Thanksgiving and Age Group Champs Swim meet

It is hard to believe it has almost been a month since my last post. Our days and weeks have been full and long. On November 23rd we had our Friendsgiving. Phoenix's teammate Stella needed a ride home from swim practice, so we brought her to our house for an afternoon filled with Chinese Jump rope, drawing and fun. She ended up staying for dinner at our Friendsgiving since her mom got caught up at a swim meet with Stella's older brother in Moraga, CA.  

Mark, Brenna and their two children Ryan (3) and Hazel (7) came over along with Tyler and his girls, Jade and Zoe (10).

We enjoyed a lovely dinner and time together after not seeing Mark and his family since last year for our Friendsgiving. 

Another photo including Mr. Szolusha, so only Tyler and I are missing from these two photos.

The kids played well together and it has become a tradition to play Telestrations before calling it an evening. Axel, unfortunately, had some major school deadlines and worked hard to turn in an essay that was due by midnight, although, he did enjoy some time at dinner visiting with our guests.

It was really nice spending time with Tyler, Mark and Brenna. We are getting use to the smaller Friendsgiving gatherings since the pandemic and are grateful for any time we can spend with friends and family, considering how busy everyone is at this point in their lives.

On Sunday, Phoenix went to her friend Helen's house for her 12th bday party. After dropping off Phoenix, Axel and I started bringing down the Christmas tree and decorations. Axel was so cute to take photos of me and our boxes.  I know it was a few days before Thanksgiving, but with our trip to Hawaii for Christmas, I felt the need to decorate early in order to enjoy the Christmas spirit for a solid 4 weeks before we have to take it down after New Years. Besides, we were busy in the coming weeks with swim meets and other activities, I didn't want to miss out on decorating. I was especially motivated since Axel asked me, "Are we not going to celebrate Christmas at all, since we will be gone?"

I asked him what he was doing and he said, "taking pictures for the blog, of course." Axel has helped me every year since he was 2 years old and it makes me smile from year to year to spend the time putting the tree up with him. 

Our tree bags...

Axel patiently opening up the tree, branch by branch, just like his momma taught him. :)

How special it is to have Axel help me like he does. 

It is such a sign of his love for me to spend the time doing this with me. I will always cherish these moments considering I may not have him around to help me after 2026! Once we had the tree up, I took off for a bike ride and Axel started on his home work!

After picking Phoenix up from Helen's we started decorating the Christmas tree together! I was excited that all three of "my boys" were ready to help decorate since often, Axel and I do the lights and the rest of the family only helps with the ornaments. 

Axel was patient to show both Daddy and Rubix how to get the lights ready to place on the tree. 

We worked for an hour to get the lights and all of the ornaments up. 

Oh, I forgot to mention Phoenix somewhat refused to help, but I kept making her put up her own Christmas ornaments. 

I also forgot to mention that Daddy was so kind to put up the Christmas lights outside before he took Rubix to swim practice!

Axel photo fun!

I love my family so much and am so grateful for our time together!

Oh Phoenix.....your unicorn! 

I don't want to!!!!

And yes, a glitch in the lights was a mommy glitch, and I wasn't paying close enough attention of what I was doing, so when a strand of lights wasn't working, Axel and Daddy solved the problem! Axel had to take a photo!

The kids were done after just an hour of decorating and ended up reading on the couch while I vacuumed and cleaned up the tree needles.  

The following week was Thankgiving break. The week before I had decided Axel likely had a tibial stress fracture and not posterior tibialis tendinopathy, so I pursued contacting his doctor and getting an xray. The xray was insufficient so I pulled some strings to have one of my doctor friends order an MRI. Our pediatrician was on board when she read my email when she returned from the weekend, so Thanksgiving break turned out to be more restful than Axel wanted, since the MRI confirmed Axel had a moderate to high grade tibial stress fracture in his right tibia. He had been limping for more than 3 weeks and I was glad to be able to totally have him shut down weight bearing exercise and finally fully recover. He was not on board to using crutches, but luckily he stopped having pain and limping within a week after getting diagnosed with the stress fracture. Looking back on his training, he had some "shin splinty pain" on Oct. 17th, right when he had homecoming , increased mileage and increased intensity. The pain got bad around Halloween and he mentioned his lower leg was swollen. It is a miracle he was able to run both champs and sectionals on it as well as he did. I have learned in 2024 that Axel has quite the pain threshold swimming through pneumonia and now running through a stress fracture. 

