Libby's First Tournament

 Libby had her first tournament yesterday.  It was in Raymond--pretty far away.  So I entrusted Derek and Track Wrestling to keep me updated.  Track was more reliable.  Haha.  Derek was supposed to film, but that didn't happen.  So here's the bracket.

Libby had to wrestle in the 115-120 weight class, there was no one lighter for her to wrestle.  As the top seeded wrestler in the bracket, she had a bye until the semi final round.  She won that one (pinned the girl in just over a minute), and lost her first match in the finals.  So, 2nd place.  It's great.  I'm glad she's lost one.  Gives her more motivation to work hard.  She lost to a girl with much more experience, and she didn't get pinned!  I'm looking forward to a fun (stressful for me) post season.  I was a mess all afternoon waiting for that final match to happen.  

Libby made a little friend. 

On the podium. 

  

Happy Birthday to ME!

 I went to blog and thought, oh, I blogged about my birthday last week, right?  Oops, no.  Because it was just on Wednesday.  Feels like forever ago.

My birthday started with Derek taking Libby to seminary so I could sleep in a bit.  Then my class serenaded me when I opened the classroom door.  It was super cute.  I even got a couple of sweet birthday gifts (a special birthday Pokemon card was one of them!). Derek brought me Thai food at school for lunch.  (I sneak him into my classroom.)  After school Libby had a scramble in Duvall--so we drove the hour out there to see it.  Maren gave me a puzzle table!!  I'm super excited. 

Libby won both her matches--a great gift to me.  And then we went out for Mexican food.  It was a great day.

Second match

First match

Brion slept all of the next day after the match and dinner.  But we are so glad he could come! 

Anyway, 45 sounds really really old.  Really.  (Doesn't help that Maren keeps reminding me how OLD I am...haha.)  Here's to another year! 

This Week's Selfies...

Scroll down for the best 2... 

This is me showing how sad Buddy is that he didn't get invited to Spaghetti's 2nd birthday.  So Maren invited us :). And Buddy loved the Barkory cake.  

And, when you get your first, medal, you bite it? I guess? 

Selfies of the Week

 I don't know if this will become a standard feature on the blog, but as I look through the pictures of the week to decide what to write about, I am always amazed by the photo shoots that Libby puts on in her "spare" (aka when she should be sleeping usually) time.  I'm sure I would have done the same if I had had a smart phone.  Here are some of the gems from this week.

Okay, so this one is me...whenever she leaves her phone around, I take a selfie and make it her wallpaper.  I think I'm hilarious.  Not sure if she does. Also, my selfie game is very bad. 

Wrestling in Full Swing!

 We are back to wrestling.  Pretty much.  There have been more cancellations and swaps in the schedule than ever before.  But there is wrestling going on.  It's a year with a lot of young talent for SW, read--we are young suffering many losses.  But we do have a few experienced wrestlers too.  

Libby has had 2 chances to wrestle since I last blogged.  And she is now 6-0 on the season.  She had to work quite a bit harder in the last two matches, one even went to the 3rd period.  But she won.  It's so stressful to watch as a mom.  Wow.  But she's really enjoying herself.  She was sad that the tournament yesterday ended up not having a girls' bracket because one team with 12 girls had to pull out due to COVID.  

Normally I'm on a trip for my birthday this weekend, but we had to cancel.  The JET trip (Jen, Emmi & Trish) is postponed because Emmi was mid move to Guam when we needed to be planning--and now Jen has some other obligations, so we might not get a trip in this year.   Happily, last year I added another birthday trip, so I was going to go to see Whitney with Maren.  But Maren had a trial coming up that was going to start this week.  And Libby had a drill comp originally scheduled for this weekend.  (Yes, Libby had 2 things cancelled this weekend.) So we cancelled that trip to AR as well.  I am enjoying the chance to stay home and get things done.  I need to get lots of work done in the next month because I'm going to have my hip worked on again (another arthroscopic hip surgery) in Feb.

Ben is also wrestling with Rhinos.  He can only go one day a week, and not a single tournament worked out in our schedule.  But he'll have some good experience going into next year when he can wrestle for Derek. 

I also went to the boys' match on Thursday (see how wrestling season is now so complicated?).  Derek is so funny when he's coaching.  The best line was, "Grab his leg...yes, the leg that is literally touching your face..."  It's much easier to hear with the tiny crowds that are coming out to matches.  haha. 

Sarah was sort of helping out as a manager, but she had to walk from the Middle School to the High School because there was no room on a bus for her.  So that has petered out.

Love this intensity! 

Ben drilling at a rhinos practice.  He's got a good little partner.  

