We actually did do some stuff between RJ's birthday and school starting. I've just neglected keeping up the blog about it. So, here goes the 6-weeks' worth of stuff...
RJ got braces. :)
Gymnastics provided a few challenges to Ryleigh in July. First, she fell off the balance beam, and as she was coming down, her foot smacked the beam. I took her to urgent care a few hours later. Thankfully, it was only a bad sprain. She was on crutches for a couple days, then she got back to it.
But, the injury spooked her a little. And, after a couple of mornings of saying she didn't feel good and volunteering for COVID tests, she finally told me how she was feeling about gymnastics--she wanted to quit. I sent an urgent note to one of her coaches, who happened to be returning from a long weekend in the mountains. Cece sent me lots of positive notes to let Ryleigh read and convinced her to come into the gym for a private lesson with just Cece so they could work on stuff while talking out her feelings. Cece and Ryleigh had a good chat and agreed that gymnastics was actually still awesome, but that Ryleigh was overwhelmed by jumping from Level 4 to Level 6 without mastering Level 5 in the way that Ryleigh likes--Ryleigh likes perfection. So, we agreed to slow it down and let Ryleigh go back to practice with the Level 5 girls, but leave the door open to return to Level 6 at any time. She is still working with Cece on her Level 6 skills, but just during private lessons. The private lessons are also a mental health check for Ryleigh. Ryleigh was a new girl after a couple Level 5 practices. She still learned her choreography for her Level 6 floor routine--after all, I already paid for it. But, she can just hold onto that until she is ready later this year or it can hold until next year. Here she is that day, working on the skill that made her fall off the beam and a front layout. More Skills
Jip got to do some cool stuff in July. Maybe we should call it hot stuff... After the USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire (or was set on fire--it was arson) while in a maintenance period in San Diego in July of 2020, the Navy realized it needed to better coordinate firefighting efforts with multiple agencies and practice the plans. Jip was observing a firefighting drill that had submarine crew members and civilian firefighters working together to put out a fire. Jip was invited to throw on some gear and fight the fire along the sailors. It was an amazingly hot day and the fire was hot, of course. So, it was intense. But, Jip loved the experience and the sailors were all impressed that the Shipyard CO was in the trenches with them.
We haven't been geocaching in forever, so Jip took the kids out at the end of July to look for some hidden stuff in the area.
We also had more tree excitement at the end of July. This time, with no wind or rain or any other weird weather, another branch crashed to the ground. Thankfully, it did not hit a car this time. And, thankfully, no one was out for their evening walk, as it fell across a sidewalk used by lots of neighbors to walk their pups. The sidewalk is also heavily travelled in the daytime, especially at lunch by people looking to stretch their legs.
I begged for the Navy or the Housing Contractor to get an arborist to come out to figure out if something is causing the branches to come down or to do some preventive pruning. Supposedly, they are going to get someone out here, but I'm not holding my breath. I keep reminding them that the either of the branches that have fallen in just a four-month span would have hit our house, the house would not have fared well--and there is a good chance that the people inside of it would not have fared well.
At the end of July, Jip got the honor of attending a Navy boot camp graduation. The Shipyard sponsored a class of recruits. During those weeks in boot camp, senior enlisted members from the Shipyard traveled to the boot camp a couple times to meet with recruits to encourage them and let them hear from people out in the fleet. When it came time for graduation, Jip got to share a couple of meals with the class, present awards to top recruits, and give the graduation speech. If you'd like to watch the graduation, it is on YouTube: RTC Bootcamp Graduation 07292022 You can always fast forward--that's what I did.
And as a bonus, Jip got to say hello to Brad, Danika, Mia, and Jack. The Navy can't seem to station us in the same town, but at least Jip gets to visit every-so-often.
After Jip traveled to DC at the beginning of August, he brought home a gift for himself--COVID. No one else ever tested positive--we tested everyone each day before they had an activity with people. So, Jip got to work from home for four days and he got to sleep with the spiders and whatever else likes to hang out in our basement until he tested negative on Day 13. He made himself a nice little setup, though.
The rest of us were grateful not to get COVID and for Jip to recover when he did so that we could see Hamilton. Jip and I bought the tickets in March and managed to keep it a secret from the kids until the week before--we finally had to tell Ryleigh because she was going to have to leave a birthday party early in order to go. The touring company did a nice job. The acoustics in the old Paramount Theater made it hard to hear some of the rapping/dialog, but thankfully we had all seen it before on Disney+ and Jip and Ryleigh listen to the soundtrack ALL THE TIME, so we got the gist of it.
The last weekend in August we did a little stay-close-to-home-cation. After RJ went to coding, we checked into a hotel in Puyallup, ate dinner, played in the pool, and then headed out for a drive around Mount Rainier early-ish the next morning. You can only drive all the way around Rainier in the summer months due to snow, so we decided to take advantage while we could. The first couple hours of the drive were great--not crowded, cool weather. Then we got to the National Park Service visitors' center closest to the top. Wow. Just wow. So crowded. People were parking a mile plus away and hiking up to the visitors' center. So, Jip dropped the kids and I off in the drop-off zone so we could run in to the center to use the bathroom and get the kids' National Park Passports stamped. Then he circled back around to pick us back up. We parked down the hill from the visitors' center and enjoyed a little lunch out of our cooler. Then the drive down through the main park entrance was crazy busy and crowded. Our choice to go through the back entrance and do it early in the morning was wise--we got to see a lot more than we would have if we had gone the traditional route through the park.
We really packed a lot of stuff in to those last weeks of summer. There were other things, too, like spirit week at the gym and paddle boarding on a random weekend afternoon. But, now it is time to find our grooves as we head into the fall schedule.
Until next time, cheers!
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