Tuesday of Thanksgiving break we had parent teacher conferences for all three kiddos. It is nice doing them via Zoom from the convenience of our own home. Axel had amazing feedback from his teachers as always and it was insightful to hear how his teachers are thinking about college letter of recommendations already. Phoenix has really connected with her science teacher, Ms. Kim, and it is nice to see her opening up to another adult, as she had a little more trouble communicating effectively to her other teachers during the conferences. Rubix, still being in grade school, is not invited to attend the conference, but both his language arts and math teacher speak very fondly of him and say he is a hard working student. His grades have been quite up and down, as have Phoenix's, so it has been an interesting year navigating school and all of the other extra curricular sports the two younger ones are doing. 

Now I am not sure if I have mentioned, but the girl, Liya, who asked him to homecoming, is officially his girlfriend. They decided to make cupcakes together over the break. Here he is with half a dozen cupcakes from his "baking date" on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. 

Chocolate Vegan with buttermilk Oreo frosting. 

On Thanksgiving we headed to Gma Susan's early to beat traffic and enjoyed a couple of hours together before heading over to Auntie Shannon's for the afternoon. Shannon hosted Ryan's side and our side, which always makes for an extra special day. I could not believe how much older and mature the three girls were since the last time we were all together roughly 5 years ago. Phoenix is the oldest with her bday in Jan. The Ainsley (Shannon, Ryan's sister's daughter) who is the end of April and then Braylin (in the middle) who is an August baby. It is fun that we have baby pictures of these three together and now they are all between 5'4" and 5'5" and weigh 100 + lbs! What almost 12 years will do! Shannon's oldest, Lance, is 19 and in the Navy. They were able to take a call to say hello to him. She is missing him, as any mom would miss not seeing their child.

While the three girls ate on the peninsula, the rest of us sat in the dinning room. 

I had to grab a picture of Aya squirting mustard and Rubix squirting ketchup on their turkey dinners. Too funny! 

The kids all got along well and it was really fun to see them all play cards together, even though their is an 8 year spread in age between Aya and Axel. 

Phoenix was asked to join the choir concert before Thanksgiving break, which took place on Thursday Dec. 5th. She said yes and enjoyed being apart of the Dynamics group, which is the 6th grade choir. 

She really enjoyed her performing arts class taught by Mrs. Pfeifer. She is quite the fun and eccentric teacher you would want teaching performing arts and choir. 

On Friday, the kids were picked up early from school for the three day Age Group Champs swim meet. Phoenix choose to swim both the 500 free and the 400 IM on Friday night and Rubix swam the 500 free and 200 IM. On Saturday, Phoenix swam the 200 back and the 1650 while Rubix swam the 50 back and 100 fly. Here Albert, Stephen and Rubix are cheering for Albert's older sister Alice who was in heat 1 and Phoenix who was in heat 2 for the 200 back stroke. 

Rubix was really tired and every morning it was a challenge waking him up. Here he is fast asleep without a care in the world. We stayed at the Hampton Inn across the street from the Morgan Hill Aquatic center to allow the kids more time to sleep at night and rest between prelims and finals. 

On Sunday Phoenix swam the 200 fly, 100 back and the 50 free while Rubix sway the 50 fly, 100 back and the 50 free. Phoenix, on a side note has been sick since Folsom. She had swimmer's ear and her cough and congestion never went away. We finally took her in to the doctor's after Thanksgiving and she had fluid in her lungs. She essentially had walking pneumonia and started antibiotics. She finished them on Thursday the 5th, just before the swim meet on the 6th. She was finally feeling better, but her swimming was definitely not her best because she has been under the weather for so long. I was really proud of how tough she was and how she gritted through all of her long events and was a trooper for most of her slower times. She was seeded 2nd or 3rd for mot of her events and finished with a 3rd place finish in the mile, 4th in the 200 back, 5th in the 200 fly and 500 IM, and 6th in the 500 free and 100 back. She actually was 8th overall for high points for the 11 year old girls, despite her slower times. I know she wanted to finish in the top 3 for most of her events, but this season was one for building character and not times. Here she is with Savanah, Stella, Helen and Olivia peaking out of the blue tent.

Rubix swam well and had some pretty good times. He dropped 4.65 seconds in the 500 free for a 6:14.22 coming in 8th overall and getting the 11 year old age group time. He also dropped in the 50 back getting a 34.24, getting 4th in prelims and 34.53 in finals which resulted in 7th overall. He had a small drop in the 100 fly of .09 seconds getting a 1:12.20 , which resulted in a 4th overall finish. He was frustrated with his 50 fly getting 8th overall and his 100 back he finished 5th in finals after being seeded 3rd from prelims. He was a couple of seconds off of his best time, but with that being his last race, he still did great being one of two, 8 year olds who were competitive in the 10 and under category. Rubix was also apart of the medley and free relays each night. Here is his free relay team. 

