Axel Breaks Freshman 3 mi record! Phoenix dominates 100 backstroke! Rubix kicks and scores!

I feel like a broken record when I say how full and wonderful our lives are. The kids keep us busy and we are so grateful to raise such amazing kids. After getting through all of the back to school nights and days, we are now in full fall sports season. Axel had his first cross country invitational at Concord last weekend. He ran for varsity and surprised his teammates coming in at 17:23, at a 5:39 second pace and just 10 seconds behind the number 2 varsity runner and just 1 minute behind the number 1 runner for the team. 

I had the privilege of going with Axel and watching him race, as Keith was with Phoenix and Rubix. First at a swim meet and then coaching Rubix's soccer game and then back to the swim meet to help Phoenix complete the rest of her events. Everyone knew Axel ran well, but it was a pleasant surprise when Axel's buddy emailed him later that night to let him know that he had broken the Harker freshman 3-mile record by 11 seconds! 

Phoenix had a stellar weekend and raced all weekend. She dominated the 10 and under field winning or top 3, but that was not her goal. She is out to get as many 11-year-old J.O. times and she did it with grace. Fully composed she got a 33.13 50 yard back, a 114.51 100-yard IM which are both 11-year-old J.O. times. She also dropped in the fly to 34.18 and the 100-yard free to 106.24 (just a second off the 11-year-old J.O. times in each event). 

While Phoenix and Axel were doing their thing, Rubix has come into his foot and has come quite the soccer player from what I hear from Coach Keith (daddy) and his teammates. Here is a video one of the mom's sent of Rubix making and "upper V" shot last weekend. 

All three kids raced in a swim meet in Watsonville on Sunday last weekend, but Axel wasn't feeling great so only completed 2 of his 4 events.

(Axel with his buddy Jayden at the meet)

 Phoenix did great as mentioned and Rubix continues to drop time as well.

(Rubix with his school mate and old Los Gatos buddy Arick)

 His backstroke is now looking like it might be the first event to break the J.O. time cut. He is at 38.78 for his 50 back and 36.99 is the boys cut off. He is stuck at 37 seconds for his 50 fly and he needs a 35.39. We are trying to tell him it will come and just keep swimming. Keith and I think everything will fall into place for him next year once he is a little more mature. 

Keith is such a great dad. He takes the kids out for whatever sport they want to play. He took Axel to preview the Concord Invitational cross country course the weekend before his meet. 

(Axel sitting at the top of the hill at the Concord Course)

We are going tomorrow to Daly City to preview his next Invitational course as well. Here he is in his element playing basketball with the kids. 
 

It is so much fun to watch them laugh, learn and play hard together. 

Keith also got together a big chunk of Axel's cross-country team to run the Crystal Springs cross country course to prep them for their season opener in a couple of weeks. This was over Labor Day weekend. The parents brought food and we had a good old time running, eating and getting to know each other. 

The runners!

The runners plus Phoenix and Rubix!

Last Friday was picture day for Phoenix and Rubix. Phoenix let me do her hair so that she could keep it down for the first time since I cut her hair short a couple of months ago. 

I think it looked great! Apparently, everyone at school asked her if she got a haircut and said it looked cute. She said, "no," it is longer, just down. 

Rubix being 7....

Okay, I am happy to take a picture for you, mom!

"Mom, stop taking pictures already!"

With our crazy schedule we often need help from friends. Here is one of those days when Jonathan's dad helped bring Axel home from practice. We are so lucky to have developed a network of parents that can help with the older two kids. I had a really bad stomach flare again this past week and was unable to do anything. We had help with Phoenix coming home from a birthday party on Sunday and practice on Tuesday. I am so grateful! All of the kids were actually sick last week. Phoenix missed a day of swim practice as did Rubix. It amazes me how one day off is enough to help them recover and feel well enough to train hard again. I am very impressed with Phoenix's ability to train the 12 hours a week with swim and run on her off day. Rubix is training about 9 hours a week with swim and soccer twice a week and Axel is just a monster putting in about 35 miles of running and 4-5 days of swim, which is usually an additional 1.5 to 2 hours of practice a day!

I somehow managed to get to Rubix's "Harker Day" class party on Thursday. I do not know how I made it through work that morning and the day, but somehow God is good and I managed. When my stomach flares I am unable to eat for a couple of days and then when I start to eat, I am very uncomfortable, but I am no longer dizzy, nauseous or vomiting and the headache I get with the stomach flare is very mild, which allows me to function at about 70%. Anyway, I was very pleased that I was able to be there since he asked me to go. It was fun to watch him with his classmates!

Last night the kids had a "micro meet" at Santa Clara Swim Club. Eight teams were invited, but it was primarily SCSC swimmers. Phoenix finally got to swim the 100 backstroke for the first time in short course. Keith got her ready and push paced her at 35 second 50's. She wanted to get a 110 and boy, this girl did it! She flew in front of the field coming in at 1:10.6,  just over a second away from 12-year-old J.O. time of 1:09.39. She needs to drop down to a 1:06.49 by the end of March to go to Far Westerns in the 11-12 year old group. We are so proud of her and will support her in reaching this goal of hers. 

(I tried to upload the video, but it is too big) 

Axel wanted to make buttered chicken last week. He spend the time marinating the chicken and I cooked it for him the next day. We have to admit, it was quite good and noteworthy that he texted me, TYSM (thank you so much) twice because it was so yummy! The ironic thing about this is that Axel has been really struggling with his stomach. He had an incident last week where he shat himself at cross country practice. He just couldn't make it to the restrooms. He somehow managed to change shorts and clean up, but he finally said how concerned he is and that he would like to go to the doctor. It has been such a difficult task finding foods he likes that his body does okay with. I have been more concerned lately as well, so hopefully we can figure things out to help him with some of his stomach and GI discomfort. 

