Happy 15th Birthday, Brett!

Brett turned 15 in December!

Full disclosure, Lydia and Brett's birthdays this year were a struggle. Bryan tested positive for Covid that week, so he was isolating.  We had tickets to my nephew's Christmas concert in downtown Minneapolis on Brett's birthday, and then the next night, Bryan was supposed to take Brett and Reggie to the Timberwolves game - also in downtown Minneapolis. I hate driving downtown at night, with traffic AND snow, and I got to do it two nights in a row!  And what was my reward? I got a full five days of isolation myself when I tested positive for Covid the following day!  

It was a struggle, but I'm glad it turned out the way it did and Brett didn't miss the Timberwolves game.  Brett LOVES the Timberwolves.  Pictured above, you see his Timberwolves hat which has barely come off his head since he got it on his birthday.  It looks so white in that picture compared to what it looks like now!

Life has changed so much for Brett in the last year.  We moved, and he went from being homeschooled to attending the public high school (@2000 students)!  He's really doing great.  He's so independent.  He gets himself to school by walking or riding his bike most days.  He navigates his schedule and school work mostly on his own, and his case manager has all good things to say about him.

Brett has three classes with his case manager and three general education classes.  He is taking general education science with support.  I have also convinced Brett's case manager that he should take gym every day of his high school life.  He's a gym rat, haha.  The third class has changed every trimester and he's taken drawing, food prep, and health and wellness.  

Brett loves basketball more than anything else, and he wanted more opportunity to play than the short Special Olympics season in the spring.  He was able to join our community youth rec league and had a great season.  It will be it's own post soon.  Brett also loves his youth group at our church, his guinea pig, Oreo, and online shopping!  He likes to create things with his computer - make video projects, etc.  And he enjoys cooking and baking.

One funny thing about Brett is he hates all of your standard breakfast foods - cereal, toast, bagels, oatmeal, etc.  He will eat eggs or pancakes, but that's a hassle on your average weekday.  Instead, he usually eats leftovers or makes himself mac'n'cheese!

Another funny story about Brett is he loves thrill rides.  He will go on any rollercoaster or spinny or droppy ride.  He sits there expressionless - you can't tell if he's afraid or enjoying himself until he wants to go again.  At Valleyfair this summer, the last ride of the day - my favorite - was the farris wheel.  We stopped at the top as it was loading, and I was trying to get a picture of all of us.  Reggie was moving around and our cart was swaying a little as a result.  I turned and looked at Brett and he was clinging to the arm handle with the most terrified expression I have ever witnessed!  I had no clue he would be scared on the farris wheel, and I made Reggie sit still for the remainder of the ride.😉

Brett's basketball highlights

After two years of Covid cancelations, Brett was finally back on the court with the Special Olympics. For reasons I won't get into here, and certainly because it is closer now, he played with the Blazing Stars.  His team was composed of about 8 guys and one girl, and they were a lot of fun.  Brett was the youngest guy on the team and the older guys were happy to:

    (a) take him under their wings and coach him, and

    (b) have Bretty run the ball up and down the court!

The Special Olympics hosted their Summer Games for the first time since 2019.  It was at a smaller venue and it was spaced out over time and location (usually four sports- basketball, swimming, track, and gymnastics-would be hosted as one big event).  We are so excited that Minnesota will host the USA games in 2026!  

Brett's team lost their first game in overtime!  It was a very exciting game to watch with two teams so closely matched.  They won their next two games, placing 2nd in their division.

  

That weekend, we also put together a small "8th grade graduation" to recognize Brett's big transition from homeschool to high school!  What a great weekend!

track was an extreme season

Track is usually a Brett and Lydia sport, but this year all three partipated. We've tried to follow a one-sport-per-season-per-kid rule but with the move and practice happening after school, it almost seemed it would be more convenient for everyone to be in one spot.  There were a few conflicts that came up between Reggie's baseball and track meets, but it mostly worked out.

