Christian Turns 17!

 

Today is Christian's 17th birthday!! 

This past year he's taken some big steps:

1. He was on the THS swim team, his first-ever sport. As a freshman, he swam several varsity events and earned a letter... There might be a letter jacket in his future! 

 (He's a sophomore this year, and we're hoping he'll do swim team again in the spring!)

2. He got his first job and works at the Pioneer Museum in Paso Robles, and he loves it!

 Christian really loves music and is taking a digital music production class.

 He loves fitness and working out. He's taking a weightlifting class at school, and regularly goes to the gym with Jonathan. He's tallest and strongest member of our family!

It's crazy to look at this adult-size kid and realize that one year from today, he's going to be 18 years old.

 But for today and the next 364 days, we're going to celebrate his last year of childhood. 

 

The Infamous Mystery Spot

We ventured out to the infamous "Mystery Spot" in Santa Cruz - Jonathan's big dream! :)

Photos cannot capture how weird this place is - ha!!  The tour guides are so entertaining and really make this stop worth it!

The Mystery Spot is a tourist attraction near Santa Cruz, California, opened in 1939 by George Prather. Visitors experience demonstrations that appear to defy gravity, on the short but steep uphill walk and inside a wooden building on the site. It is a popular tourist attraction, and gained recognition as a roadside "gravity box" or "tilted house". 

For as skeptical as I was that this place has weird gravity, I have to admit that after a short time of being in the "house," I was feeling nauseous. I eventually had to step out.  A friend of mine visited a few weeks later and had the same experience.  

You can't really tell from the pictures, but when we are in the house, we are standing straight up ... but we're oddly at a big angle.  So weird!

Christian Letters in Swimming

We are so incredibly proud of Christian for his first swim season and earning a LETTER as a freshman!  At our school, if a student participates in at least one varsity athletic event, he gets a letter.  Easy to do on the swim team which is a small group, and they needed to pull Christian into varsity swimming events nearly every swim meet!

Swim team was definitely a challenge for Christian, as he'd never competed in a sport - ever!  But he persevered, learned a lot, made some friends and had a wonderful can-do attitude with his team (at home, there was lots of complaining, but ... well ... that's how it goes around here).

Christian says he won't do swim team next year, but we're hopeful that with time off from swimming for a few months, he'll be willing to give it another try.  The carrot we'll dangle is "If you do a second year of swim team, we'll get you a letter jacket for that letter!" :)

But for now ... on to SUMMER!

Christian's Graphic Design Projects 2023-2024

This year, Christian is taking Graphic Design I as a freshman, which is a dual-enrollment class with our local community college. 

Honestly, I wasn't sure how he'd do in a higher-level kind of class ... doing something he's never done before.  But he did a great job and held his own!

As the end of the school year approaches, the art department held a show displaying all the students' art projects over the year. Christian didn't even mention it to us ... fortunately his teacher made sure all the parents know because Christian had three projects on display!  

And unbeknownst to him, one of his projects - product packaging and photo - earned a 3rd place award!

So proud of Christian this year - wow!! 

 

Christian's First-Ever Swim Meet

We are so incredibly proud of Christian (16) for participating in his first-ever swim meet with Templeton High School today! In fact, this is the first time he's ever been in any kind of sport.

He swam in the:

50 meter freestyle, and

50 meter backstroke

One thing to work on: '

When doing freestyle, Christian only took ONE breath per lap. Whaaaaat??? How is that possible???

It has been a long few weeks (months to get to this point). I had been verbally told that for a student to get out of P.E. for 10th grade, they need to participate in two school sports between their freshman and sophomore year. So we enrolled both Christian and Scarlett in private swimming lessons starting in August so that 1) Christian could gear up for swim team in February and Scarlett could become a better, stronger swimmer.

The 9th grade P.E. coach is a bear and Christian was all gung-ho about swim team. He was doing great with lessons and his instructor said he was ready!

