We had a gymnastics mock meet to get ready for Comp and I feel really good about everything!

He said

This week I crossed another significant milestone on the rower. Two days ago I moved past 400 kms on the rower since I started after Halloween. But, the other milestone I’ve crossed in the last week or so is 6 kms in 30 minutes. For the longest time I was hitting 5.8 and 5.9 kms but never quite getting past 6 kms. It wasn’t until I took the same breakdown approach I did to get beyond 5 kms and figured out the milestones I needed to hit in 5 minute increments and printed them out and hung them up on the wall I face when rowing. Every day since I have done that, I am successfully hitting above 6 kms. Being down 15 lbs since starting, and hitting the milestones has really been the fuel to keep at this every day, on the days where I need that extra motivation.

Saturday was the event on our calendar where we felt the camping season getting a lot closer: The London RV Show. We have had plans for some time going with the lot of our camping friends, then out for dinner and back to one of the families houses to hang out after. So the Teeter, Sherwood, Gliszczynski/Davison, Vilaranda, and Davidson clans all met up at the show to see what was new in the RV world. None of us were actively shopping for new trailers, but all were excited to meet a reality that camping season is getting much closer. After we’d covered the whole show we met up with Stephanie’s parents Roger and Jane who have a full-time site at Golden Pond at Chuck’s Roadhouse and had dinner together with plenty of laughter.After dinner it was over to the Sherwood’s house to have some drinks and munchies. It’s funny how our kids met through gymnastics and became great friends, but how we quickly found camping (and sometimes glamping) in all of our shared loves which made that a place to bring the families together around campfires as much as we meet on the sidelines of the gym mats. The girls get along famously and the friendships we’ve made will be ones that last a lifetime. It’s so much better that they love camping as much as we do.

This group represents such an interesting cross-section that while started from gymnastics included people that Steph and Justin introduced us too that are actually from my hometown in Tina and Fern and went to the same church as my family and Tina sang in the choir with my parents. Steph’s parents were the ones that introduced us to Golden Pond which has grown to be our home rink for camping trips close to home. While Kathleen’s parents don’t own a trailer, it’s not for not wanting to—they come camping when they can rent a cabin or there’s room in spare beds, but I would bet money in the next few years they’ll join the trailer-owning side. And the latest addition to the group is Ted and Holly who are friends of Steph and Justin who they met through gymnastics too. It’s such a fun group and it helps that it started with kids who became friends first.

Today being Family Day, we were able to spend the day together as neither Danielle and I had to work, and of course it meant no school for Emelia. With this day off and a couple of birthdays in the Teeter family to celebrate (including Emelia’s) we decided to get together at Mom and Dad’s to celebrate Amy, Emelia and Testza’s birthdays. We had dinner and lots of laughs and the girls got to be treated to usual boisterous version of Happy Birthday singing that four loud, pain in the butt kids can deliver. And Emelia got spoiled with shopping cash for her favourite stores.

She said

This week was a long one, Emelia had a whole lot of up and downs which made things even more challenging. The week started out with Emelia home for a couple strike days which meant she was able to be home giving me an extra set of hands with the kids but it did mean she was out of routine with the day to day with school. The big down for Emelia was a really difficult day with some of her close friends who set Emelia into a lot of tears and hurt feelings. It wasnt an easy week for her but we were very proud how she handled herself and how she was always coming to us when things are too much for her to handle on her own. It was a hard week but with the support of some amazing people in her life she came out feeling good about herself in spite of the week she had.

By the end of the week Emelia was more than ready for the weekend to get here. And it was a full weekend of lots of time with friends and family. Saturday Emelia was so excited to have a full day with her gymnastics besties and touring RVs at the RV show. I love seeing Emelia with Olivia and Kathleen, she is really herself with them, they are the most amazing kids—the three girls have each others backs no matter what. They really are amazing girls and we adore their families as well. The whole day the girls were off giggling on their own checking in with us from time to time. By the end of the RV show everyone was ready to get together for dinner and share lots of laughs. Before we knew it it was almost 1:00 in the morning and we needed to get our very tired girl to bed.

Sunday we had a lazy start of the day before we headed off to Emelia’s gymnastics training. Emelia’s first competition is quickly coming up so her coach had the girls do a mock meet. Emelia did really well, she has some small things to clean up but she is in great shape for competition. Based on their performance on the weekend Emelia scored the highest of her teammates overall and in three of the four events. She is happy and came out of training the happiest we had seen her in a while. She is more determined than ever to clean things up and be ready to hopefully have a strong competition and end of her gymnastics career. Emelia the forever perfectionist has made some big changes to her beam routine and some pretty big ones to her floor in the last week and she is finally happy. Now the next three weeks she can polish things up and hopefully have a clean competition.

Sunday wasn’t done yet, as soon as Emelia got home from training she quickly showered and we were off to Woodstock to cheer John and his co-workers in a friendly hockey game against the Apple store from Kitchener. Emelia loved seeing her daddy play, it was a great end to a pretty amazing day.

This morning we got up at a super lazy pace and took our day slowly to start out. We had a full afternoon in order with all the Teeter family to celebrate Emelia and Amy’s belated birthdays. As always time with family is exactly what Emelia needed. We had a blast and there were more memories made and lots of laughs. This weekend was exactly what Emelia and her parents needed. Reminders of everything good we have in our lives, family, friends and plans for the summer to come. Perfect way to celebrate Family Day weekend.