SW hosted their first ever girls scramble.  Ben and his buddies (our neighbors) Juliet and Maddie were towel tappers.  

Libby and Izzy.  

In full gear. Embarrassed I'm taking her picture. 

Funny that I took Sarah and Libby to Target on Friday night.  She wore a red shirt and twice was mistaken for a Target employee.  She's getting so grown up! 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

The Christmas Eve Nativity Cast--smaller than in past years.  But merry nonetheless. 

I didn't make a program this year, because Brion wanted to do the nativity from his scriptures.  But we had 2 numbers, Ann singing something in Swahili along with a YouTube video, and Ben singing his Covid 12 days of Christmas.  Then Libby played Mary and Sarah played Joseph.  We roped in a few other characters --Ben as angel and Geneva as sheep.  Derek even went and costumed on his own.  He was the wise man.  

O Holy Night, with lots of "missing the Hardies" tears from Libby. 

Cast photo using photo timer.  Not a great angle, but we are all there. 

The grammy jammies were a big hit this year.  Libby had been wanting these when the boosters sold them and I said no.  Haha.  Surprise! Derek had to work on Christmas morning, so Santa managed to come while the kids were off with Grammy getting their jammies.  As requested by Ben, he did leave a scavenger hunt to their special gift--Hantens like Dad's. (A Japanese house jacket--like a quilt you can wear.  They are great!)

Sarah in Hanten.  She sort of got short changed somehow.  Not as many gifts as the others.  So I took her shopping during the week.  She got a leather jacket and the vans she's been wanting.  Christmas is tough! 

Buddy was pleased with all his gifts.  It was a good that I overbought, because I gave one to Spaghetti and one to Ellie, the neighbor's dog.  Buddy's been growing, losing his baby teeth, and is upgrading to a bigger crate tomorrow.  We also got him an outdoor dog house that we haven't put together yet. 

We did Christmas morning & waffles at Maren's. 

Derek took Ben & Sarah out for some Christmas Eve Christmas shopping.  This was one of Ben's wrapping jobs.  Haha. 

My favorite gift for Derek. 

And then, on the 26th--SNOW! 

It was very snowy all week.  I'm glad the roads were still pretty okay (and Derek has 4 wheel drive) so we could still get around, even in the worst of it.). I hate taking Buddy on walks in the snow. He's so distracted and sniffing everything.  But it's supposed to melt off today.  (I'm hoping for a late start tomorrow.) 

We only have one pair of snow pants for grown ups, so Libby went out with Maren & Ben.  I went out earlier with Ben and my sit bones are still sore from trying a run in the parking lot.  It was fine for Ben and not me! Ouch.  

The rest of the break (before & after Christmas) we had fun in mostly our own ways.  Ben on Fortite, Sarah watching Vampire Diaries, and Libby with friends, or playing Valerant (sp?).  I did puzzles.  Derek worked and napped.  We did go to Spiderman, No Way Home.  It was pretty good.  But Derek left the Yukon unlocked (as he always does, to avoid a window breaking) and his wrestling scale got stolen.  Yikes.  It's a pretty big deal--he'll have to get a new scale and get it certified.   We also spent a night with the Maple Valley Fehlbergs.  Super fun.  We just love them!  

New Year's Eve was fun and games.  And sub par fondue! 

Me getting overconfident that I remembered how to do fountain fondue.  I didn't. 

And me adding a little too much apple juice to the cheese.  I need a redo on the fondue.  Maybe for my birthday. 

Uno Dare (I won!) and the paper slips game helped Maren forget a little about the tragic 
Michigan loss happening.  

The girls got all dressed up for "Midnight" aka 9:00 pm. 

Maren couldn't find poppers this year, so we got full on confetti cannons!  It was a lot of clean up, but really fun. 

The silly string was less fun for cleanup. 

Cheers to a New Year! 

And cheers to team cleanup. 

The next day Buddy found a leftover blower.  Happy New Year! 

I didn't got to the spa.  Instead, I finished taking down Christmas and set my goals at home.  Then, I headed to Maren's.  New Year's Day at Maren's was very small.  The kids played some football in the park. Yes, seriously, still all that snow. 

Buddy also had his first obedience class, sort of.  Somehow my online registration hadn't gone through.  And Buddy tried to up out of the van while the door was opening and got his head caught in the door mechanism.  I was panicking and shouting for help and desperately trying to get the door to close so I could get his head unstuck. It was horrifying.  But once the door started closing, he was able to slip out. He seemed unfazed (except for not wanting to get back in or out of the van.). We did a partial little class while they got us officially signed up.  So, get ready for him to become one super obedient dog--hopefully.