As February approached, Christian's anxiety kicked into full gear and he wasn't wanting to do swim team anymore and said we were pressuring him. We reminded him the whole reason for 5+ months of swimming lessons was to get him ready for swim team.

AND THEN ... we found out the requirements for skipping P.E. and not been explained to me accurately. So no matter what we did at this point, Christian would need to take P.E. next year in 10th grade.

But we moved forward with swim team.

It has been hard on Christian. Going from once a week lessons (shared with Scarlett) for half an hour versus practiced four days a week for 1.25+ hours day. He gets out of lessons and is like a zombie. He doesn't say anything ... and just stares at the ceiling of the car as we drive home.

He's been pretty grumpy and just plain unhappy. And each week, he'd say, "I'll give my decision next week about whether or not I'll stay on the swim team."

Unbeknownst to Christian, Jonathan and I were not going to let him quit. No way!

Thursday night was their first "pasta feed" carbo-loading event and a teammates house. I had been told the kids feel the pasta feeds are the best part of the swim team! Christian was reluctant, but he went! I had messaged the hosting mom ahead of time to explain a little about who Christian is and if she'd just keep an eye on him and quietly encourage him if he decides to be a wallflower.

I am happy to share that Christian had a good time (as you can see in the last picture posted here), and sat amongst the other boys. He's the only freshman boy on the team, so everybody else is older and was on the team last year.

So he conquered his fear of the pasta feed.

He conquered his fear of riding in the school van to the event.

He conquered his fear of the swim meet.

Our Christian is CONQUERING FEARS!! OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Farewell to Chloe the Boxer Pup

 Sometimes, hope, prayers, medicine and money aren't enough...

On December 15th, Chloe the Boxer Pup had her first of many "episodes" when she collapsed at routine veterinarian appointment.

The next few weeks were filled with increasing episodes for Chloe, a lot of concern and anxiety in our household, and sleepless nights as we watched Chloe like a hawk.

Because Chloe is a Boxer, the big assumption was a heart issue (which involved a visit to a canine cardiologist in Santa Barbara). But we felt she was actually having seizures, so we were given an RX for anti-seizure medication in mid-January.

The medication was working wonderfully, and her seizures stopped. We were filled with hope and relief.

However ...

Last night, Chloe wasn't acting like herself and her tummy was really distended, so we took her to the emergency vet again.

Unbeknownst to everybody involved, Chloe had a tumor on her spleen ... And it had ruptured, and was filling her stomach with blood.

A simple ultrasound told us what was wrong. But that ultrasound was too late.

We lost our beautiful, sweet Chloe last night. We are absolutely devastated.

So many big emotions over the course of 7 weeks, and a conclusion we just didn't expect because we thought she good because of the meds.

Chloe was our first Boxer and we loved her so very much. She was so snuggly and playful, and just wanted to be with her family ... All the time.  She will be missed tremendously. 

Mount Hermon Family Camp - Our Lodging

 For our first-ever visit to Mt. Hermon in the Santa Cruz mountains, we chose to stay in a nearby Airbnb cabin so we could take Chloe and avoid the $1,000 boarding fee the guy we use charges.  Yikes!

We would leave Chloe in her crate for a few hours and then drive over to Mt. Hermon for our activities and then return to Chloe.  It was nice to return to a quiet cabin and have a full-sized kitchen at our disposal.  Although, we would have loved to say in a room at Mount Hermon and be emersed in all the things 27/4.  Maybe next year!

While this spacious kitchen was awesome, it came with an undisclosed mouse problem.  Ugh!  Each morning we opened the cabinets to find mouse droppings on the plates. So gross!  At the end of our stay, we mentioned the issue to our cabin host and she said, "I've been trying to get that mouse for a while!"  Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... how about a sticky trap, lady??

The kids slept together in the master and did a great job!  Chloe joined them on occasion. :)

The property on which the cabin sits is beautiful!

We were fully surrounded by redwood trees, and they are glorious!

Scarlett plans to return every year to measure the growth of this baby redwood tree.