Thankful Thursday

This week...

1. Neighborhood organized classes. Last week, Nathan and I attended a small class on AED assisted and hands free CPR. It was organized by our neighborhood and within walking distance (though we ended up driving given schedule issues). Nice reminder/refresher and we learned some new things, too!

2. Being ahead on holiday lists. I'm pretty organized. I know that. :) I'm a planner and tend to start on holiday to do lists early in the year. Yet, most years I somehow forget how much time each little thing takes and end up scrambling in December. So, given that I have more time than usual this year, I'm delighted that I know I'm ahead of schedule right now. I've finished or prepped most all of our gifts, know which cards I'll be ordering, and have a plan for when to mail what. I know that December will get busy...but I'm thankful at the moment that it feels more manageable than normal. :) 

3. A full week off. I know I'm spoiled..my boys have always had a full week off for Thanksgiving. Sometimes, when homeschooling, heck...we took two weeks off, lol. Since starting at CEC, we've had to work with school schedules. So I'm very thankful that CEC has always had the full week of Thanksgiving off. Since CSU also takes the full week, it works out to a nice break all together. Yay!

4. Microwave popcorn. We've been eating a lot of popcorn lately. It's a decent gluten and sugar free snack. :)

5. Weather forecasts. Even though they're often wrong, lol, I appreciate weather forecasts. At least with them, yesterday's snow didn't take me by complete surprise...especially considering that the day before I was wearing sandals. ;) Thanks, Colorado, for keeping it interesting, lol.

Climbing competition

On Saturday, Nathan & I took Micah to his first climbing competition! It was down in Colorado Springs and it went really well...

So...for grandparents and those who are curious, here's how it works (as I currently understand it, lol). There are two seasons. The fall is for bouldering (no ropes) and the spring is for sport climbing (ropes). During the season, there are 5-7 local competitions. Climbers go to those to try to qualify for regionals. I don't know yet about how sport climbing season works; but, for bouldering season, climbers must finish in the top 16 at one of the local competitions to qualify. 

I'm not sure if all local competitions run the same way, though I'm guessing they're close. Climbers were given three hours to try to climb whatever routes they chose. Routes were numbered from 1 to 40 in order of difficulty and points were assigned respectively. Judges manned each route and had to sign to log attempts and verify completion of routes. The climber's top five completed routes were added up for his/her total score. There was no penalty for number of attempts. It was pretty chill and, at the end, climbers just had to turn in their scorecards and were able to leave...no waiting around like the end of JOAD (archery) tournaments...as results were almost immediately posted online.

So. Given that Micah only joined Team Ascent last Tuesday, there was only this one local competition left before regionals. He had two practices with the team and then went to the competition on Saturday. (Normally, there would be other team members also competing and a team coach present, but given the distance and the end of the season, no others from Team Ascent were there.) The goal was simply to gain experience with competing, recognizing that we were coming to the season late. Micah managed to have a good time...enjoyed climbing somewhere different, attempted multiple routes, and learned more about how competitions work. And...he placed tenth (woohoo!) so has qualified for regionals next month. Very proud of his hard work and attitude!

Thankful Thursday

It's been a full week...plenty to be thankful for...

1. Reel Rock 14. Last Thursday night, Micah and I joined a bunch of other climber types at The Lyric for Reel Rock 14. It was a first for us, but apparently it's an annual thing and was pretty dang awesome. There were a couple of short documentaries/films, a preview for another and then the feature show. Before the feature, there was an intermission with fun giveaways by sponsors and the local climbing gym. (We didn't win anything but they were great prizes and people all around us won stuff.) The shows were all fabulous and we had such a good time! (Also, it was cool that we actually recognized a number of people from Ascent, where we climb. It was also helpful that we'd already seen the movies "Free Solo" and "Dawn Wall" so were familiar with the climbers featured.)

2. Micah's advising appointment. Last Friday, Micah had his advising appointment for spring semester. He's all signed up for classes, his schedule mostly works with Asher's, and it's lovely to have all three boys' schedules set. :) 

3. Campus visit. On Saturday, we drove up to Laramie for Asher's first college visit. The University of Wyoming's Saturday Showcase was well organized and informative. We did the tours with the College of Engineering and had a good time learning about the different program offerings and seeing the new facilities they have. We also got to tour dorm rooms and eat in the dining hall. :) The weather was gorgeous, too...just an all around great day!

(Notice how I'm not all freaking out about starting looking at colleges again? ;) Really, this is just the start for Asher and I'm truly looking forward to seeing where his process takes us.)

4. Date night. After we got home from Wyoming, Nathan and I went to Candlelight Theater for date night. We watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame (fabulous music, singing and sets!). Previously, we had season tickets to The Midtown Arts Center in Fort Collins for our dinner and a show date nights and really enjoyed that. Midtown closed at the end of last season, though, so we switched over to Candlelight Theater season tickets. One of the things we miss about Midtown (aside from the much shorter drive, lol) is the two person tables. We'd always book our tickets for a two person table down front. At Candlelight, though, the tables down front are four person tables. This show was the first time we ended up at a table with strangers, and it was surprisingly nice. We met two lovely ladies and had a great conversation. One of them even introduced me to a cocktail called the Colorado Bulldog that was quite yummy. :) Thankful for pre-scheduled date nights like this!

