Three weekends ago we had a big weekend and I'm just getting things under control and so it is time for the blog post.
Isaac had his first USAC competition in Indianapolis, and of course he got the morning slot so we had to stay overnight. Ben was going to come with us, but in the end went up to Mackinac Island to have some bonding time with his mom. We left Friday night, obviously. I had wanted to leave about fifteen minutes earlier, but things happen and we left just a little later than ideal. The drive was good until we got close to Indy and I saw that we had missed being able to take our preferred route by about 10 minutes due to a nightly road closure. Oh shoot. Well, I couldn't really look at the map very well, but we went the opposite way on a highway and only got to our hotel six minutes later than expected. So we must have been going in a circle. We got into the hotel and the kids got to sleep. It wasn't all that late, so I did a little grading and then went to bed too.
In the middle of the night we had to weird things happen. 1) A car alarm went off. After waiting a few minutes I finally got up and looked out the window. Hmm...is that our car? I went to find my keys to turn it off, but luckily it turned off right as I grabbed the keys. I can imagine it though - two car alarms going off at once because I couldn't think straight in the middle of the night to see if it was my car. 2) Joshua yelled, " ZOUP!" (pause) "Ha!" And went back to sleep. It was our rally cry for the rest of the weekend and could always make Isaac smile.
Saturday started out pretty well, although we maybe should have gotten there fifteen minutes earlier. Not a huge deal. There were six routes for Isaac, and he really wanted to top at least one. Well, he topped the first one on his fourth try. Ok, goal achieved.
The next two hours were...a bit harder. The routes were hard. Some of the lines were long. A mistake was made. Isaac was feeling the pressure. We took a break and had a snack. The coaches had been around and talking with him, but at this point they started talking with him a bit more.
There was one route he hadn't tried yet, so after a very nice talk from the coach he went over to try it. Aside: the coaches were amazing. They're always amazing, but, as one put it, they want to make better human beings. Becoming a better rock climber is just a secondary goal. Isaac ended up spending the last half hour and all ten tries on this route and he got so, so close. He got one hand on the top hold several times, but couldn't quite get his second hand on it.
He was disappointed. We had another pep talk. He tried climbing it after time was called but he was so tired by then that it just didn't quite work. But since time was called, the pressure was also off at this point. He had something to eat, walked around a bit, and started to shake off the bad parts. He said, a day or two afterwards, that he enjoyed it. I loved watching him as always. It was definitely a good growing experience for him!
After lunch we headed over to Fort Wayne to see family! They also had some competitions away from home on Saturday as JJ had double header soccer games, so we got to their house a few hours before they got home. In the end, it was rather nice though. It gave Isaac some times to unwind, take a shower, and work on a math test before cousins and all the fun showed up.
I didn't get many pictures at Fort Wayne. The kids kind of just disappeared after dinner. We had a fire on the deck with smores. I talked with Nathan and Liz. We left a bit after lunch on Sunday. It was a short trip, but it was also really, really nice to see them!
Oh, while I wasn't with Ben, obviously, I did get one really nice picture sent to me.
