February Highlights:
- Luke inches past Lilah in height (he’s about 1/4 of an inch taller, but Lilah reminds him she can still beat him up pretty easily)
- Lilah is among one of a select few to receive the first set of student of the month awards handed out by her new school
- Luke hits the jumps on his new snowboard at Mountain High
- Lilah wins her event (50 yard breaststroke) at the first swim meet of the season
- Have fun testing out a new camera on Spike
Lilah Winning Meets and Awards
It’s back to swim season again for Lilah and she made the best of it by winning her individual event, the 50-yard breast stroke in a time of 38.65. Nobody else was even close, but the thing she was the happiest about was that her time is nearly 4 seconds faster than the time she started the season with last year. This means that if she continues to work hard she’ll be much faster by the end of the season. It was nice to see her so happy and glowing after the event. She didn’t even mind me taking pictures of her for once. Normally, her smile would have disappeared the moment she saw me pointing the camera at her but this time she had no control over her sunshiny disposition, leaving me free to capture her happy moment.
This month Lilah’s new school also began their student of the month program, handing out awards to a select group of students which included Lilah. As we talked about it in the car I jokingly told Lilah that she was a “first ballot student of the month award winner.” I knew she didn’t really know what that meant so I proceeded to explain to her what I was referring to by relating it to sports and how each year athletes are selected to be honored into the “Hall of Fame” for their respective sports. I told her that some athletes are admitted into the Hall of Fame after their first nomination, while it takes others several nominations before they are allowed in (and some never make it in at all). Then I made the connection to how she had won her Student of the Month honor on her first nomination. Lilah’s response, “you talk a lot.” That just made me laugh. You just never know which Lilah you’re going to get — the smiley Lilah after a swim meet, or the bored and annoyed Lilah who calls you out on your not so interesting stories.
Luke Continues His Own Streak of Straight A Work & Gets a New Snowboard
For weeks, Luke had been trying to set realistic expectations to me regarding his grades. He said that he was pretty sure he was going to get all As except for his math class, a refrain he was pretty consistent with until we received his report card and saw that he was wrong about his math grade (instead of a B it was an A). He was happy with the results and, truth be told, we would have been fine with him receiving a B in math. In fact, neither Cathy or I told Luke he had to get an A in math. All we said is that we wanted him to apply himself and work hard and, if he did that and still got the B, we were fine with the results.
It just so coincided that Luke’s snowboard from last season was becoming way too small for him. Cat and I were thinking that a new board for his birthday would be a great gift for Luke considering his commitment to academics and boarding. While we contemplated this purchase, Luke was doing his own research on new snowboards. After checking out different sites and YouTube reviews he figured out the best board for him to get would be the LibTech Burtner Box Scratcher. I told him that when the boards went on sale we would think about getting it for him as a reward for his efforts at school and just being an overall good kit. Well, one day, while I was at work, I received the following text from Luke:
Luke: DADA (I love the fact that Luke is almost 13 years old and still calls me dada – so does Lilah by the way)
Me: yo, what’s up luke
Luke: the box scratcher is on sale for $367! And it qualifies for free shipping!
Me: oh oh. r we gonna have to get it for your early birthday present?
Luke: Idk
Me: where did u find the deal?
Me: what is ldk?
Luke: Evo.com
Luke: “I don’t know” how do you not know that (luke calling me out on Idk reference which I read as “L” d k)
Me: cause i’m old 😉
Me: u lucked out — they have it in your size
Luke: Ik
Me: guess what – i just ordered it 😉
Luke: YEAHHHHHHHHHHH
Me: cause you’re a good kit, you work hard at school, and sometimes help me walk spike 😉
Luke: Thank you
So Luke has his new snowboard now and he at least managed to take it out once with his Mountain High team before Mountain High closed temporarily due to lack of snow. March, however, is setting up to be a great snow month and will provide Luke with a great opportunity to really test his new board. He already said the bigger board is making it easier for him to land his jumps and he’ll get to do a whole lot more when we return to Mammoth in March. Can’t wait.
That’s all for now. More next month…