February Highlights:
- Lilah competes in her first varsity swim meet and wins 100 yard breaststroke
- Luke and I take a trip to Mammoth where more than 500 inches of snow have already fallen this season
- We take a quick trip to Mountain High so that Luke can hang out with his 8th grade buddies one last time
- Tio Mario comes to town for a visit
Lilah Has a Successful Start to the Swim Season
After two years of swimming contently on the junior varsity team, Lilah transitioned to the varsity squad this year, a move she was reluctant to make because she enjoys the winning that comes from her JV pursuits. As is usually the case with her, she must grumble about things before she finally accepts the situation and commits. So far, she does not seem to have any of the issues she thought she was going to have swimming with the varsity squad, such as having to swim too much, making it to morning practices during the week (she gets to skip those because of her school schedule), and not being competitive enough to win.
There is a girl on her team who is a real super star at her favorite event — the breaststroke — so she let me know that she wouldn’t really be winning much this year. Luckily, that girl did not swim in Lilah’s event at their first swim meet of the year so Lilah was able to steal a first place victory away from her the next closest competitor on the team. Needless to say, she was happy with the results. What she wasn’t so happy about was being given a third event to compete in for her second meet of the year — the 200-yard IM, which is a brutal event requiring a lot of stamina as you have to swim eight lengths of the pool, completing two lengths of the pool per stroke. It also doesn’t help that the stroke you start with is the one that takes the most out of you — the butterfly. She ended up fourth for this event, but said she was exhausted afterwards. That led to her swimming one second slower in her breaststroke where she was out touched for 2nd place by 6/10 of a second. I reminded her that it was only the second swim meet of the year and that I thought it was cool she swam in one of the hardest events in high school swimming, regardless of where she placed. I don’t think my words made her any happier, but I had to say them nonetheless, because I’m proud of her.
More Mountain Trips
Luke and I took trips to Mountain High, Big Bear (to board with team), and Mammoth this month. Mammoth was incredible as February ended up being another heavy snowfall month. We went up chair 22 for the first time and went down a pretty steep double black diamond run full of powder — we had a blast doing it. We also hung out a bit with my friend Greg and his family who also happened to be up there on the same weekend. Couldn’t ski much with Greg as he was in the process of re-teaching his boys, Jake and Shane, how to traverse the mountain. His daughter Kylie is more accomplished however, so we did go on one run together with her. That day was the longest we’ve ever stayed on the mountain and I sure felt it on the drive home as my eyes got heavy in the last hour of my drive back. Great trip though.
The other thing we did this month was go to Mountain High for the first time this season so that Luke could join his junior high classmates on their last night skiing trip of the year. After snowboarding on really great snow in Mammoth and good snow in Big Bear, boarding at Mountain High was a bit of a let down as conditions were really icy. I ended my session after two or three runs because I wasn’t about to get hurt in those conditions. Luke, also said the conditions were horrible, but, unlike his dad, he had no trouble bombing the mountain and having fun with his friends. Later that evening, one of the parent chaperones told me how she had to stop snowboarding after landing hard on her tailbone. I felt bad for her, but her experience also reassured me that I had made the right call in ending my session early.
The next day, we went to Big Bear and met up with Luke’s team. He felt even more confident than usual as I picked up some body armor to shield him from some of the pain that comes with trying new tricks and not succeeding. The one thing that really impresses me about Luke is his board control. He went up and down a box that was no wider than his snowboard and made it look so easy.
Pictures of the kids are getting harder and harder to come by as they become more independent. I still try to sneak them in where I can, but the scarcity of the photos started me thinking about what is going to happen when these guys leave the house. Will that be the end of the blog? Probably not, but maybe the frequency will diminish. Who knows. As a parent, it is bittersweet to see your kids grow up. I like seeing them grow and progress through their different stages, but at the same time I want to slow time down just a little bit so that I can selfishly keep them with me just a little bit longer. Ah, such is life.
Anyway, that’s all for now. More next month!