Thankful Thursday

Apparently I haven't done a Thankful Thursday post yet in 2024. Plenty to be thankful for...so here goes:

1. College taekwondo club scrimmages. Last Saturday, CU Boulder's taekwondo club had both UNC and DU's taekwondo clubs on campus for some extra practice. Asher drove himself and two other members from UNC down to Boulder...where they met up with Micah who fed them and got them to the meet up. It sounds like they had a full afternoon of practicing for Nationals in April...

I'm thankful that these taekwondo clubs provide my guys with community and opportunities like this and that sometimes they can be together. 

2. Flights of hard cider. While Micah and Asher were doing that, Nathan and I went out to lunch in Old Town. We hadn't been to Scrumpy's for awhile so decided to go there...excellent. :) Thankful that they have flights of hard cider...as I'm indecisive and choosing eight was considerably easier than choosing just one, lol.

3. Complete taxes. Thankful, too, that I got all our tax stuff to our tax guy and we managed to file them early last week. Feels fantastic to have that done! (We actually even received our federal refund today!) Will help boys each file theirs this weekend...

4. Complete FAFSAs. Yesterday, I also managed to complete both Asher and Micah's FAFSAs for the 2024-2025 academic year. In normal years, I'd have completed that back in October when they open the process. As those with college age kids right now know, though, this year has been different. The process didn't open until January and has been struggling in its rollout. Given that I've completed 15 FAFSAs before the two I did just now, I felt pretty okay with biding my time and letting the system work out some of its bugs, and I managed to breeze through the process in less than an hour altogether. Whew. Glad to have that done.

(We know that we won't qualify for any financial aid but felt it important to still go through the process to maintain eligibility for student loans and certain scholarships.) 

5. Trip planning. I'm realizing that a fair bit of my time this year has been spent on trip planning. It's not something that gets talked about much in advance but I just wanted to put it out there that this is something that's been occupying my time. We have a number of trips coming up this year that we're looking forward to. I so appreciate that we're in a place to do this and that I have the time to plan things out to make for hopefully smoother trips. 

6. Facebook memories. I don't usually share them, but I always appreciate my Facebook memories. Lately, it's been showing me memories from two years ago when Nathan and I went to Greece. Exactly two years ago today, we had a long travel day from Athens to Santorini. I had a lost bag during our flight and we didn't get it back all that day. We had to find/learn our rental car and find our AirBNB. Plus, we were trying to beat the weather so tried to cram things into a short time before the rain. It was kind of a stressful day. 

But. What I remember most about that day was how thankful I was...thankful that we were in Greece in the first place. Thankful that we had Apple Airtags in each of our bags so we knew exactly where my missing bag was. (It had fallen off the conveyer belt beneath the airport in Santorini but they lacked the personnel to retrieve it.) Thankful that our AirBNB host was simply spectacular in making us feel welcome, giving us suggestions and taking over communications with the airport about my bag...keeping us informed and eventually actually getting the bag from the airport and delivering it to our AirBNB for us. So grateful. Thankful that we managed part of a planned hike in beautiful weather before the skies opened. Thankful that despite the pouring rain we found a fabulous restaurant for dinner that we loved so much we returned again later. Just thankful.

7. Return to exercise. I had a lovely walk on Tuesday...nothing exciting, just walking in our neighborhood. It was great because it was nice enough to walk outside without a coat and because I was actually able to go for a walk without hacking up a lung. I've been sick much of 2024 so far and it's been super annoying and uncharacteristic. Between being sick and being in Arizona, this past Monday was the first time I'd been to boot camp all month. I also returned to climbing on Monday...the first time in three weeks. So thankful to finally be healthy again! Hooray!!

So. Lots to be thankful for here...very appreciative. :)