May
2017

Rain, rain, go away!

I had my gymnastics tryouts today for next year’s team. I’m glad they’re over, I was nervous.

He said

This week’s conversation seemed to be mostly soaked in hopes that the rain would let up. It started on Monday and felt like it rained more days than there actually are in a week. Of course there were times where it let up briefly, but for the most part, we had started to wonder if we had somehow been transported to Vancouver—given the weather we were getting. The added kicker to it all was the temperatures also turned a lot cooler too.

What really dominated the conversation this week was getting Wolfie ready to go for our first camping trip next weekend. When we found out my secret trip to Vancouver wasn’t going to happen thanks to a $1500 repair bill for the Mini, knowing that I had the weekend off, we made plans to make up for the lost trip. And what isn’t a better make-up plan than taking the trailer out for a weekend get-away to Pinery Provincial Park? It certainly took a lot of the sting out of it knowing I would be spending the weekend with my two ladies, a campfire and maybe a nice cold beer.

One of the more frustrating things about our beloved vintage trailer has been the failing stabilizer legs. One of them has a blown spring latch, and neither of them are the easiest to get positioned just right to help stabilize Wolfie—requiring a second car jack that came with the trailer in order to lift the back end bumper up enough to get these blasted legs in place. Often the ‘experience’ ends with me popping one – if not two – beers ahead of my planned pace, pinched and/or cut knuckles, and a metric assload of swears. As much as we love a lot of the quaint vintage features on Wolfie, these jacks are not something I have any romantical attachment to.

After scouring the various web and social media resources we have for vintage trailers, I had found that a lot of people with this same frustration, had changed their legs over to a much better system that had a threaded bolt that you can hand crank down into position with very precise ability to get each leg down to the specific and if necessary different spot you need it. They have 19 inches of travel which was easily 6 inches more than we had now. And the best news is we found a Canadian supplier online that had them on sale for almost half off! They arrived this week, and with the help of a friend of ours who can weld we will have them attached to the bumper and ready to go on Wednesday night after work. I am excited at how much time, beer and swears I will save now setting up camp with these new stabilizer legs.

With that out of the way, all that was really left this weekend was to get the trailer ready to go. That meant de-winterizing the plumbing, getting the Pilot’s winter tires out and into the truck. And then making sure everything else was where it needed to be and no other immediate fixes needed to happen. We got all that squared away with the rain finally stopping today and me having the day off as well as the lawn cut and other nagging yard work sidelined from all the rain. It felt good to know that aside the trip out to have the legs welded on, the next time we touch Wolfie will be to get ready for our first camping outing of the year.

The other big thing today was Emelia’s annual tryouts for gymnastics to decide their teams for the next year. Last year she moved from Pre-Competitive to Competitive Level 2. This year, we’re anticipating that she may move from Level 2 to 3 given how well she has done. That will potentially mean another night of gymnastics and more hours of practice. But for how much we’ve seen her come out of her shell and the confidence she has gained from this, there is no question in my mind that we will work to figure out the what more we need to do. It is the one thing she has that is truly her own, and I adore the person she has become because of it.

 

She said

You ever have weeks that felt like a month? Well that is what it feels like when you have a house full of hyper toddlers and record rainfall. It was a long week but we made the most of it and I was able to fill the week with lots of fun activities. All in all although long it was one filled with fun, crafts and fun new activities.

My focus on any off time from daycare and life around the house has been to build and learn my wellness business. I am really enjoying everything about it and love what value it brings to the people I am helping. I never thought I would find something as rewarding as daycare to help and work with people but I really have. I have had tremendous support from everyone around me and I am loving seeing this grow. Slowly but grow nonetheless. The learning is constant and I love that about working with natural health. A new discovery every single day. I am also so lucky that I have limitless support from my family, sometimes Emelia would like it to take a bit less of my time but I do everything to make sure I am working around her needs to assure we have this work/life balance we want.

Processed with Blackie

With the constant rain it made it hard to really prep for camping next weekend. Thankfully with John off today and the sun finally shining we were able to get the trailer ready for our first camping trip. I pulled everything out, re-organized, cleaned it from top to bottom inside and out. I have already started making a list of our restocking supplies and I can take care of that to-do list this week. All that is left is to meal plan, prep some food and pack our clothes. We are all but ready for a weekend around the campfire and in nature!

The last big event for this week was again gymnastics! Emelia had her annual tryout/assessment for the competitive gymnastics team. Each year they have to get re-assessed to determine which level they will be placed at next year. Emelia was in tough company this year as they are not only children born the same year and the year before her but it is girls from all different competitive levels.

You could see it was intimidating for her and even at a moment of emotional frustration she pulled herself together and went back at the tryouts and gave a strong assessment as far as we saw. She was with girls who are currently multiple levels ahead of her and she held her own. She is a strong, determined and willing gymnast—which is exactly  what they are looking for. I have stayed friends with one of Emelia’s former coaches and she said what they want to know is are they coachable, do they have the ability to learn the next level of tricks and are they able to take direction to learn. Something we are confident Emelia has. We are so proud of her no matter what we find out in a few weeks.

So this busy week is all but over so I am going to sign off and enjoy the last few hours of our weekend.

2 thoughts on “Rain, rain, go away!

  1. Getting ready for camping, huh kids? Well, we’re not going up to Vancouver either – couldn’t justify the cost for the short time there, but we are going away, to scout out our favourite camping spot in the Feather River Canyon, so I know if its accessible or not. Had record snow and rainfall over the winter, and I don’t even know if the site accessible or not! So we’ll check out the condition as we celebrate our fourth anniversary. Then, the following weekend, bring our RV, the famed Shaggin’ Wagon home to do much of what you’re doing! Camping!

    • That’s awesome!

      We’re able to go away again in June for the Father’s Day weekend too. Excited to get our clothes smelling of camping.

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