The kids are growing up

Phoenix has the privilege of taking ceramics as her elective this semester. She absolutely loves it. Her first projects were by hand, but her recent projects involve using the spinning wheel. She is very excited to show me her finished bowls once they are complete and ready to bring home.  

Her first project, "friendship mugs" is on display at school. The were assigned to make two mugs in order to enjoy a hot beverage with one of their friends. I believe Phoenix made "Phoenix wings". 

Here second project is this cute turtle. She was going to keep this for herself, but lovingly gave it to her swim coach for her 76th birthday!

Back on Sept. 25th Phoenix had her 3rd cross country meet.  They had "time trials" at school. Here is a picture of her with her 6th grade team mates waiting to start. Keith and I were both able to swing by the school to watch her run the 1.2 mile course. 

On Friday, Sept. 30th, the kids had the day off. I took Axel and Phoenix to the Crystal Springs running course where Axel had an optional practice and Phoenix ran to prepare for her WBAL final cross country meet that was to take place on Oct. 7th. After, I took Rubix to his friend, Ryan's house for a playdate. Ryan is the friend who has the pool and full size basketball court in his backyard, along with this ping pong table that him and Noah's dad, Dong are playing on. Rubix's friends were being somewhat dangerous in the pool, so he decided to stay safe. I was charmed that Dong was playing with Rubix. Dong coaches the soccer team with Keith, so Rubix is very comfortable around him. Noah, happens to be one of his closest friends too. 

Phoenix has decided to have fun while putting on sun screen before practice and swim meets. I thought I would include a couple of her photos. 

We had a 3 day swim meet Oct. 4-6th. Phoenix swam the mile and dropped more than 30 seconds to get a 19:09.72. She is only 19 seconds from a AAAA time, which is quite amazing. She is ranked 22nd in the U.S. for 11/12 year old girls. She had a big schedule with the 200 IM, 100 Free, 100 back and 500 free on Saturday and the 50 back, 200 back, 50 free and 400 IM on Sunday. She managed to finish all of her races with about the same time as she previously had with a good drop in the 100 free to a 101.67, just .28 off a AA time. Here she is with Catherine and Stella, two Quick Silver girls who joined during the summer break. 

Phoenix's 50 back

Phoenix's 100 Free, PR

Rubix had an amazing swim meet. He dropped in every race and managed to get the Far Western short course cut in every event he had in long course. He did the 500 free on Friday in 6:18.87. On Saturday he did the 200 IM, the 50 breast, the 100 Free and the 50 Fly. On Sunday he completed the 200 Free, the 50 back, the 100 IM and the 50 Free. This is after he played soccer Saturday afternoon, after racing 4 events in the morning. He was tired on Sunday but managed to finish off the weekend with a 50 free of 32.25. This is almost a one second drop and puts him just .26 seconds away from an age group time cut, which is a huge improvement! Here he is with his friend Daniel Li, who also just joined from Quick Silver. I think we are up to about 30 swimmers that came over from Quick Silver.

It was cold in the morning for the swimmers, but nice and warm/ hot in the 90's in the afternoon. 

Rubix's 50 Breast

Rubix's 50 Free

After all of the mileage racing over the 3 day swim meet, Phoenix had her WBAL cross country championship meet on Monday, Oct. 7th. It was 100 degrees out and she was quite tired from the long weekend of racing. 

She wasn't able to race as well as she had during the 1st WBAL race at Crystal Springs. She added a minute, but was glad to finish. She managed 14th out of the 60+ girls, but she wasn't happy as you can see from the picture below. She skipped swim practice after so she could rest. 

On Wednesday, Oct. 9th, Axel had his first WBAL cross country meet at Crystal Springs. He ran well and finished 8th overall. He took off more than 30 seconds from his last years time.

He lucked out and had much cooler weather than Phoenix had, with temperatures in the high 70's/low 80's. 

