January Highlights:
- Cathy completes her first 1/2 marathon
- Cathy teaching her spin class
- We visit grandma
- We take a hike to the cross in Ventura and witness some spectacular views
- Luke takes some more snowboarding lessons
Cathy Accomplishes Another Big Goal
Cathy continues to amaze me. In what seems like another life, I remember Cathy telling me in one form or another that she was not a runner (I don’t like running…Running is boring…and I have bad knees, were some of the common refrains). Fast forward to this new life and you will see that she is now a half-marathon finisher who is already eyeing her next race. I believe her next 1/2 will be in Las Vegas. That is where she’ll try to break her 2 hour and 5 minute finishing time which she swears is not correct because the course she ran for her first 1/2 marathon was incorrectly marked and she ran almost 2 tenths of a mile longer than she should have. Not that she cares about her time or anything — wink-wink — but if that’s the case her time should have been closer to 2 hr and 3 minutes).
In addition to running, Cathy continues to teach her indoor cycle, Body Pump, TRX, and core strengthening classes. She is constantly getting better and stronger at what she does. One of my favorite parts about hugging her these days is squeezing all the different muscles she has on her back, arms and shoulders. I call her “my muscley one.” It’s a very cool experience to see someone you’ve known for so long transform themselves into somebody new. A conversation with Cathy’s cousin, Suzy, a couple of months ago comes to mind: she basically said she couldn’t picture her quiet and reserved cousin Cathy being up in front of a class and barking out orders — well Suzy, here’s the proof.
I look forward to seeing Cathy complete more challenges in the new year and taking more of her classes myself so that I can have a core that is at least half as strong as hers.
Kids Ski and Snowboard Some More
January and February has me performing a new routine every Friday evening. It goes something like this: dad watches some TV in the evening, falls asleep, then is awoken by the unpleasant sound of his alarm at 11:30 PM so that he can get up and drive 7 miles to pick up his daughter from the ski club. I’m really glad that Lilah is learning how to ski and having fun doing it, but waking myself up from a sound slumber on Friday nights has not been easy. The kids leave to Mountain High every Friday at about 2:00 PM (on some nice chartered buses), and return to the school any time between 12:00 and 12:15 AM. Parents are welcome to come on these trips, but seating on the bus is limited and must be reserved well in advance. So far, I have not gone on any of the trips. I tell myself that the reason I have not gone is because I just want Lilah to have her own experience, but I think not having much fun the first time I went in December plays a big role in my decision not to go. Not to mention the fact that it’s really cold in the mountains at night, and I’m still recovering from a fall I experienced during one of my training runs.
I did however take Luke back to the mountains (in the daytime) so that he could take another snowboard lesson. I invited Lilah and even tempted her with the offer of staying in a hotel room the night before, but she still refused because she had her fair share of playing in the snow the night before with her ski club. I tried coaxing her a little more by telling her that if she didn’t go I wouldn’t get any cool pictures of her skiing, but that didn’t work either. She just wanted to use her weekend to chill out.
So Luke and I went on our own trip where he got to do all his favorite hotel things before snowboarding the next day. Among those things were a dip in the pool and hot tub, jumping from bed to bed, and leg swiping which consists of him jumping up and down on the bed and me swinging a pillow hard at his legs while he is up in the air, knocking him down on the bed in a fit of laughter.
Our snowboarding excursion went well this time because we rented Luke’s board and boots the night before instead of waiting in long rental lines at the ski resort. We thought that he would get to go on the ski lift this time as part of his snowboard class, but apparently he had too many beginners in his session so that wasn’t possible. He still enjoyed his time there because he did a lot of snowboarding and he also helped the instructor by showing the other kids what to do. His instructor said Luke is ready to go on the lift next time. The next time, I will take both kids to the mountains but I need to wait for Lilah to be finished with ski club before she agrees to joining us.
A Small Hike on a Warm Winter Evening
It had been years since I visited the Cross overlooking Ventura, but on a warm winter evening just before dusk, we all took a trip up the coast and up to the cross so that the kids could get a birds-eye view of their surroundings. Actually, Luke and I took a slight detour to visit the beach with Spikey, while we waited for our girls — who were performing some clean up volunteering work at a local park — to join us later. We enjoyed watching the surfers cut across some nice-sized waves, and also observing a group of guys trying to walk across a slack line that was tied between two palm trees. And Luke also had fun walking Spike and seeing him roll around in what Spike perceived to be a new and exciting surface for the endeavor: wet sand.
At the cross, we met the girls, went on a short hike and witnessed a pretty spectacular sunset. The kids got a new perspective of the world they inhabit as we pointed out the Channel Islands, the bay next to the Ventura pier, and the mountains in Camarillo. It was one of those nice balmy evenings where everyone was happy and we all wished could last just a tiny bit longer.
A Visit to Grandma’s House
There are two things that have become a custom when visiting Cathy’s mom: 1) grandma (who I call Mrs. T) takes out old pictures of herself or other family members and shares them with the kids — this time was no exception as she took out what seemed to be most of Cathy’s grade school portraits 2) we order Persian food (kabobs, saffron rice, tadiq, shirazi salad, stew, etc.) and stuff ourselves while catching up at the dinner table. Usually, Mrs. T isn’t really up for me taking her picture, but this time I convinced her to let us take a few photos (including this one one with the kids and Spikey) which we can print later and send to her in a frame.
These days, Mrs. T isn’t always appropriate with her dinner conversations (such as talk about how kids “his age” are now having sex, referring to Luke who is only 9), but for the most part this visit went pretty well as I noticed she smiled and laughed quite a bit. It doesn’t always go that way, but the kids are great to her and have more patience with her than I ever could have imagined.
More next month…