It has truly been a whirlwind since my last post. After our crazy weekend of sports (swim meet, soccer tournament and CCS XC we had our Annual Friendsgiving. Unfortunately, Eileen's family and the Ingardias could not make it. It was a small gathering of Mark with his two kiddos (Ryan and Hazel) and Tyler with Jade and Zoe along with the 5 of us and Axel's friend Christine. Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves and Rubix did a great job entertaining little Ryan (age 4).
I told Tyler a couple of years ago that we were done preparing the turkey and that this was on him. He is so great about enjoying the preparation of the turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Here he is with his masterpiece.
Keith still does the carving. I prepared the ham, sweet potatoes, green beans, dinner rolls and dessert and dinner came together very smoothly.
Here is the crew before I said grace.
Axel managed to capture all of us with a "selfie". I am grateful for this tradition and do hope we are able to continue it.
I only worked Monday of Thanksgiving week and we had parent teacher conferences via Zoom for all three kids on Tuesday. Keith, Axel and I lifted together after the conferences and then Axel headed to Samara's house to hang out with his friends the rest of the day. Wednesday was primarily prepping for Thanksgiving, along with swim practice. On Thanksgiving we woke up and were driving to Grandma's house by 8 am. This allowed Keith, Axel and I to go for a run. Axel and I ran 5 miles together and Keith went longer for an hour (likely 6- 7 miles). Rubix and Phoenix hung out with Grandma. We were able to come back from our run, shower and take a family photo! Thank you Grandma!
We then headed over to Auntie Shannon's house for our Thanksgiving feast. Ryan cooked the most amazing turkey and we all gobbled it up. I think Phoenix had 4 large servings, it was incredible! Here is a picture of Phoenix and Braylin. They are about the same height. We debated who is taller. Phoenix apparently is 5'5" and Braylin 5'6", but you cannot tell from this picture.
Rubix had a blast playing corn hole with varying people, one of whom was Auntie. I was able to capture a few pictures of their fun.
Shannon's in laws and sister in laws family was also there. Ainsley was born in May, Braylin in August and Phoenix the oldest in January. We have pictures of the there of them together as babies and now they are all three nearly full grown!
Grandpa Brian celebrated another birthday on the 24th of November and wore a fun ostrich shirt he got on vacation with my mom. It was quite the shirt!
Rubix and Aya played chess.
A cute picture of Axel and Phoenix. "Why big brother are you squishing me?!"
Rubix and Aya tried to break the wishbone, but it was still too wet and kept slipping from their hands rather than breaking in half. We had a lovely day and managed to get home at 8:30 pm, just 12 and a half hours after we left home. It was a lovely day of visiting family and we are glad that we were able to attend, despite still being a little sad at not being in Fresno for Axel's State Cross country meet.
The day after Thanksgiving we enjoyed decorating the house and Christmas tree. There was quite a bit of drama this year as the top portion of the tree almost could not be used because the insert went missing. Axel and I made a fix that was just good enough to keep it on. I surprising came across the missing piece the next day once I finished decorating and found the piece in a random box! I was incredibly grateful because the top of the tree was starting to lean. Axel and I were able to replace our contraption with the plastic piece and now the tree is fixed and will hopefully last another few years. It is only 15 years old and I was hoping to get another 5 years out of this tree.
Phoenix decided we need to decorate the tree in rainbow order . It is hard to appreciate from this photo, but the top of the tree is all red ornaments, then gold, green, blue and so forth.
Done...for now.
The funny thing is Phoenix was annoyed with how many red ornaments we had so the next day she took off all of the ornaments and redecorated the tree in reverse order with the red ornaments at the bottom and ended the top with white and silver to match the tree topper. I think she did a great job! It actually only took her an hour which was really impressive.
Rubix's school is really good about filming and taking photographs of different school events. Here are professional photos of Rubix's first home game that Keith, Phoenix and I attended on November 4th.
The intramural boys were cheering for the 4th grade travel team that Rubix was on. They had so much spirit and energy!
You may be able to see Phoenix, Keith and I in the stands.
I love these action shots of him!
With the busy schedule of basketball and swim practice came later nights and more tired kiddos.....so I thought, until Rubix woke with a cold on the Saturday before Age Group Champs. We did our best to let him sleep in every day to fight his cold. I tortured the poor kid by having him do no physical activity on Sunday.
On Saturday, I noticed Rubix's cold while at Axel's cross country banquet. His nose was running like crazy and he was really congested.
Here is Axel getting recognized for being MVP of the team along with All Team All League, which is a few select runners in the league.
Phoenix sitting with Axel after the varsity boys were recognized.
Here is Keith recognizing the coaches. The coaches were very invested in the kids this year. It was a bit different without Coach Kevin and Latke, but Coach Jorge, Liz and Dave were also very involved which made for another great season.
Axel, Ava and Samara ready to hand out the gifts.
Right after the cross country banquet was the soccer team party that was rescheduled. I was sick a few weeks ago when we were supposed to have it, so we did an impromptu pizza gathering with the entire team on Dec. 5th. Here Keith is recognizing each player with a certificate and trophy.
Rubix trying to relieve his congested nose!
The soccer crew, which took up a big portion of the restaurant.
Rubix had another busy week with basketball and swim, but we somehow managed to get to Friday December 12th a bit healthier. I picked up Phoenix at 1 pm from school to head to San Ramon. We were lucky to check into our hotel before heading to the swim meet. At school I was able to go to the ceramics display where her wedding cake was on display. Phoenix made this beautiful cake entirely out of clay!
I think she did an amazing job. I feel extremely blessed that she is able to exercise the creative part of her brain at school. We are very lucky that Harker has just as good of an art program as they do math!
