One Year Olds

Finn and Rey and 1 year old today. They are older. Not sure how much wiser yet. This was Finn yesterday.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vo5cp6kKjaia8gzd8

Rockbusters State

Early Sunday morning we were up and at it again. We were all pretty exhausted but we were still going to go out and do our best. It is always an exciting day for these kids to get to go down on the floor of the Tacoma Dome just like the highschoolers did the day before. This year our team had to score a table. Of course none of us knew how to score in track wrestling. We figured it out, but it was not the easiest. And with everything going on there it was fairly stressful. Thank goodness it was only little kids, but even that was stressful at times. I didn't get to see a ton of our team wrestle. It wasn't our greatest day. A couple of kids got wins. Jake lost his first two and was done. Tommy helped me out being a towel tapper as he did not wrestle until the second session. We were pretty tired by the time our table was wrapped up. They did give us free lunch at least. Then we had to wait around a bit for Tommy to start wrestling. Tommy was still recovering from being sick, so I didn't have super high expectations. You could see that his lungs were really struggling. But he tried his hardest as always and lost his first two. Wasn't as good a result as the previous year. So they went home a bit cranky. But sometimes, that is how it goes.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4kWp75x6SZLGH71P8

Mat Classic XXXVI

The boys and I headed to the Mat Classic to watch Lena wrestle. Day one was pretty short due to the new format. She had a bye and then won her round two match. We had a bunch of time to kill, so we went to Dorky's looking for some fun. Turns out they were going through some changes and things were drastically different there. The boys did play some games, but it wasn't quite the same. We headed home to rest before a long day the next day at the dome. The next day, Lena started off winning her quarter final match. We had a really long wait for her semi-final match. It felt even longer because the boys didn't want to eat anything that day except a small breakfast until they had to go weigh-in. They were both really close to the top of their weight class. So when her match didn't start till around 2:30 they were pretty cranky. Prior to Lena's match we watched the semi-final from the other side of the bracket. This had Lena's somewhat of a rival in it. She was pinned twice this year by this girl. Both times she took it pretty rough. I have never seen Lena that angry. We watched her rival beat her opponent, but not without a little bit of struggle. Sometimes it does help to see that someone is not perfect. That there are still weaknesses that you can attack. Then Lena had her semi-final and pinned her opponent 1st round as she had all the previous. We were super excited for her to make the finals. And we were super excited that we could go weigh-in and eat. We raced to the car to drive to Fife for weigh-ins. Both boys made weight. And we had sandwiches and snacks already ready to go in the car for the ride back to the dome to watch the finals. We knew there would be quite a wait for Lena's match since she was higher up in the weights. But we saw some exciting wrestling while we waited. Finally her match was up. She started out a little rough. She tried for a shot but lost the takedown. She did come back with a reversal going into the end of the round. The second round she started down 2-3. She started the round on top. She almost got into trouble a couple times, but was able to flip her over for the pin. Boy was it exciting for her to come back and beat her rival when it really counted. After that there was tons of hugs and excitement. She now forever be a state champ! And after a late night we will be back to the Tacoma dome in the morning.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/nUZEh3PWKnRSWczn7

Geology Rocks

The library was having a special event today. A bunch of scientists from the island came together to put up a display of rocks and fossils for people to look at and ask questions about. They also offered for people to bring rocks for the scientists to inspect. Tommy was feeling sick, but the rest of us went to check out the rocks. We also brought the boys rock collection. It was pretty cool to look at all the rocks and see the descriptions. We had the biggest rock collection to inspect. So we let everyone else go first. It happened to be my old high school science teacher that looked at all the fossils that we had. He looked at some of the rocks as well as one other scientist. It was a pretty fun day.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mvrs99VKsYmBfe1o7

Last Wrestling Tournament

The boys had their last regular wrestling tournament for the year. It was a small group that was competing compared to other tournaments. Both boys won a match. And then Tommy started feeling really ill. He just said he was really tired and didn't want to eat anything. They both made it through their last match and Tommy crashed. You could tell in his last match that he had no energy at all. When we made it home it turned out that he had a fever. Poor guy.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JhPkX4pWHCg1bnWK6

Lena's District Wrestling Tournament

We didn't have wrestling today so we went to watch Lena wrestle at districts. We knew that she wouldn't have a ton of matches with their new format this year. They were not having regionals this year. They were only having districts and a larger state tournament. With only a few teams in districts there were not a ton of competitors in some of the weight classes. Her first match she won easily. The second match was one that was anticipated she would have. The girl was the returning state champ. Lena faced her earlier in the year at a home meet. Unfortunately she got pinned and was pretty upset about it. She hasn't lost very many times this year let alone gotten pinned. This girl uses a head and arm from the ground. She is also has pretty long arms and legs. Lena had her for a moment and had her on her bike. But she then got turned and put in the head and arm again. I will say she was not very happy about getting pinned by her a second time. Lena still qualified for state as the took the top two competitors. I am sure she will be thinking about this girl a lot as she trains for state.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RXJ19R7YPc9drWd18

Snow Days

We didn't have a huge snow, but enough to let the kids get out there and have some fun in it. It was short lived, but at least they got to do a little sledding, making snowballs and seeing if snow can melt in the fire.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/v5JPdwm7bpNmdwkS6

Wrestling League Tournament

The boys had their end of the year league tournament. There were some good matches today. Jake won all three and took first place. That included a overtime win. Tommy lost his first match to his long time opponent from Tacoma Select. He won his second match at the last second in a comeback and took second place. It was a great day to end the season and now one more away tournament and then off to post season.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/H1Jyi2UTognZFd6t6