5. Team Ascent. So. Micah's been doing the Arborists program/classes at Ascent since the start of this school year. It was two nights a week and was with an instructor he knew, who would give Micah additional challenges to work on. Before signing up, we'd discussed trying out for Team Ascent instead (the climbing gym's competitive climbing team)...and Micah had even been approached and encouraged to try out by the coach during the summer...but ultimately decided to do Arborists since we weren't sure about the time commitment on top of also experiencing public school and high school for the first time. 

So, Arborists was going fine (and he had a couple friends sign up, too). But that instructor took a new job last month and Micah was getting a little antsy. He was looking for more of a challenge...wanted to climb with people better than him instead of being one of the top climbers in the class. And, turns out that he's handling the workload of high school just fine. :) 

Given all that, then, Micah decided to ask permission to tryout for Team Ascent, knowing that they generally only do tryouts at the start of terms. After making his case, the coach agreed to conduct a tryout...not wanting to discourage climbing progression and enthusiasm. We went in on Monday and he spent about 90 minutes going through climbing and fitness tests. He did great and was offered a spot on the development team, which was what he was hoping for. He started climbing with them Tuesday and is so excited. 

Being part of Team Ascent means that he now practices three times a week with the team...so seven hours now instead of the four hours a week he was doing with Arborists. (And he still goes in on his own to climb, too.) He's also now signed up to compete in a local competition down in Colorado Springs this weekend. We're still sorting out what this all means but are happy that he's happy. :)  

6. Submitting insurance claim paperwork. Just a little note that yesterday I was finally able to finish submitting stuff for that homeowners claim from the July hail storm. Whew. (Course, now we're in a waiting game for the auto insurance regarding the boys being rear-ended last week...)

Okey-dokey. Hope your week is going well!

Thankful Thursday

Time for another round of gratitudes...

1. The Internet. Yup. I'm thankful for the Internet. I so appreciate being able to look things up when I think of them...being able to communicate with people and businesses near and far from the comfort of my own home...being able to schedule and order things without having to speak to a human, lol. Yup, the Internet is an introvert's friend. :) 

2. Sports & music. Recently, on Facebook, I was "nominated" to post an image of a moment from my kid's life...specifically, as the mom of an athlete/dancer/musician...for ten consecutive days. I mixed it up between all three boys and shared pictures as directed. It was a nice reminder of how thankful I am for the sports and instruments that have been and are part of my boys' lives...for karate, parkour, rock climbing, archery, swim team, gymnastics and soccer...and for piano, guitar, recorder, drums/percussion, chimes, bells, clarinet and violin. Some of those lasted longer than others, but all of them have shaped at least one boy in a positive way. Yay!

3. The library. We've had years where reading has been more prominent in our lives than it is now. Regardless of our lull in reading right now, I'm still so thankful for our local library and the ability to find and borrow books so easily. I'm sure it's saved us tons of money over the years and has encouraged learning about things we might otherwise not have looked into. 

4. Reg. Yes, Reg made my list last week for his winter drivability and safety. This week, he's made my list for being large and sturdy. Last night, you see, Asher and Micah were rear-ended on their way to karate. Fortunately, no one was injured. And Reg only has some bumper damage that should (hopefully) be straightforward to repair. The other driver was lost and it was dark and rainy...the boys were stopped waiting to turn left when he ran into them. His vehicle had to be towed.

Because we have three vehicles thanks to Reg, I was able to get into the van and get to boys within minutes of them calling me. From there, I handled contacting the police and all that (they'd already gotten the vehicles out of traffic and were all waiting inside Karate West where it was warm), and the boys were even able to participate in most of the class they'd been on their way to before the officer arrived and we pulled Asher to fill out the report. Note, I did have Asher help in all the steps of handling things so he could learn what to do and am sure he could have handled things without me if need be, but it helped my mom heart to be able to see them in person to make sure they were okay.

So. Insurance companies have been contacted and now we're just waiting on the other driver's insurance to finish finalizing some paperwork (the other driver had only just purchased the car he was driving...was actually on his way home from doing so...so the insurance company needs the bill of sale to verify before adding the vehicle to his policy). Will hopefully get repairs taken care of before Thanksgiving, though Reg is totally drivable as is. So glad everyone's okay and that I was able to get to my boys so quickly!

5. This blog. I can't even tell you how many times I've consulted a post here to confirm something or figure out when something happened. It's lovely having a record! That's part of why I started scrapbooking way back in 2000. I haven't scrapbooked in years, though, so appreciate having this blog as my digital scrapbook of sorts (though I do acknowledge that I really need to update portions of it, lol). 

Also, happy November to you all!

Nineteen

So. Noah turned 19 yesterday. We picked him up in the morning and spent the day together...opening gifts, playing games, eating here, playing more games, going out to dinner, filling out our ballots (I'll drop them all off today or tomorrow) and playing more games. Yup, just a nice quiet day together. :) I did also make him take some pictures. He was delighted, lol. But, hey, if you're here and I'm feeding you...you cooperate for pictures. :) 

Here, then, are the brother height comparisons over the years...

And this year...

We didn't do our traditional height pictures with Nathan and me...because, in all likelihood, Nathan, myself and Noah aren't growing any more, lol. I did still take some pictures together, though...

And I got a "birthday" photo of the boy...

He's all registered for spring classes already, is enjoying at least half of his current classes, likes his roommate, is still doing his laundry and is just generally doing well at being a college student. :) Yay!