That being said, the season was a season of extreme weather.  April and May are never great in Minnesota, and this year was no exception.  Out of 4 meets, one was canceled because it was a high of 38 degrees that day.  The second meet was in the low 40's and barely tolerable.  The 3rd meet was the best as far as weather goes, but Lydia wasn't feeling great and skipped one of her events (it turned out to be Covid).  The 4th meet was divided between grades.  It was over 90 degrees for the 8th grade meet.  The 6th/7th grade meet was all set to be a go when our severe hail storm blew threw!

So there were not many highlights.  Lydia only participated in one full meet.  Reggie in two, and Brett in three.  Brett loves to run relays and do the 100m.  Reggie's favorite event is 200m and he also likes relays.  Lydia likes distance running and does the 800m, 1600m, and she also likes shot put. 

It was fun to have them all on the same team for the first time since t-ball!  Hopefully next year we will have more highlights!

moving: just when you think it can't get any worse...

The plan was to do a few things in the new house before we moved in, then move in, then fix up a few things in the old house, then list it for sale.  Our goal was to do this is 3 weeks.  Things didn't really go according to plan.

First dinner in our new house, at our folding table

We closed on our new house on a Friday.  Brett was with us and the other two were in school.  We had done our walk-through Thursday night and everything looked as expected.  I was bringing in cleaning supplies when Bryan called me to the basement.  There was a puddle.  We notified our realtor and the previous owner apologized for not getting the gutters cleaned out.  We cleaned up the mess and cleaned out the gutters.  Problem solved...

Ready to paint Brett's room

We wanted to get the bedrooms painted before we moved in.  We were also planning to get new carpet installed the first week, so we got right to work that weekend.  We got the owner's suite and boys' bedrooms done.  

Official moving day

We were still sleeping at our old house and planned to move the POD (our beds) on Monday.  Again, it was Bryan, Brett, and I on Monday that went over to work on the new house.  The other two were at school.  My parents were expected to arrive to help us move.  Bryan went down to the basement and called me down again.  This time it was not a puddle, it was a lake!  It had rained heavy over night and the sump didn't kick on.  The entire utility/storage room and Brett's bedroom had water covering the floor.  (Had it been one more night, a ton of our stuff would have been in the storage room.)

Bryan got to work in fixing the sump pump and putting in an emergency backup while Brett and I cleaned.  My parents came to the rescue.  Brett's flooring is luxury vinyl plank (LVP), so they pulled it all up, keeping it in order, dried it out, and reinstalled it.  This set us back a few days, as my parents had come planning to help put new LVP on the main floor.  We were also having new carpet installed on the main and second floor at the same time.

But that's not all!  On Monday night, we all slept on mattresses on the floor in our new house. (My parents had their RV parked in the driveway of our old house.) On Tuesday, Reggie and Lydia went to school again while the rest of us worked on the new house.  There was a track meet after school.  All 3 kids were in track.  Lydia usually does the 800M and the 1500M, but when I checked in with her at the track meet, she said she decided not to do the 1500M because she "had a sore throat".  I thought that was weird, so when we got home, I found our covid tests and had her do the test after her shower.  

I was in the bathroom with her.  I put the drops on the test and it IMMEDIATELY showed a positive result.  She covered her face with her t-shirt while I escaped past her and told her to go in Bryan's little office (which literally had nothing in it).  Her bedroom light was broken (of course!) so I didn't want to set her up in there.  The rest of us tested negative (including my parents) and I brought her a mattress, bedding, and clothing.  And that's how she spent her first few days in our new house.

Painting Lydia's room

I wanted my parents to go home, but they refused.  So we pressed on.  Mom and I painted Lydia's room, and Dad and Bryan put the light fixture from our bedroom in there, and a new one in our bedroom.  Then they got to work on putting new LVP in the dining room and the room where the guinea pig's cage would go.  Simultaneously, we had a painter painting the two-story foyer in our old house. 

We got Lydia's bed and piano set up for her and she was able to move into her bedroom on day 4 of her quarantine.  We were still testing negative, and she still tested positive though her symptoms were better (I don't know if there's science to this, but the result took longer and was more faint).  My parents left on Sunday (Mother's Day!), and we allowed Lydia to emerge from her room with a mask on Monday. Lydia was required to stay home from school and school activities until day 11, which meant she missed participating in honors band and her spring concert.

