We had a very busy weekend of multiple soccer games (yay!). Liesl played on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon; Seb played on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. And in the middle, Liesl went to the Portland Timbers game with Elia for a birthday party adventure (followed by a "sleep"over).
Liesl's team won their first game 2-0 and lost the second 3-0; Sebastian's team won 3-2 and 3-1. It was a gorgeous weekend for some footy and both kids played well.
Sebastian has long been a fan of the Spy School book series by Stuart Gibbs. It follows a 13-year old boy who is recruited into the CIA's spy academy for teens, and his misadventures both spy and friend-related. When Liesl was looking for a good new series a few weeks ago, he recommended she try it out, and she fell into it with enthusiasm. It's a 9-book series and the 9th was just released a month ago, which is always good news for book fans (more books might still be coming!).
I often read books that the kids are reading, because they're usually short and sweet, and I can read them in a single stretch. So I started reading the first book, while Liesl was barrelling through books 3 onwards, and Seb was re-reading them for fun. And then Steve decided to get into the act as well, since there had to be something fun about books that everyone was simultaneously reading, and he started on book 1 once I moved on to book 2. And so for a few days there our whole family was reading Spy School and laughing about it together, and Steve was making the rest of us groan with his ability to predict all the future twists and turns of the plot.
Sebastian ran in a cross-country relay race on Thursday afternoon at Pier Park in North Portland. All of the PPS middle schools were there, with over 50 teams entered in the boys race. Each team had 4 runners who ran one mile each, on a looping, hilly trail around the forested park. Wyatt was the lead runner for Seb's team, completing his mile in about 6 minutes; then Zach and Connor, and then Seb ran the final leg in about 6.20. They finished in 4th place overall, which was a fantastic result, and they were pretty happy.
Here's Seb charging up the final hill to the finish line. The other runners in these photos are actually running the 3rd leg for their teams, and are going to hand off the baton at the top of this hill to their teammates to run the final lap. The teams that beat Seb's team were a good bit ahead of him -- he said he never saw them.
Seb has started his cross country season, with practices on Mondays and Wednesdays, and district meets that started this week on Thursdays. He's running well, and has Wyatt as speedy company, so it's been a good experience so far. They ran a timed mile on Monday and he finished in 6.05, just behind Wyatt at 6 minutes even. As someone who has never been a sprinter, and has never been fast at a mile, I am so impressed. But Seb has been comparatively better at longer distances and so he's been looking forward to the 3k (1.8 mile) race distance for middle school cross country.
This first race is a practice meet, with no official times, and lots of runners from all the middle schools. It's a little crowded, and they're all figuring out their pacing, but it was still so fun to watch. Seb and Wyatt charged out early, with the faster runners, ahead of the main pack. The route was two laps around Fernhill Park, and the boys both looked good and stuck together for their first lap. (We watched them run by, then ran across the middle of the lap loop to watch them again, and back again to the start/finish line.)
I have been meaning to blog about the first week of school, but things have been busy, and getting busier, and we're already almost at the end of the second week! I figure I'd better start typing or I'll forget what I wanted to say entirely.
Things have been mostly smooth for both kids in their school reentry -- Liesl is back with Ms. Robbins, and has friends in her class, and is happy to be there. She's a little unhappy about the amount of math they're doing (probably necessary, in my opinion, to start getting kids caught up), a little sad that her two best friends are in a different class (Elia and Arianna), and is adjusting to her early, short lunch (outside under the covered roof, sitting on chalk circles drawn on the pavement, for 15 minutes at 10:30), but all is well. She enjoyed her first spelling tests of the year. :) Getting to have recess with friends, and library time, and free reading, is great.
She and her soccer team played their first game of the fall season on Sunday, tying 0-0 in a very physical, hard-fought game. She has been struggling with a foot injury (plantar fasciitis) for three weeks, but after a lot of rest, massage, heat, and stretching, it appears to be on the mend. She was able to play in the game and was so delighted to be back with her team.
Sebastian's soccer team also kicked off their fall season this weekend - their first season since Fall 2019. His team is a shadow of its former self, as all of the older players (those born from January through August) have started high school this fall, and are playing on school teams instead of club teams. So there are barely enough of them to fill a roster. Seb is still the mainstay of the defense, playing center back/sweeper and directing his teammates on coverage. He's really solid back there and rarely makes mistakes, which is a key strength. Anyway, they won their first game 2-0 and looked good while doing so, with some great passing in the first half. This weekend we'll be in Eugene on Sunday for the next match.
Middle school has proven to be more of a challenge, for a number of reasons. Some of Seb's teachers appear to be last-minute recruits, without much experience or prepared syllabus (the social studies teacher is actually the librarian, and they have class in the library). His math teacher is cranky. And unfortunately, most of his good friends are in other classes, so he feels a bit lonely through the day. His first period elective is a technology class, but at the moment it resembles shop class -- the first assignment is to build a birdhouse, starting with wood, and the second is to build a bridge. But then they move on to creating an iMovie and using Scratch animation. He was a little intimidated on the first day by the equipment and the teacher's warnings (serious injury is possible!), but appears to be settling in and enjoying it more.
A bigger headache for local families has been the bus driver shortage that is plaguing all of Portland, and is part of the larger labor problems in the current economy. There aren't enough bus drivers, so in the last two weeks Seb's bus has been missing entirely, combined with other bus routes, and delayed until a driver can deliver his first busload and return for Seb's bus of kids. After our kids were 45 minutes late to school one day, we started a neighborhood carpool text thread to coordinate rides there and back again. It's worked -- the kids are getting to school -- but it's been an enormous headache to figure out who is taking which kids on which days, and to make the 45 minute round trip (and then to sit in a long car-line along with everyone else whose kid is missing a bus). Fortunately, we've had two good bus days in a row, and the driver has said he'll be consistently there both morning and afternoon from now on, so I'm crossing my fingers that this logistical problem is now solved.
We are finding our old routines again - waking up early (Seb), eating breakfasts and making lunches, packing school bags, picking outfits (Liesl), squeezing in a Jasper walk, heading out the door. There are backpacks and lunch bags piled in the corner, homework after dinner, and both kids are hungrier and tired. Things promise to get more hectic - both cross country and dance classes are being added into the mix this week, and tomorrow is my first official day back in the office, along with the rest of PSU's faculty and staff. So that will be yet another adjustment, but it feels so good to have this much normal back in our lives.
Steve and I went biking together on Sunday afternoon, a trail ride on the Lief Erikson, which was sweet and also made me so excited for all our future rides together. And then Seb and I went out on Monday morning to the Banks-Vernonia rail trail. We have ridden that trail many times, always starting from the Banks side and riding up into the hills, usually stopping just past Stub Stewart State Park. The trail continues on another 10 miles to Vernonia, and we've never been on any part of that section. Well, today was the day. We started at the Tophill trailhead and embarked on unexplored territory, discovering that this half of the trail was remarkably flat (in comparison to the steady uphill climb when coming from Banks), and meandered through a lovely green forest. We rode about 12 miles and had a really fun time laughing and talking together.
We went mini-golfing at Eagle Crest last Tuesday evening, on the last day of summer before the school year. It was a lot of fun, and amazingly, we had four holes-in-one. Liesl won the first nine holes, and Steve and I tied for the overall win.