Keith picked up Rubix and headed straight to the meet to set up the tent. The kids were swimming the 500 free and then the 400 IM (Phoenix) and the 200 IM (Rubix). These events are normally prelim and final, but in the winter they only run them at night as finals. I was officiating so I do not have them on film, but I was able to watch Phoenix swim to her first victory. That is right... she won with a blazing fast time of 5:17.17 which puts her at number 13 in the country! She is less than 7 seconds away from sectionals, which is her goal come the Spring season that starts in January and ends at Far Westerns in April. Rubix toughed out a great swim dropping a fraction of a second to place 2nd with a 5:45.14.
Phoenix managed to turn around an hour later and swim the 400 IM, finishing 2nd in the 12 year olds. She only added 2 seconds from her best time, which is great considering she just completed the 500 free. Phoenix 400 IM
Rubix had a much tougher second race. He said he really struggled during the fly portion of the race and had to work really hard to catch up from being behind. He was really bummed to finish 4th, but I was really proud of his effort, considering the circumstances. He is wearing his new pink cow tech suit.
Luckily, Saturday I was not officiating, but Keith was. He did both prelims and finals while I helped Phoenix and Rubix with their events. It was a busy day. Phoenix swam the 200 back, the 200 free and the 200 breast.
She was ranked 2nd in the back, 1st in the free and 3rd in the breast going into the meet. She finished 2nd in the back and free during prelims and 5th in the 200 breast. She was really tired and decided after prelims that she was not going to swim the 1650 (mile) the next day and would stick with the 2 shorter events.
Here is her 200 free from prelims.
During finals she finished 2nd in 200 back (which was her first event). Thirty minutes later she swam the 200 Free in got 3rd by .1 seconds and 45 minutes later she swam the 200 breast were she finished 6th.
200 back from finals.
Rubix also started his day with the 200 free where he was ranked 2nd and finished 2nd in prelims and finals. He then did the 50 back where he was ranked 2nd, finished 2nd in prelims and tied for 2nd in finals after a very delayed start. He also competed in the 100 fly where again, he was ranked 2nd, and finished 2nd in both prelims and finals. Here are his videos.
In addition to the individual events, Rubix was in the mixed 200 free relay after prelims and then the boys medley relay after finals. They ended up 2nd for the mixed free relay and won the boys medley relay.
Phoenix also did the medley relay after finals where her team finished 2nd almost beating her teammates on the other relay who came in first. She did the breast stroke leg of the relay, where Rubix did the fly portion of his relay. His team won by a large margin.
On Sunday I officiated perlims. They took a picture of all of the officials. I texted Keith over so he could join the picture too since he did 3 sessions and I only did 2 sessions. As you can see it takes a lot of volunteers to run a swim meet!
Keith managed the kids, but luckily, it was a much more chill day. Phoenix swam the 200 IM coming in 3rd. Rubix swam the 50 fly finishing 2nd in prelims and finishing the closest he has to Robert Legg, his biggest competitor and friend. He was really excited going into finals because he felt he could beat him for the first time. Both kids also swam the 100 back and both finished 2nd in prelims.
By Phoenix swimming the 100 back rather than the 1650, it allowed us to leave the meet and rest at the hotel for 3 hours! Keith stayed back for Rubix's mixed gender medley relay. They finished first and managed to have a couple of hours of rest at the hotel.
Sunday night was a big night because the kids were determined to end strong. They were both 2nd in high points for their age group and wanted to stay there.
Phoenix started the night out with a bang dropping time in her 200IM and almost coming in 2nd. She couldn't quite catch her teammate Catherine, but she dropped a second finally breaking the 2:19 barrier she has been at since last year. She finished in 2:18.31.
Rubix also started the night out on fire, finally breaking the 30 second barrier on the 50fly that he has been stuck at all season. As excited as we were that he accomplished this difficult feat, he was devasted to finish 3rd, especially because he was hoping to win the event. His competitors Robert and Ethan had incredible races beating his speedy 29.96 by 1 second (Robert) and .1 seconds (Ethan).
As upset as Rubix was at finishing 3rd in the 50 fly, Phoenix was just as upset about her 100 back where her teammate out touched her by .34 seconds bumping her down to 3rd place in the event and in the overall high point competition.
Rubix managed to swim his heart out and finish 2nd in his last individual race of the season in the 100 back. It was not a personal best, but awfully close. I am so proud of how hard the kids worked and how tough they were swimming in freezing cold weather where the adults and officials were complaining about the conditions. I can only imagine how difficult it was for all of the swimmers.
Both kids swam the 200 free relay at the end of the night. Rubix's team managed to crush it for 1st place again, and Phoenix's team finished 3rd. Phoenix finally broke the 27 second barrier in her 50 free as the anchor of the race with a speedy 26.56 second split.
It was an incredibly long weekend. I feel extremely grateful that we are able to support the kids in their endeavors. It was quite the accomplishment that both kids finished 3rd in overall high points, both losing their 2nd place slot with the last races of the meet. They both learned many wonderful life lessons this weekend and I hope they continue to grow their character from their many activities.
Axel had a long weekend of studying for finals, but managed to take a break and go on a long hike with his old running buddy, Harris, who has been home from college. He is in the midst of trying to figure out colleges, his summer and finishing his finals strong.
Phoenix has finished her first 2 days of finals and is looking forward to finishing this week with strong grades. She seems a little uncertain of how her tests have gone so far, having never taken a final before, but she is hopeful she will finish the semester with straight A's and finally earn her second ear piercing that she has been working towards for an entire year!
We are looking forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus this weekend and a relaxing time in Palm Springs with family next week. We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope to post in a couple of weeks after the fun holiday festivities.