Phoenix continues to have night terrors when she is sick. It is really scary because she appears awake, but isn't. Last week, she came into our room and went into the bathroom talking to me. Before I knew it she turned on the shower. I had to quickly intervene. Would she have gone in? Would that have "woken" her up? I do hope she grows out of them soon. She had them for 3 nights and now appears to be back to normal. 

We are looking forward to Grandma Sonia and Grandpa Bruce coming out to visit. They will be arriving in about 10 days from now. Axel has a cross country meet next weekend and the kids still have swim practice, but we are hoping to have more time to get ahead on our studies. Tomorrow we have our yearly neighborhood picnic and Axel might attend a friend's birthday party. He has been doing about 8 to 10 hours of homework on the weekends in order to get through the week and reduce the nightly hours he has, especially when he is managing two practices a night. He has been a little frustrated getting "points" off his assessments, but is doing really well to most people's standards. All of the kids continue to love school, and I can't be more grateful for that as well. 

I will post mid October after our visit from the Burgess', until then....much love!

My last photo is of the lovely hummingbird that comes and visits our "bee bush". How wonderful it must be to be a hummingbird.......Can you find it?

 

Back to School 2023, Fall soccer begins

Keith is coaching Rubix's soccer team this fall again. They are the Dark Knights because they received the black uniform this season. I was surprised to hear their first game was August 19th, but it was. August still seems like summer and not fall, especially because we hadn't started school yet. The Dark Knights came out with some good running, passing and kicking and easily won their first game. 

Rubix has started to enjoy learning the game more and passing to his teammates. 

The high school had orientation for the 9th grade parents on Tuesday August 15th. We had one parent ask us what we were going to do about cross country practice and making it to orientation on time and before we knew it, we had 4 other freshman who needed a ride from practice and a place to hang out. I went to orientation and Keith picked up Axel, Jonathon, Liam, Hoafang and Ava. I made sure to make a ton of food for them before I left. They had a blast hanging out together until 8:30/9 pm when all of the parents arrived at orientation.

Axel had field day on Thursday and met his advisory. He likes his advisor and he has mixed feelings about the 7 other freshman he is with. He will be with this group of students for the next 4 years, so I do hope he is able to enjoy being with these individuals. In high school they meet once per week to hang out with their advisory and do fun activities. The one rule is no homework or screen time during these 30 minutes together. 

On Friday August 18th, Axel had his first matriculation ceremony. All of the students dressed up and signed the mission of the school paper that goes up for everyone to see it all year round. He said it was pretty cool. They also took Fall pictures and toured the campus. 

I am too lazy tonight to put things in chronological order, but Rubix had his second game on August 26th. They won again!

Rubix listening to Coach Daddy.

Celebrating with ice cream/ graham cracker sandwiches. 

On the 20th we met some of Axel's cross country team mates at the Crystal Springs Course. It was a nice and cool morning and the kids got to view and run the high school course which is almost twice as long as the middle school course. 

Axel excited for his first day of school on August 21st!

Rubix shooting baskets at orientation on the 21st!

Rubix checking out his new glasses. He is amazed at how well he can see now!

Phoenix had orientation on Tuesday, but apparently I did not get any picture. Both of the little ones started school on Wed. the 23rd. 

Here is Phoenix with her new Chromebook. 

Our big 2nd grader!

It is hard to believe Phoenix is in her last year of elementary school. I am so proud of who the kids are becoming. I am honored to be able to raise them and be their mother. 

Phoenix with locker number 23!

Quick family photo in front of Mrs. West homeroom.

Our big 5th grader!

Rubix in front of Ms. Poplack's room ready for 2nd grade. 

Mrs. Poplack and Rubix!

Rubix with his 2nd grade homeroom class. 

While the first week of school could have been the start of making great routines, our sports world has been a little amiss. First, Santa Clara Swim Club decided on a soft start at the last minute, so The boys only had 3 practices scheduled for last week and Phoenix 4 practices. Unfortunately, after practice on Wednesday night we woke up to find out that ISC broke and practices were modified. The kids were only able to swim either Thursday or Friday and the other day was an hour of dryland. To make matters worse, Axel had a cross country practice where the bus driver didn't understand the correct location so the team ended up being on the bus for an hour and a half and did not run! This week the kids were scheduled for only 2 swims and 2 dryland sessions. To make matters worse they combined groups together, so Axel ended up swimming with Rubix's group for the easiest practice ever! I am really not doing the crazy schedule justice, but it has been something you can only laugh at because everyone is beyond frustrated. I think we all appreciated the 5 months of swimming at other pools this year when ISC was down much better than not getting pool time for our swimmers. We are so fortunate to have a membership at Los Gatos Swim and Racquet Club because we have been there a lot over the past month since we had over a 2 week break and now two weeks with limited practices with the team. We are looking forward to ISC reopening tomorrow and getting back into a routine. 

Axel has been doing a great job of handling 5 -6 days of running, especially because he is only swimming about 3-4 days on top of that per week. I am very curious to see how the next 2 months go for him. His school is off to an intense start with his first test today and 3 assessments on Thursday! He also had his first oral presentation in Japanese and has had multiple writing assignments in English. High school at Harker is no joke!