I started getting a precursor to a migraine Sunday night and was so glad to get home by 7:30pm and get to bed by 8:30pm. I ended up sleeping for 36 hours and missing work on Monday, but the migraine, nausea, light sensitivity, etc, was just too much. I managed through work Tuesday and was a bit better on Wed. I am finally feeling more myself and hope to have all my energy tomorrow. 

This weekend Axel has his cross country banquet and we have dinner with the Ingardias. We have some other events that we may or may not go to. I am hoping for time to organize Christmas and our Hawaii vacation. I hope to write a blog the first week in January if all goes well. Merry Christmas and Happy New year!

 

League Champs, Folsom Invitational, CCS, and Wolverines Soccer Party

With day light savings ending and the days much shorter, fall suddenly came upon us. The temperatures dropped drastically and the leaves have changed colors and cover the ground. The last couple of weeks have been full and this post has more pictures than any post before. As you know, Axel started getting posterior tibialis tendonitis after Halloween. He worked hard cross training, icing and taping to be able to run in his cross country league champs on November 8th. I was not able to attend because I picked up Rubix and Phoenix early from school and headed on a 4 hour adventure to Folsom in order to get them to warm up at 6pm for the Folsom Invitational Swim Meet that started the following day. 

The varsity boys getting ready for their race. 

The boys at the start. 

And they are off!

Keith had the privilege of attending this meet and going with Axel to celebrate the season at their annual pizza party post League champs. Here is Axel after the first mile starting up the steep hill. You can see his determination, despite not feeling himself. Apparently, he felt his breathing was off and his running did not feel dialed in, like it usually does. 

His teammate Aiden catches him and runs over a 45 second PR, finishing at a 17:09, right behind Axel!

Here he is at the finish sprinting in for a small PR of 17:07, 2 seconds better than his 17:09 he did at Crystal Springs earlier in the year. 

He was disappointed but knew he had CCS coming up the following week and a plan for redemption, hoping he would be able to train normally in between meets, and finally run his potential, which is well under a 17 minute race. 

After the race they had their senior award ceremony. A group of 4 runners were assigned to each of teh 10 seniors. 

They presented the seniors with a poster and gifts to send them off with tangible things to remember cross country by. 

Here Axel is presenting his poster to Harriss, his running partner for the past 2 years. 

He made such a great poster, including a couple of cute baby photos of Harriss.

He also presented the gifts to him. I love these pictures that a couple of the parents captured!

Happy cross country crew!

The 2024 Harker Cross Country Team!

1..2...3.....Go Eagles!

The following morning I headed to the Steve Miklos Aquatic Center and had the kids in the water for their warmups by 7 am, while Keith got up early to make the 2.5 hour drive to meet us. Yes, they also had "warm ups" the night before at 6pm, but this was the official team warm ups before the first day of prelims. I was able to set up our tent with Karolina and we had a nice warm area for about 10 swimmers and 8 adults. Another mom even brought portable heaters! This made the transition from very hot to very cold a bit more manageable to the kids. 

Gma Susan surprised us and showed up on Saturday to watch the kids. It was so nice to see her!

Rubix was happy! Phoenix was in a difficult place because she was adding quite a bit of time on her events. She has had one of those seasons where her times are about the same or a little slower in several of her events, although her 50, 100, 500, 1000 and 1650 free style events have all seen good drops. I think it is natural that we tend to focus on where we are not doing as well, rather than where things are improving.

Despite, Phoenix's adds, both kids did well enough to make finals in all of their events. Keith officiated the finals in order to get our volunteering hours in.  

Here coach Victory is giving the 9 and under crew a pep talk on making finals and getting ready to swim their hearts out!

Phoenix with Stella and Helen trying to stay warm!

Getting ready for the Star Spangled Banner!

For finals they had a ready tent and red carpet where the "A" final walked out of and each swimmer had their names called out. They played fun music and had a volunteer walk out with a sign that said the event name. i.e. 100 Fly

Rubix excited to drop for the second time that day in the 100 Fly and achieve a AAA time at 112.29! For every drop they get a duckie!

Phoenix getting ready for one of her finals!

On Saturday they had the Medley relay at the end of finals. Phoenix did the 50 free to finish off the relay! Can you imagine, she did a relay start to get a high 26 second 50 free to finish the team off strong and almost beat the A team and getting 5th overall out of 12 teams! Iris did back stroke, Stella did fly and Helen did breast stroke. 

Rubix was the starter as the back stroke leg for his team. Jeffrey did breast stroke, Anay did fly and Albert did free style. 

