It's been a long time since I have posted. Life has felt like a highway lately, speeding by but I've at least gotten a glimpse of some beautiful scenary out the windows along the way.
School is flying by. Conferences are next week -- I feel like school just started. My class has its challenging days, but I am starting to love each kid for their individual querks and personalities. I have one kid who is the biggest suck up I've ever met -- he constantly tells me "nice glasses" or "nice hair" or "nice shoes". At least twice a day he will say "thanks for saying thanks" and we get in this never ending circle of "no, thank you". He drives me crazy but I look forward to his comments every day. I have a little guy that, EVERY single morning, asks me if he can read books out of the green bucket. Every morning I say 'of course' and he responds with "yes!" as if he thought I was going to say no. I've yet to figure out what's so special about the green bucket. My special ed kid that couldn't draw or write anything but circles has started writing random letters. I nearly cried when he showed me his writing on Tuesday -- I couldn't believe he made that much progress. I must be doing something right somewhere in the chaos and stress of the days that whiz past.
I am, once again, so proud of Chris. We packed up the car and headed down to Moab for a beautiful weekend in the desert. Forcast showed 70's for the whole weekend when I checked before leaving work on Thursday. Friday was beautiful.
Saturday morning we woke up to rain and it turned out to be a record setting "perfect storm" that cancelled his 24 hour race after just 9 hours.
He was hauling and doing better that I ever expected him to do. He felt awesome, looked awesome, and rode awesome despite the terrential downpour that was slowly washing out the trail, the campsite, and the road that was the only way out of the valley we were in.
As a crew we had Chris's dad, friends Scott and Melissa and Dave.
I didn't ever know that I could have such a good time standing out in the rain. From trying for a good solid hour to start a fire with wet wood and some USA Today to stringing up 4 tarps between the tent and two cars to only end up creating a six inch square of dry haven -- we had a blast.
I loved watching Chris roll in with a bike full of mud and then watching the boys try to "clean" it before his next lap. It was a muddy, mucky mess, but well worth the trip and Chris ended up in 16th-ish!
I know that with a longer race he would've done even better, but wow. 16th for a world-class race. Damn. The kid is awesome.
Funny thing, I was about to type what a wonderful dog Turbo is because he was all snuggled up on my legs in a pitiful attempt to get my lemonade, but then he made a big stretch and wacked me in the face with his paw, splitting open my lip. Great. Life gives you lemonade and your dog gives you a split lip. Thanks Turb.
Smile and laugh along the highway that your life takes you on. It is short. It is muddy. It can disapointingly cancel a race you've trained for all year after a few short hours. It gives you students that ask questions like "what if I don't listen to adults and get in the car with a stranger, what do I do then?" It can split your lip when you are thinking it is really cute. Life is funny -- laugh at it while you have a chance. I hope you have someone to smile with at the end of a hard day.
