I had my first week of Grade Ten and got to see all my friends.

He said

This weekend was one I have been waiting for, for a while. It was the final event of my racing season in the County Gran Fondo down in beautiful Prince Edward County. I decided on going in the CORTO FONDO – 50km. The other options were 100km and 150Km and while I am certain I could have done those distances and have in the past, the 45-50km distance is really is my sweet spot and what I really enjoy. Up to this weekend, in the few times I have done that distance, I have been around the 2 hour, 5 minute mark at best. So the goal was to get closer to 2 hours. And have fun.

But the other part of this weekend was something I had not mentioned because it was a bit of a surprise. My friend Jim, just so happened to be playing an intimate house concert, pool side in the backyard of another mutual friend of ours, and an amazing artist, Stew Jones. And the show was Friday night. With the race going at 8:30am Saturday, I was already resigned to being down to The County Friday evening. But, Stew graciously offered up his vintage Boler in his backyard as my ‘AirBnFree’ to sleep in for the night. So the surprise visit was etched in stone and my first in-person concert post COVID was going to be with one of my nearest & dearest friends… It was surprisingly perfect.

So Friday, early afternoon I was off to Prince Edward County excited about a jam-packed 24 hours. Sure it was a 4 hour drive down and then back the next day, but it was SO worth it. I made great time getting down and there I was in Stew’s backyard sitting front row, pool side as Jim was taking the stage. The look on his face was priceless, which he later told me he thought that maybe I told him I was going to be there and he forgot. At any rate the show was amazing—Stew has an amazing backyard and the wonderful, late summer evening couldn’t have had better weather. We were treated to a moonrise over the backyard and a magical night of music and banter and then retired post-show to the fire pit to catch up. Before we knew it, it was 1:30am and just Jim, Stew and I shooting the shit at the firepit. Given I had a 6:45am alarm, sadly the night came to an end.

Bright and early and treated to an amazing sunrise on my way to check in at the race start. The other great thing about this weekend was a virtual cycling friend better known as The Cardiac Cyclist, was going to be racing in the same distance with me! I was excited to finally meet someone with similar cycling passion. We actually had met the night before when getting signed in for the race, but our plan was to start together and ride the race together. And that is the one thing that I’ve really gained this year having done some events is meeting people with similar passions and craziness around this sport. Not long after getting ready we also met Milos from Toronto and quickly bonded and he joined our paring.

Initially the intent was to all ride together for the entire race. I certainly had no delusions of winning and just wanted to have fun. About a third of the way in Andrew (The Cardiac Cyclist) let Milos & I know that he was having trouble finding his rhythm and he happily encouraged us to push on at our speed. So we did around the half way point. Milos a good rider, held great conversation and was super willing to let me tag on his draft at times. Towards the end we had a younger lady join our group and even pull out front of us hard which caused Milos & I to have pull harder too. It was great, and now I understand the excitement and allure of racing. The last kilometre I worked as hard as I could, but I just couldn’t quite catch them and rolled in behind them.

When I crossed the line and stopped my rider tracker I was at 1 hour and 58 minutes! I had bettered my best 50 km time by 7 minutes, and was 3 minutes faster than my Paris to Ancaster race time with was only 43 km distance! But the best part is was when the results started going live I found I did a lot better than I had actually planned for or thought I’d do. I was sitting in the top 20 of all riders and in the top 5 for my age group. When the dust had settled and the results were finalized I ended up placing 15th of all riders, 3rd for my age group (50-59) and 12th overall for my gender. In a field of 133 riders, I am delighted with that result! Milos finished one ahead of me, 1st in his age group. But, honestly the best part was sitting down together, reunited with Andrew and reliving and laughing about the race. Suffice it to say I am hooked and will continue racing next year!

She said

This week was jammed packed from start to finish. The first big thing we had to take care of this week ahead of Emelia’s first day of school was a medical appointment for Emelia. About a year ago we were at a physiotherapist appointment and Andrea our thepaist noticed a lump on Emelia’s back about an inch beside her spine. We quickly got her into the doctor to get looked at, he made an appointment to get an ultrasound to assess it properly. The results came back and they were quite confident it was a cyst and nothing to be overly worried about. As the months went on the lump grew and started causing her pain from time to time. Off we went back to the doctor to discuss options. The final decision was to have it done at the doctor’s office by our family doctor in their procedure room. We found the best day possible to get it removed, post vacation and pre-school. So Tuesday Emelia and I were off to the doctors to get it removed. It took longer and was much bigger than he thought it would be from the last scan but after a bit of careful work he got the entire cyst and root out. Emelia has to go back on Tuesday to get the stitches removed, after another week of cheer tumbling/stunting training she will be back to herself. She took the whole proceedure like a champ, even with some pain she never complained, we are so proud of her.

With that ‘fun’ out of the way we could quickly shift gears back to preparing for school. This year for the first time ever the schools in our school board had a PD day the first day of school so the kids did not head back to school until Wednesday. Emelia was so excited to get back, she missed seeing many of her friends and was really looking forward to the classes she had this year. Much to her happiness she is in her first two classes with Anna and her third with Grace. The girls are over the moon excited about this. Emelia and Anna even get to share a locker this year. The first day of school went off without a hitch. The three girls were back together again and we are working our way back to our regular routine. The rest of the week went off well for school. The girls fell into routine quickly, and by all accounts they are loving their classes and their teachers.

Before we knew it we were at the weekend. And man what a full weekend it was. This entire weekend was all about her friends/family and birthday parties. We had John’s birthday earlier in the week, then we moved into a weekend full of birthday parties. The first being one of her close friends Olivia which was a surprise birthday party hosted by her boyfriend at his place. Emelia helped as much as she could with the prep for the party and from all accounts it was a great time and Olivia was completely surprised. After Olivia’s birthday we had two parties today – one for Emelia’s teammate Maeve and the second for our niece Zoe.

Tonight we spent the night with much of the family for the first time in 3 years to celebrate one of the kids birthdays and it was everything we all needed and had been missing. The entire night was amazing, lots of laughs and time with family! It was great to see the girls having an absolute blast and the family having a great time together. Spending this kind of time together has already made us all excited for Christmas this year so we can finally after 3 Christmases have a real Teeter family Christmas!

So needless to say this week was jammed packed, I would like to say next week will be a bit quieter but that never seems to happen. Emelia is back to a full cheer training schedule and she is moving full speed to job hunting now that she is settled back into school. Life is busy but we wouldn’t change a thing!