On Sunday Gma Susan came again, but this time with Gpa Brian in tow. Gpa was excited to see and film the kids. They were able to see Rubix's 50 back and Phoenix's 50 back and then 200 fly, just minutes later. 

Phoenix was such a trooper completing the 200 fly 7 minutes after racing the 50 back. 

The kiddos did well enough to make finals again in all of their events on Sunday too! Here is Rubix again in the ready tent. 

On Sunday night with had the privilege of seeing Auntie Shannon and Braylin and Aya! They were able to see Rubix and Phoenix do the 50 back, Phoenix do the 200 fly, and both kids do the 200 free. 

They needed to go because it was getting late and Rubix wasn't going to swim his 3rd event until 7:30 pm. 

I left with the kids right after Rubix's last event to get them to the hotel and to bed and then took off at 8:40pm to head home. Keith arrived right when I was leaving and stayed with Phoenix and Rubix for the final day of the swim meet. Most of the public schools had Veteran's day off, but we didn't. P and R had to do homework and classwork between Prelims and Finals each day in order to not get too behind in school. I went to work and Axel went to school on Monday, Veteran's day. Keith got back at 10 pm with the kids, but luckily they slept in the car starting at 8:30pm. It took them all week to recover and Phoenix came developed an ear infection within a day. They raced in the dumping rain for prelims and had to deal with the cold weather for the first time. The kids had another 3 day swim meet this weekend, but Phoenix only went to Saturday and skipped Friday and Sunday (today). 

Yesterday was CCS and it was the first time in 14 years that both the girls and boys teams made it as a team. Last year, only the boys made it as a team. 

Here they are at the start. Axel managed to get in one small workout and 3 other short shake out runs. He still has pain when walking after getting up from prolonged sitting, but is able to warm up enough to run with little to no pain. Not running much intensity for 2 weeks definitely effected his muscles and all of the compensations he has been doing walking, I am sure doesn't help. He was extremely positive and felt like he was ready to run the race of his life. 

He started out really well and clocked a 5:18 for the first mile, keeping himself within reach of the top 15-20 guys. 

You can see he is right with a big pack going up the hill. 

He is determined and looked like he was going to crank it up once he got over the hill. 

He tries to push through and pass one runner at a time, but he just couldn't go as hard as he wanted. 

He pushed...

And pushed....

And pushed....

but he just couldn't keep up with the fastest guys. 

He gave it his all and finished strong. 

He sprinted to the very end as fast as he could, but....

unfortunately, he finished 17 minutes flat, actually behind two of his teammates that he is usually 30-60 seconds faster. 

I was beyond proud of him, despite him not achieving his goals. He stayed extremely calm through his injury, always staying positive and listening to my medical advice and his coaches advice. He still PR'd in every race of the season, but he wanted to have a good race at Crystal Springs, like he has had on other courses. He was hoping to run to his potential, which is likely around a 16:30. Unfortunately, he will have to wait until next year, but until then he will continue to be a great teammate and inspiration. 

I am so incredibly proud of the person, friend, teammate, etc. that Axel is becoming. He is such a wonderful person to be around and I am honored to be his mother. 

We even had the privilege of seeing Eileen come cheer Axel on. Keith and Rubix made it just in time from the swim meet. Axel raced at 12:55 pm.

Such a trooper, he let Rubix come with him on his cool down with his teammates. I don't know many 15 year olds who embrace having their 8 year old brother hang out with his friends. Apparently Rubix easily ran a sub 7 minute pace with Axel. 

My boys!

Harker Varsity girls and boys team! 

While we were cheering on Axel, Phoenix stayed at the swim meet and hung out with Helen and Stella. She had so much fun going to In-N-Out and then to Stella's house for the afternoon. I didn't get home with her until 5pm! What a long day!

Today, Keith took Rubix to the swim meet, while I prepared for 30 people to come over. We hosted Rubix's soccer team for an end of season party! I took the opportunity for the Szolushas to get our first family photo of the year! I told the kids not to worry about what they are wearing, but to come and smile and be happy that we are all together for one afternoon!

Rubix had the time of his life. 11 boys played in the park, ate food, received their trophies and then played laser tag and ate cake. 

I don't believe my house has ever been so loud!

Half the boys on one couch waiting for their names to be called up. 

Coach Keith presented the trophies and plaques to Coach John, Coach Dong and all of the kids. 

Cake time... only half of the kids decided to sit and eat while the others continued to play. 

It was quite a night. It has been quite a couple of weeks. Next up is our Friendsgiving and then Thanksgiving so check back soon!