You can watch the videos Keith captured of him racing here:

The start

Cardiac Hill

The finish

Phoenix and Rubix received their new Santa Clara t-shirts. I thought it was cute how Phoenix tied a knot in her shirt because it was big. I had her roll up the sleeves so make it an official "flash back" to my childhood style. 

On Saturday last week the team had a birthday celebration for Coach Luba. It is crazy to think that she is 76 years old! Phoenix gave her the cute turtle that she made and made a turtle card to go along with it. I did not get a picture of the turtle she painted, but it looked exactly like the ceramic turtle she made in class. 

Last Sunday, we were given tickets to go to the Warriors pre- season game. I thought Keith was taking the 3 kids, but Axel kind of freaked out at the last minute and said he had too much homework and stuff to do. 

So instead, I went and Axel stayed home. We absolutely love going. The seats are incredible, the Warriors, even their preseason team is incredible and the food is delicious!

The team played great and I was really impressed that their non starters play such a fast fun game. They crushed the Pistons. 

Rubix brought this home finally. I love how cute he is in this picture of himself!

This past Friday, Axel went with his team on a road trip to Fresno! They ran in the Rough Rider Invitational on the state championship course. Here he is with the team. 

Axel managed to finish 38th out of 297 runners in the Varsity small school category. He said he felt pretty bad with allergy stuff, but I think he ran well overall. We weren't able to attend, but our friend Albert (the one who gave us the Warrior's tickets) was there watching his daughter. He kindly took these two photos and sent them to us. 

Rubix has just a few more weeks of soccer. They won this past Saturday, so the team went to DQ for ice cream!!

Here is Rubix's goal!

Rubix's goal

Yesterday Axel also had the homecoming dance. He was asked to attend the dance by a girl in his English Honors class. Her name is Liya. He decided to make her corsage and his boutonniere by folding origami flowers! I absolutely love how they turned out!

He is so incredibly talented! It took him a couple of hours, but he did it!

I ordered him a new suit. He is officially an xsmall men's size!!!

Axel with Phoenix!

Axel, Phoenix, and Rubix.....cute boy looking through the door?!

I love these kids!

Let's not forget Daddy-O!

Axel and Liya. She was a bit awkward and nervous, but Axel and her had a good time together. 

Her beautiful corsage!!!

Flowers she brought for Axel....so funny!!!!

 Tomorrow, Phoenix leaves for her 5 day class trip to Camp Neuman. It is going to be a little odd to only have 2 kiddos for the week, but that means I have more time to exercise and cook dinner. I only made a meal for tomorrow so that I can go for a bike ride after work. Yeah for me!!!

Axel has his 2nd WBAL cross country meet on Thursday and the little ones have a 3 day swim meet starting Friday. Phoenix's neck hurt today and she has been fighting a cold, so we are unsure if she will end up swimming Friday, or next weekend at all. I am hoping she is all better. She has the 400 IM on Friday. She is suppose to get back at 3:30pm and race at 5 pm, so we will see. 

The other big news is that Axel is getting his driver's permit, so make sure to check back in a few weeks for more fun Szolusha updates and photos!

Videos of the kids

 Well, I finally had a few extra minutes to upload a few videos into my YouTube channel. These videos are from the Milpitas Aquatics Meet the kids attended a couple of weeks ago and the video of Axel is the finish of the Bellarmine Invitational that he ran a couple of weeks ago. 

Rubix's 100 yard back stroke. He got a personal best and was just shy of the AAA time standard. He finished 1:12.75 and he needs a 1:12.49. Rubix's 100 yard back Rubix is in the 3rd lane closest to the camera, lane 6, if you can see the cones during the flip turn. 

Phoenix's 100 yard Free style. She doesn't prefer to sprint, but she dropped time and got a 102.46. She is only 1 second away from a AA time standard. Phoenix 100 yard free Phoenix is in lane 4, right in the middle. She is wearing a black cap and colorful swim suit.

