I have babysat all week and earned lots of money!
He said
Today officially marked the first day of spring however the weather this week, got the jump on that as we had unseasonably warm weather. In fact, so warm that Tuesday thru Friday & today this week I was able to move from indoor cycling in one spot to riding outside on my much beloved Thames Valley Parkway. Tuesday, I even managed to get in a 32km run – taking the north branch to the west branch out to Byron and back. This route is just 13km shy of the distance I will be going in for the Paris to Ancaster Race at the end of the next month. I rattled that distance without a problem. Soon, I will give the 40km big run I do on the TVP a go to test myself out. Loving that the weather has finally come around.
With Nationals coming up, Emelia’s team has set to work on the adjustments they want to make to the routine in order to place as best as they can. While they had the week of March Break off, they were back at practice today in full force getting the routine ready. They got their silver medals for their placement at the Ontario Championships and Emelia came out of practice wearing it and a big smile. She and the team should be really proud of the way they came back on the Sunday to put themselves in second place. And they medals they got are pretty damned nice to boot!
Emelia started her first real foray into the workforce this week with babysitting jobs lined up all week. About two months ago, Danielle had started putting out feelers in our neighbourhood Facebook group and before we knew it, Emelia had 5 families lined up. This week being March Break and us home, Emelia had 3 different jobs lined up. 2 of them were the new families, and the 3rd was one that she had helped last year with before school, getting the kids ready and off to school. Monday was the strangest day because the entire house was out the door and off to work by 8:30am.
By the end of her very full week, she was tired but had a lot of fun. One of the kids sent her home with crafts and gifts galore much to her laughter. And it was nice the one house I dropped her off at, the boy was waiting in the front window—jumping up & down and waving as we pulled up. She’s collecting and saving her money and feeling very grown up about it. The extension of that was this week she rode the bus to the mall to meet up with Olivia so they could hang out and spend the day together. I am not all the way ready for her to be this young woman, but I am pretty damned proud of her for doing so and finding some independence too!
She said
It was a very busy week this week, especially for Emelia. Much to Emelia’s dislike we have never gone away for March Break, we have always saved our vacation weeks for the summer so we can go camping. So, with most of her friends gone this week Emelia was in a bit bummed but we managed to fill her week. First was babysitting. She has met and lined up some great families and over the last 10 days she only had one day off from babysitting. She did great with little ones ranging from 4 months to 8 years old. All the kids adore her and she is really enjoying it. I’m sure the pile of cash she has from this week certainly helped.
Now I said most of her friends were away but thankfully one of her best friends was home so she and Olivia got to hang out for two days straight. They had a great time and it was fun for girls to get some one-on-one time together that had nothing to do with cheer training.
My week at work was busy as well, we have a big in-person event next weekend that I am on the team for so it means lots of planning and meetings. I am loving working with everyone and we are excited to have some future students visit the campus for a bigger event for the first time in 2 years. I even get to have Emelia with me (bonus is this counts towards her high school volunteer hours) for the day so she can see more what I do at work. Another great part of this week was I was finally able to walk to work much of this week. We loved that the big advantage of working at Western was how close we are to campus. The 2.5 km walk is a great way to start my work day and the same loop back. So on top of my 45 minute bike ride every morning I get a bonus 5 km walk in every day. It was so beautiful this week the walk was a welcome break from a long winter.
With the sun shining and getting warmer we know we are getting that much closer to camping season!