our most expensive spring break trip ever

March was a lot of wrestling, so I will cover that in a separate post.

Besides wrestling - or should I say - alongside wrestling, we had spring break. 

We started out with Bryan and Reggie going to the high school state wrestling tournament to cheer on some friends.  Brett, Lydia, and I went to the science museum. Same parking garage!

Next was the Frozen 5K, which is becoming our fundraiser tradition that we do for Special Olympics with our friend Bonnie.  Together, we raised over $1400!

We had a nice little ice shower the night before and it was 33 degrees when we started out.  Fortunately, it didn't rain during the event as forecasted, but the path was still a bit slick.

Reggie and Lydia jogged it and finished in just over a half hour.  The rest of us walked.

We checked out a remote control car hobby shop where you can rent RC cars by the battery life and drive them on their indoor track.  It was a lot of fun!

We also went to an indoor entertainment center that has laser lag, ninja course, arcade, and mini golf.

Lydia's guinea pig turned two.  Didn't Lydia do a great job on the cake?  After a proper serenade, we ate the cake and gave Violet a carrot and a pepper!

Lydia also went to her first real concert - Toby Mac - with her friend, Abigail.

So, how was this such an expensive spring break? Well, on Tuesday, the five of us took a drive seven miles south and bought a new house!  The stories are true; the market is CRAZY! But our current school district just isn't cutting it.  All of the kids would have to change schools next year anyway.  They are closing Reggie and Lydia's middle school at the end of this school year, and Brett will be starting high school in the fall.  So, now was the time to make the big move - seven miles south! ; ) 

(Reggie keeps joking that it will be warmer when we move south.)

We move in a month so I should really be packing or painting right now...

homeschool week, history fair, and high hopes

February was met with much less disruption due to Covid and we had some great highlights. 

Next year we plan to enroll Brett in the public high school full time.  We're both a little burnt out on homeschool.  I found out the Mall of America was having a "homeschool week", offering discounts on many activities.  I looked ahead at our goals for the year and decided we could afford a week off from curriculum, so we did field trips every day.  On Monday, we went to the Mall of America to do mini golf and Fly Over America.  Brett had done Fly Over America before, but it was my first time, and I fully enjoyed it!

Tuesday, we did an extended day at his gym. On Wednesday we went to the science museum and omnitheater. 

On Thursday, we "volunteered" as "fans in the stands" at the Special Olympics Unified Basketball State Tournament.  We had a blast cheering on six Unified high school teams compete!  Brett loved the half-time show with Crunch the Wolf and he even caught a Timberwolves t-shirt!

Friday was the most anticipated day.  My brother and his family came up from Iowa and we went to Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America together!  They are homeschoolers, too.  They spent the weekend in the Cities and spent time with their college student, Taylor.

Lydia has been working for months on her history project for school.  She chose to research Brown vs. The Board of Education.  At the history fair, each student did a fifteen minute interview with a judge.  She did a great job, and deserved an ice cream treat!

February was a big month for wrestling for Reggie.  He competed at an open tournament that attracts some of the toughest wrestlers from MN and surrounding states and placed 4th.  He also competed at a MNUSA regional qualifier and placed 1st, which means he will be going to MNUSA State in a few weeks.  He is on the younger end of 14U, so this was definitely part inner beast and part luck!

We had two fresh snowfalls last week.  It was so cold, too!  It felt more like January.  But it warmed up over the weekend and the kids finally had a great day to build a snow castle for the city contest!

five "insider" reasons to love Special Olympics

1. It provides a competitive and supportive opportunity for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) to participate in sports.  There is a desire to win in all of us, and the Special Olympics has mastered the harmony between competition and celebrating all abilities.

2. We have three kids in sports and have encountered some pretty toxic situations.  Special Olympics has always - every time - been a positive experience where Brett felt empowered.

3. Special Olympics goes beyond sports competition to foster overall wellness.  Special Olympics offers fitness programs, education, and health screenings (vision, hearing, dentistry, general physical, and podiatry), to athletes who often have compromised access to health care.

4. Special Olympics champions the cause of inclusion. One way Special Olympics accomplishes this is through their Unified Champion Schools program. Using sport as it’s vehicle, Unified Champion Schools create a culture where students with disabilities are welcome participants and included in meaningful ways in all aspects of their school community.

5. Special Olympics provides community for families experiencing a unique world of challenges.  What started out as giving Brett an opportunity to play basketball in 4th grade became much more.  It’s not only been an avenue for networking, but also a place to work through all the feelings of being a parent (and sibling, too!) of a child with an ID.

Pass, Punt, Kick - Fall 2021

2018

2018

2018

Special Olympics Summer Games - June, 2019

Fall 2019

Gold Medal for Track, Summer Games, 2019

Frozen 5K Fundraiser, Spring 2021

As I'm looking through these older pictures and remembering all the fun opportunities we've had with Special Olympics, especial prior to Covid, I have to mention a bonus reason why we love Special Olympics.  Brett loves mascots and special events and with SOMN he has met Victor (Vikings) and played football with Vikings players, had a photo op with Chick-Fil-A's cow mascot, the Harlem Globetrotters, and more!  These are such special moments for him!

We are getting ready to do our Frozen 5K Fundraiser again this spring.  Here are the links if you would like to donate to this wonderful organization: 

Brett

Lydia

Reggie

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.