Axel's start to the Bellarmine Invitational. He is wearing a white jersey and green shorts and is in the middle of the big pack of boys. Bellarmine Invitational start

Axel about a half a mile into the race. Bellarmine half mile

Axel 1.5 miles into the race. Bellarmine Invitational 1.5 miles in

Axel starting the rollers. Bellarmine Invitational rollers

Axel's finish at the Bellarmine Invitational. He finished 6th place out of 153 Sophmores. You can see the field is pretty decimated because the top runners were so much faster than the field. Axel usually runs in the varsity races and finishes in the top 10-20, hence why you will see him passing kids going the opposite direction. The 5 kids in front of him were even faster and Axel finished without any other runners near him. Axel's race finish

Rubix's penalty kick against the Wolfpacks last week. Rubix soccer

Phoenix finishing her 2nd cross country race. You don't actually get to see her crossing the link because I wanted to cheer for her by running right behind her. The first 4 girls were way in front of the rest of the field, so I didn't feel that bad about being on the race course :) Phoenix xc meet #2 Bedwell Park

I will try to put more videos on YouTube in the future. Hope you enjoy!

Cross Country, swim and soccer season are underway!

 Over Labor Day weekend, the extra time allowed for many social gatherings. Phoenix invited Helen and Rubix invited Stephen to the pool for dinner and playtime. Here is a cute picture of Helen and Phoenix in the hot tub. 

I made pizza and the girls made smores for dessert. It took them a few tries to get the melting of the chocolate and marshmallow to their exact liking, but eventually they found the perfect microwave time.  

 

They had fun being 11 year old kids, playing in the pool, which was a pleasure to see.

 

Rubix, Stephen, Phoenix and Helen managed to play together for a short bit before Rubix became frustrated with Phoenix taking his football. 

Stephen and Rubix get along splendidly and Stephen managed to have similar ping pong skills which allowed the boys to volley the ball several times.  We also learned that Stephen lives very close to us, they are practically neighbors!

We managed to go to my friend Tiffany's house on Sunday for a BBQ and pool play. The kids had fun playing together, although they did not play as much with Avery and Charlotte as before. 

Rubix joined Avery and Charlotte in the sun while eating dinner to warm up.

Avery made cotton candy for dessert, which the kids happily ate. 

On Sunday, we went back up to Belmont to run at Crystal Springs with Axel's team. We had a good showing and the day was beautiful with a view of San Francisco. 

Rubix had another friend get together at a new kid, Ryan's house. Apparently, he has a full size basketball court in his backyard, which you can see to the left in the picture below. 

Besides basketball and ping pong the kids also played in their pool. 

 The long weekend of socializing was exactly the break everyone needed because we have been super busy with back to school days/nights and all of the kids sports! I spent the entire day on Saturday Sept. 7th at Back to school events at the high school and middle school. Keith was able to join me for the afternoon at the middle school, which made it almost like a date. 

He had a soccer game in the morning with Rubix so I dropped off Phoenix super early for swim practice and he managed to pick her up after Rubix's game and then get Rubix to swim practice. I was able to get Phoenix from the pool after my 9 -12pm morning at the high school. Rubix's team, The Wolverines tied for their first game of the season. 

Here is a picture of Phoenix's Advisory, but you can't see her because her head is covered. 

You can see her in the middle jumping in this picture. This is also from her Advisory. She seems to have a good group of student sin her Advisory class, which meets once a week all three years of middle school together. It is a nice program where they work on growing their communication and life skills together in small groups. 

On Thursday night, the following week, I attended Rubix's Back to School night, while Keith managed soccer practice and Phoenix pick up.  You might wonder about Axel, and luckily, if I cannot pick him up, we have help from one of his teammates, which is almost always once a week. He practices at 3 different state/ county parks and his practices end anywhere from 5:30-6:15 pm at night, which make for an interesting schedule. He was a little upset with me on September 12th because he really wanted to do the contrast baths after practice and I needed to get him home by 6pm so I could turn around and make Rubix's home room which started at 6:20pm. He wanted to do the contrast baths because he had his first cross country meet the following afternoon. 

Before we get to that, I have some photos from Rubix's Back to school night. This is a bad photo of a photo of Rubix's homeroom class where they are being silly. 