Mother's Day with our covid + daughter

That next week, Bryan and I continued to work in both houses.  I still had the dining room and two bedrooms in the old house to paint.  Reggie was going to school and Brett was doing home school and helping us with projects.  We were still dealing with some seeping water along the stairwell from the basement to the garage.

Finally time to take a walk in the park by our house

And then we had another big storm.  Brett was a church, Bryan was at the old house, and I was home with Lydia and Reggie.  I thought we should check the stairwell, and this is what I we found:

A water feature!

We used all the towels we could find and then used old blankets, rung them out, and used them again until Bryan and Brett got home.  Despite me telling him not to, Bryan went out in the storm and cleaned more gutters out!

That weekend, we had new flooring put in the old house and Bryan's parents came to help us clean up the yards and shampoo carpets in both houses.  The floorer damaged our freshly painted walls.  We had no time to wait for the company to come back to fix it.  Bryan's parents stayed an extra day to homeschool Brett so I could clean and repair walls. The last step was staging, which we hired done and we managed to make our goal of listing on May 19th.

May 19th was going to be the last track meet.  Brett and I went up to the hosting school and were looking for the field and Bryan was shortly behind us. Reggie and Lydia were on the field ready for the meet to begin.  Another storm blew in and this one brought heavy, large hail!  Reggie and Lydia scrambled to their bus for cover, Brett and I were stuck in the van in the parking lot, and Bryan was only able to pull over. We were pummeled with hail for several minutes.  It was so loud!  they canceled the meet and after some confusion Reggie and Lydia found us.  When we got home, there was still hail on our deck.

But no water in the basement...

winter blast and covid strikes again

I can appreciate Dr. Osterholm and his depiction of Omicron's "blizzard" effects.  Being from the north, we know when a blizzard blows through everything comes to a screeching halt.  'Twas the case with Omicron in January.  Post winter break, so many people had covid that it was hard to do any business as usual.  

Being the directors of our youth wrestling club gave us a glimpse of the challenges business owners are facing.  Half of our coaches had covid and one couldn't get off work due to short staffing there.  Many kids were out, too.  We managed to keep practices going, though one week we had to divide the group in half and have each half come on separate nights.  That week, we had one legitimate coach, Bryan, Reggie, and myself holding the practices!

Our church moved it's youth services online.  The Sunday services continued to be offered in-person and online, so we elected to do online during the highest peak of this wave.  

For the last year, testing has been very accessible for us, and that became extremely difficult.  We couldn't walk-in, we had to have appointments, and the community testing sites were booked out for days.  Therefore, Brett went to doing virtual speech therapy because their protocols require a negative test if there are any exposures within the household.  Later in the surge, we were able to get rapid tests from Amazon and now we have a good supply in our medicine cabinet.

The hardest part was having Reggie and Lydia go back to distance learning.  This makes three years in a row that their schooling has been directly disrupted by covid.  Our district keep most of the primary schools going, but all secondary schools went online.  Fortunately, it was temporary, and they have been back in-person for a couple of weeks now.

And yet we have managed to stay healthy.  I'm really quite surprised by this since all through this surge in cases, Reggie continued to wrestle four practices and at least one tournament a week.

Bryan had post-season tickets to the Packers game, and I needed a break from wrestling and feeling closed in from covid-related shut-downs.  So the kids and I did some "glamping" at a winter resort up north.

We stayed in an RV camper cabin.  Which is just like what it sounds. It was basically a camper cabin but had a bathroom with shower and kitchenette.  

The resort had a small ski hill and a tubing hill.  We stuck to the tubing hill.  It was also very close to one of our favorite state parks.  

I had to drive through snow on the way up, and it was very cold.  We had to keep space heaters running so the pipes wouldn't freeze, and the shower never did warm up.  We were able to watch the disappointing Packer game in our camper cabin. It was well below zero on the last day, so I was relieved to get the car running after sitting out in subzero temps overnight.   Sounds like fun, huh?

It was.