I got to go to a wedding my friends Olivia & Kathleen. It was so much fun!
He said
This week in terms of our normal schedule was one of the lightest we’ve had in recent memory. There was no 4 nights a week after school track & field practice. There was no ballet or lyrical dance on Tuesday night. There was no 2 mornings a week before school basketball. There was just gymnastics. (Now, mind you that gymnastics was still 12 hours of practice). It was a week, I am sure Danielle – as she is the taxi/planner/organizer for most of this – finally got to have somewhat of a breather after her daycare day winded down.
Last Sunday, we rushed back to storage in order to drop the trailer off for the service work and some additional things we wanted added that we mentioned last week in the blog. One of the exciting (to us) things we have discovered since is that the Arvika bike rack we bought from our friends Michael & Paulette that only holds 2 of our bikes can be upgraded with a simple kit so that it will hold all 3 of our bikes! That helps us a ton as Danielle & my bike goes on the rack and we put Emelia’s in the back of the pickup. With getting all 3 bikes on the rack gives us back the bed in the pickup as additional storage!
The other big news for me this week was I made some upgrades to my editing suite for our Bonne Fires channel filming. Two years ago I had bought the iPad Pro and ended up completely going with that over my 27″ iMac for doing everything. Last October, we introduced a significantly upgraded version of it and enough so that I had been working on a way that the upgrade costs made sense. Well this week I was able to sell my first iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard plus protective case for enough to make the cost of upgrading to the new iPad Pro make sense. And as I type this on the new rig, and have already done some video editing testing, I am delighted with speed and new features.
Lastly this week, we ended with a wedding for friends of ours. Through camping, ironically enough, our friends Justin & Stephanie introduced us to friends they met camping who just so happened to be from my home town growing up. Tina actually went to the church we did as kids and sang in choir with my parents. But Fernando’s brother actually married one of Danielle’s high school friends to boot. Their son Brandon was getting married this weekend, and we got invited. It was a wonderful service despite being outdoors and sandwiched with some severe thunderstorms. But the biggest delight was watching Emelia on the verge of teenager-hood, dressed up looking beautiful, and for her first time taking to the dance floor with her camping/gymnastics buddies.
She looked so grown up and I caught myself with this big, stupid grin as I got to witness her metamorphosis from tween to teen and seeing what a remarkable little lady she is becoming. She’s smart, funny, caring & stubborn, and I am blown away at the personality she is creating. I thought I would hit this moments of her growing up with a wistfulness steeped in the loss of the baby girl we had, but truthfully every new stage she embarks on is just such a wonder to be part of and witness. What I’ve found is that is much as it is sad to say goodbye to the stage before, every new one makes me love her even more.
She said
This week was a much lighter week activity wise. So, I decided for fun to catch the cold and low grade version of the virus the daycare kids were battling the week before. I spent the better part of this week trying to get on the other side of the bug. It took a beating on me but with a slightly lighter week I was able to get a bit of downtime to get some rest and recoup. With the lighter schedule it let Emelia have a lot of downtime in the evenings which meant time with her friends. It was the perfect balance to let her just have a blast being a kid.
Gymnastics is still in full swing and Emelia is loving that they are already chatting about and planning for next season in Level 6 Prep. The girls are already planning their routines for next season. This is why Emelia was so excited for Level 6 Prep – they get to create their own custom routines where they can build on their strengths and show off their strongest skills. Emelia is loving it!
The week seemed to fly by in an instant and before we knew it the weekend was here. Emelia had been so excited for this weekend since we told her about it months ago. This weekend was the wedding of Brandon & Olivia – the son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law of our good friends Tina & Fern. We met Tina & Fern through our friends Stephanie & Justin and have been camping friends since. We were overjoyed that we were invited to their son’s wedding. What made it even better was the fact that Emelia’s gymnastics besties were there. Emelia, Olivia and Kathleen first became friends back when Emelia joined the competitive team at the gym in pre-elite. The girls were on the same team for 2 years but have stayed very close friends ever since. We love spending time with them and their families.
The wedding was so much fun and the girls had an absolute blast, it is amazing as Emelia’s parents to see her in her element, with her close friends just being herself. The girls danced the night away, this will be a night that they will all remember for a long time.