Dave and Cathy's Family Blog

June Highlights:

• I compete in two triathlons (Bonelli Park and Breath of Life) and earn my first age group award ever
• Celebrate Father’s day
• We reward kids for another successful school year at Yama’s restaurant
• My friend Ruben (from Denmark) and his family visit us during their California vacation
• My daughter finds a kindred spirit in Ana, Ruben’s daughter
• Lilah celebrates becoming a teenager with a trip to Magic Mountain with four of her friends

More Triathlon Success

Last month I wrote about how good it felt to be competing in triathlons again after having my season cut short last year. This month I competed in two more events. The first race was in Bonelli Park where I had a chance to cover the same terrain I ran last month. I finished the event about a minute faster than my May race which served to reinforce that my training is progressing at a nice pace. This set me up nicely for my Breath of Life race where I shattered my PR by nearly 2:30 minutes. My faster time also led to a solid third place finish in my division and my first ever age group award in a triathlon.

It was a wonderful experience because it was the culmination of a goal that I had been pursuing for more than 7 years. The fact that it happened at my hometown race, with my triathlon team, and family and friends to support me made it all the more special. My friend Ruben, who happened to be in town vacationing with his family (all the way out from Denmark), also raced with me, as well as Johan, an old buddy of mine from Intel who came out all the way from Folsom to participate in this event on his birthday — thanks for making it a special day guys!

I have several more races planned for the season, but as far as I’m concerned, the season is already a success.

My Daughter Becomes a Teenager

My daughter turned 13 at the end of the June. Her big gift this year was getting to choose four friends to accompany her to Magic Mountain. She chose Vicki, Sabrina, Janae and Tory. Cathy had got the “honor” of driving the girls to the amusement park and hanging out with them all day. Luke and I sat this one out because Luke had already been to Magic Mountain and decided that at this point in his life he “was not a roller coaster” person. That saved me some money, but cost me an opportunity to listen in on teenage girl conversations (always fun) and embarrass Lilah along the way (even more fun) ;-).

Luckily, Cat provided me with the play-by-play throughout the day. After some of Cat’s initial reports I was really happy not to have been there as the temperatures were in the high 90s leading to some lethargic looking kids in the afternoon, especially Janae who ended up getting sick. Based on the early feedback, it looked like they would all be back before sunset. But at around 5:00 PM, something remarkable happened — it got cooler! Not dramatically cooler, but cool enough re-energize the girls and keep them at the park until closing time.

This was the first time any of them had ever been on roller coasters. Cat said they went on Colossus, the Revolution, and Batman, as well as some smaller rides. I noted that they really didn’t go on that many big rides, but it turns out that was because the girls went on the rides multiple times. Lilah said that Batman didn’t have a line at all so that when the ride ended the ride staff asked the cape-draped girls if they wanted to just stay in their seats and go on the ride again. All of them cheered, yes! The last 40 minutes of their stay consisted of riding the bumper cars over and over again. So instead of getting home by 7:30 PM or so, Cat and the girls didn’t roll back into town until roughly 10:30 PM. I think they definitely got their money’s worth.

In addition to Magic Mountain, we celebrated Lilah’s birthday at her favorite restaurant – The Soup Plantation – with grandmy, grandpy and Tia Michelle. So far teenagerhood hasn’t really changed Lilah too much. She does seem to be more conscious of how her hair looks these days. Specifically, she hates how her hair gets “poofy” and loves using her new hair straightener to flatten out her wavy locks. But generally speaking she’s a good kid who still talks to me and allows me to hold her hand in public (on occasion) and I’m fine with that.

We Reward Kids for Another Successful School Year

Luke has never been all that excited about school. Neither has Lilah for that matter. The difference, however, is that Lilah really does well in school as demonstrated by another year of achieving straight As (and some A+) in her classes. Luke has been wanting us to get him an X-box for more than a year now so I used that as a carrot this year in incentivizing him to achieve at least all As and Bs on his report card, something I really pushed on him after he received his first C last trimester. On the last day of school, I picked up the kids from the bus stop. For the first time ever Luke got my attention and handed me his report card. I had never seen him so excited to show me this piece of paper before. I quickly surmised why he was so eager to show me his grades. They were all As and Bs. I looked back at him and he beamed back a big smile. I told him that it looked like we were going to have to start shopping around for an X-box.

I’m not particularly fond of video games but I understand their appeal, especially among young boys. It’s a big part of how they communicate with each other. “Dude, did you get past level such and such,” or “Dude, did you get the new Call of Duty Special Ops.” etc.. As long as the game playing remains balanced and doesn’t become the only things my kids do, I am okay with them having their video fun. I also try to play the games with them. I’m not particularly good at any of their games, but my point in playing them is not to win, it’s to just share the experience with them and have fun bonding in the process.

Not too mention the fact I now have another device I can use as leverage when I want to make sure Luke is putting forth the right effort at school ;-).

In addition to the X-box purchase, we also took the kids to Yama’s Teppan style Japanese restaurant to honor their achievements. This is a tradition we started a few years ago. I had briefly forgotten about this arrangement, but Lilah quickly reminded me by asking when we were going to have our celebration dinner. When the kids ask or remind you about something, that’s when you know you’ve started a tradition that’s likely to stick. It’s a nice feeling.

More next month…