Our school raised $140,600 for Relay for Life and our school was the highest in all of Southwestern Ontario!

He said

After missing softball all last week, Emelia was back at it this week with two games—one on Monday, and the second on Tuesday. The good news is I was off Monday and could go see her play. The even better news was Emelia’s uncles Matthew and Shawn surprised her and came out to watch her play too! While it was clear pretty quick that they weren’t going to have the same fortune they did in games one and two which were both decisive wins, Emelia was still having fun.  We were seated near their bench and we could hear her pretty much the whole game. She joined last year with the twins, and even though they weren’t returning we were surprised to learn she still wanted to do softball. Well, it’s been an absolute delight to see her come out of her shell and do something just for herself. There are friends from Lucas on the team, but she’s also made her impact with new friends this year too. It’s so amazing to see her be comfortable in her own skin as it were. And while they didn’t win this one, the coach who gives out three stars every game gave Emelia second star for her tag at second and throw to get another out.

This week was also a lot of the fruition of planning and fundraising for Relay For Life for Emelia at Lucas on Friday. Emelia and her friends set lofty goals for themselves and Emelia was no exception. The charity event has run for years and it is to raise money in the fight for a cure for cancer. The girls were working on the shirts and fundraising all this week. On Wednesday and Thursday they worked on making their team’s shirts for the big event at their school on Friday. Historically, her high school Lucas has taken this even very seriously and their school pride shows through. With the last few years of COVID, the event was on hiatus, but this year it was finally back and Emelia & her friends were very excited to be on board. Emelia’s team ended up raising $1800 and of that Emelia raised $800 of that on her own. We’re so proud of her! And by all accounts from the Lucas social media posts, they had an absolute blast with the event. Their school raised the most money in all of Southwestern Ontario!

This weekend for me was a surprise, extra event on my bike race schedule. When it worked out a few weeks ago that I could have this Sunday off and with a local bike race I wanted to try in our ‘backyard’ in the Forest City Cycling Challenge, I signed up for the 50km race. It would be an opportunity for me to add another race number plate to my growing collection, but also the opportunity to ride in much drier and a ‘zero mud’ race—see the epic Paris to Ancaster race a little over a month ago. And this race did not disappoint. It was 100% a road course which made it a lot easier to manage. The weather was stellar (aside from the 35+ km/h  headwinds for the return home), and I managed to latch on with a couple of well-skilled women who had plenty of crit, road racing and Triathlon experience and they absorbed me into their pace-line. I ended up finishing the 54km course in 2 hours and had an average speed of 28km/h and a top end of 50km/h! After the race I collected with my friends Steve & Paul who I started with, and enjoyed the post race food and beer over a lot of laughs! I will definitely be looking for this one again next year.

Lastly and still on the topic of races and bike events, I have two big ones on the radar ahead. In the middle of July I am going to be able to do Reggie Ramble a race that has been on my want to do list for a couple of years. And then at the end of July I am going to be returning to the MS Bike Ride (London to Grand Bend). I am excited to do both of these—as they like the last two will be a gravel course followed by more traditional road course. Last year the MS Ride was cut short because of the weather, I am really hoping that doesn’t happen again. And the Reggie race being a gravel one, I already know will go rain or shine just like Paris to Ancaster. But what I am happiest about is my goal this year was to be able to do the same amount of events I did as last year, but on the pace I am on now, I may actually be able to beat that! And worse case scenario is I match, and still have a lot of fun!

She said

One week I will say we had a quiet week I’m sure but this past week was another insanely busy one especially for Emelia. Not only did she have two softball games and a few shifts at work she had a lot of work to prepare for the big event of the week which was the Relay for Life. This event is a HUGE event at Lucas, the school goes all out and always set lofty goals for how much they will raise. This year was no different. They set a high goal of $125,000 and were blown away that they not only hit that goal they blew it out of the water. In the end they raised $141,600 which put them at the top fund raising school in all of Southwestern Ontario.

The event was an incredible 8 hour event, the kids braved extreme heat and even a power outage. They – by all accounts – had an incredible and meaningful day. There were lots of stories shared and memories made. The school had a Instagram page for the event and posted lots of photos and vidoes of the day and we were thrilled to see so many of Emelia and her friends features.

Once we got through all the craziness of the week and moved into the weekend Emelia continued to be very busy as well as John but I did manage to escape the city with a coworker I have become good friends came with me to the trailer for the night. We had an absolute blast and it was the perfect remedy for my friend who has had a very stressful few months so having a night that we could escape the city and just hang out was exactly what she needed.

Next week again is proving to be an even busier week for Emelia, she starts back to cheer training, has a softball tournament next weekend, a rugby event on Saturday night and a training day for cheer. She really never seems to stop. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.