Nov
2021

We’re so proud of Emelia!

I’ve decided I am going to join the High School Wrestling team!

He said

There is no greater feeling as a parent than seeing your child proud and excited about something they did. That was one of the highlights this week for sure! Our family message thread lit up with a note from Emelia at noon on Monday proudly sharing her mark in Math (which is currently sitting at 93.4%!) And, as much as it is a fantastic mark – better than I ever did – it was how proud she was of herself. Math was one the subjects she has always had a hard time with. Thankfully Jenna, one of Emelia’s coaches for Gymnastics was in school to be a teacher, and she started tutoring Emelia in Grade 6. She really is loving Math, her teacher and the success she is having. And we couldn’t be prouder of her.

The other pieces of high school life this week is Emelia has decided that she wants to join the High School Wrestling Team. She was initially going to tryout for Volleyball, but apparently the team is very hard to make as there are many kids who play for city clubs vying for spots. So, Wrestling it is! But the other thing is Emelia has decided she’d like to take part in Exchange Program they have at school. With locations like France, Italy and Spain, I can’t blame her. On the top of her list is France. There obviously a lot more planning and discussion about this, and her parents are going to have to put their fears aside, and focus on what an opportunity of a lifetime this will be for her. And I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t impressed by her courage to want to do something that big.

On the topic of me and my cycling, one of the big goals I had this year of course was doing the End to End (E2E) ride of the G2G Rail Trail. But, the other smaller goal was to beat the latest ride I did last year which was November 20th. I have been slowly adding cold weather gear to my kit arsenal which has really helped with November rides. I have a rain-jacket/windbreaker, thermal base layer tops and bottoms, and rain pants. So Saturday was the 20th and while last year the ride temperature was 15ºC compared to the chilly 2ºC I was heading out in, I blasted through a ride to match my latest ride last year. Well today – a day off work – I was able to spin right past last year’s feat, warm and dry at 0ºC! And the best part is the weather this week looks like I will have a few more days to add, too! The stretch goal is I am hoping to get in at least one outdoor ride in December!

According to Strava, I have ridden 5,063 kms which might actually be less as I don’t think I have logged every single km in there. Still if it is accurate, pretty damn impressive! I didn’t start riding with any goals in mind for distance and weight loss, and yet they have happened well beyond any idea I might have had for goals. What I did start for was to rekindle a love I have had for biking since I was a kid, and do something that just gave me the mental reset I needed while wading through a two-year (and still going) global pandemic. It has given me that and then some! While the rides may move inside for the winter, I can’t see me stopping this Every Damn Day streak I have had going for almost two years!

She said

This week like we thought was a bit quieter in our world, thankfully it was because I have been battling my first cold in over 2 years. I haven’t been sick in over 2 years and that is the one thing I didn’t miss from the pandemic. So with this cold kicking my ass I was glad we didn’t have too much on our family agenda this week.

But saying we had a quiet week means that something had to sideline things. This week was Doug’s health. He gave us another scare, we are happy to say he is home and doing better but he does like to keep us on our toes all the time. The Doctor’s finally had enough trying to adjust the Lasix levels and he had a pacemaker surgically installed on Thursday. He was back home with Helen on Friday and recovering very well! Sadly, my cold kept us away from our visit today but we are happy that he is home doing well.

This week we also had some great news from Emelia. First was her grades, we are blown away with how well she is adjusting to high school. From a child who is supposed to have some accommodations for school she isn’t using any of them, actually refuses them because in her proud and stubborn way she knows that life won’t always accommodate her and she will need to learn how to stand on her own. She has really made her own way, come far out of a deep shell and overcome so much over the last year. From a child who was crushed with anxiety earlier this year to be killing it in school, she is making friends, going far out of her comfort zone and making her own way.

A few years – hell, even a year ago – I couldnt imagine Emelia talking about going on a school team knowing no one, knowing nothing about the sport to try something completely different. She has found out that some of the girls on her cheer team are also on the wrestling team but she didn’t know that going in. Then there was Friday, she messaged her dad and I asking what our feeling was about her doing a three week school exchange to France. France! Our shy daughter! Of course we said we would talk about it, this is the experience of a lifetime!

That was our week, never dull and always changing!

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