rolls. Healthy choices. In the evening, dinner too was his choice: crab legs and shrimp.
After cheese cake and ice cream, he and I went to the local guitar store to spend all his present money in one shot:
A third guitar -- a bass.
The Girl and I spent the afternoon at a tournament only half an hour away -- quite a change.
She'd probably rather not talk about that, though. Let's just say it didn't go as well as the team was hoping.
Happy Mess Day
Second Time Around
Third Party
Celebration Day
Birthday
Fifth Birthday Party
Sports and Ice Cream
Seventh Birthday
Day 60: Eighth Birthday
Nine
The Boy and I went on a one-of-a-kind Scouting adventure this weekend: we spent the evening rambling around an enormous cave system, then spent the night in said cave.
We all met in the parking lot around six, gear in hand, all excited, with the adults (well, speaking for myself anyway) a little anxious about how all the details might work out.
Our first stop -- our camp location. It was an enormous room, with a relatively high ceiling and a length probably five times or more its width.
After we dropped off our belongings, it was time to explore. We had what's called a wild tour, which mean we got to go to places most tourists don't see and crawl through passages and openings that left us covered in clay and dirt.
Finally, it was bedtime. It was then that the fun began: the echoing snores; the footfalls that reverberated throughout the cave as people plodded to the bathroom; and a whole host of mysterious noises.
We made it out at a little past seven in the morning -- as instructed -- and after breakfast, headed home.
The Girl was in Knoxville, playing volleyball.