This is also a photo of a photo from home room. His home room teacher had a photo or video of every child in his homeroom on his Power point, which made his Power point that much more entertaining. 

In Language arts they had several projects on the wall. 

I love the photos and artwork that they do in grade school!

His word art!

All three of the kids have excellent teachers who obviously love to teach. I really enjoy meeting them all in order to put a face to a name when the kids are talking about their teachers and school. It is a little crazy to think that we now have over 21 teachers that we have to know with all 3 kids changing classes for every subject. Rubix said it only took him a couple of days to get down his class schedule. 

Bellarmine hosted an invitational at Bayland Park and had each year race against each other instead of having JV and Varsity teams. Axel had over 150 sophmores in his race. Here he is between the two boys in red, with only 2 Bellarmine boys ahead of him (the first guy is out of the picture here). 

He ran a great race, although, he was a bit frustrated that he maxed out at a 5:20 pace because he has ran faster in practice. He ended up 6th place in his race and top 40 out of the 600 kids who raced in all four boys races. 

We managed to pick up Rubix so he could watch and cheer on Axel too. Phoenix was at her own cross country practice so she wasn't able to make it. I stayed and cheered on the rest of the races, while Keith left with Rubix to get Phoenix and take them to swim practice. 

I forgot to mention that Wednesday the 11th, Phoenix had her first cross country meet at Crystal Springs. She ran a bit conservatively to begin the race, but managed to pull ahead of several girls to get 3rd place! I was not able to go because I had another stomach flare and was in bed from Monday afterwork until Thursday morning. I recovered just in time for Axel's meet. 

Rubix had his second soccer game last Saturday on the 14th and they won 3-2, which was very exciting for him. 

After his soccer game he rushed over to the swim meet that Phoenix and I were at. He was a bit more tired than he anticipated from his soccer game, but still managed to drop in his 100 breast stroke, although his 50 Free and 100 fly were about the same times as the spring. He is just a second away from the age group time cut for the 100 Breast, so hopefully he will be able to get it next time. The kids also swam on Sunday. Rubix finally got the 100 free Age group time cut and Phoenix dropped in her 100 Free, 50 Free, 50 Fly and 200 free. She was flat for the 100 breast and the 50 back, but she had a great attitude and was a wonderful teammate. I was so proud of her awesome attitude. She tried really hard in the short events and will hopefully continue to learn to push herself in the sprints. 

I don't have any photos from the swim meet, but here is a cute one of Phoenix before swim practice with a sun screen smiley face. 

Keith came down with Covid last week and tested negative today. It came out of nowhere and he was the only one sick, since I think the rest of us had it this summer, despite me being the only one who tested positive in July. 

This weekend Axel has another cross country invitational in Concord and Rubix has a soccer game. Axel has a birthday party on Sunday, at his friend, Ava's house again, and I hope to do a thorough house cleaning!

Next time, I might share on our house repairs and woodchip fiasco, but for now I will say goodnight. I will also try to post the link to the videos of the kids swimming and running on YouTube. Until next time.....

Oh, I forgot about Phoenix's second xc meet at Bedwell Park. I was able to attend by switching around my schedule and seeing my last patient during my lunch (who ended up cancelling last minute anyway). Here she is at the start line as the teams started lining up. 

She managed to get 4th with a girl passing her at the very end. She ran hard and I think was happy with her effort. We left fairly quickly afterwards so she could make it to swim practice. Instead of going to her normal swim practice she went to a second swim practice tryout with Alto at Stanford. There are many things that are positive about the Alto swim team, but logistically, it is looking like it will be better for us to stay with Santa Clara Swim Club for the next year. The good news is we are educating ourselves on what other teams around us would be a good fit for the kids, if something changes and SCSC is no longer a viable option. 

The 6th grade girls team is only 5, but Katie and Nishka finished in the top 5 both meets so far, along with Phoenix! If the girls continue running and improving they may have a chance at League champs, although Sacred Heart will be tough to beat with their top two girls going 1, 2, the first two meets.