NCS

Last Saturday was the North Coast Section (NCS) Race for Cross Country in Hayward.  This is the first time that Parker has been able to run.  His Freshman year, we were in Hawaii, and his Sophomore year we were on a cruise.  We had both those trip booked before he even started high school.  Who knew that he would run cross country and that NCS was the Saturday before Thanksgiving?  Anyway, we promised him that we would book our next trip to Disneyland after NCS to he could participate.  He would run on Saturday and then we would leave for Disneyland on Sunday for a week with a short stop off in Pismo Beach to finally see the Holiday Melodrama.

 I guess the weather the last two years had been awful, but it was beautiful last Saturday. I got to drive half the team down to Hayward early in the morning.  

I love these boys!  They are just great kids with great personalities and I enjoy spending time with them.

We got there early so they could walk the course for those who haven't run it before.

(Like the massive lemons?)

After walking the course, they hung out and talked, 

wrestled, 

and did what teenage boys do.

Here is Parker and Tyler before the race.

About 200 runners ran in their heat.  It was crazy to see so many kids running at once and was the first time Parker had been in a group this big. (He's the fourth one back on the far right of the picture).

He was in 21-19th place as he came past us several times.  We thought he had to be in the top 16 to go to state.

As he came around this final time, he was in 19th place.  We ran to the finish line to watch him.  (Cross country involves a lot of running on the spectators part as well!)

As we were waiting at the finish line, he amazed us by coming in 11th.  Somehow he passed 8 people in the last quarter mile to finish 11th. We thought he had qualified for state because he was in the top 16.  We found out that you have to be in the top 16 to qualify for state.  However, the top seven runners go automatically.  Then, they take out the runners that qualified with their teams to go to state.  Then, only 5 individual runners get to go. Only two more runners after the top 7 got to go and Parker was one of them.

It was super exciting and his team was so excited, proud, and supportive of him.  Concord High ended up coming in 10th out of 19 teams.  Their 2nd best finish at NCS ever.

State Qualifiers!

Parker and his team from NCS.

State is next weekend.  Now, we just have to cancel our plans to Pismo (again)!  We are going from Disneyland to Frenso now for the state meet.  Guess it's a pretty good reason to have to cancel.  Congratulations Parker!  We are so proud of you!

Soccer is now officially over!

Conner had his team party for soccer last week. He had a great season with two terrific coaches.

 Coach Allan

 Coach Kevin

Here's a picture of most of his team.

He enjoyed playing this season and learned a lot.  He became a better soccer player and had fun!  We are proud of him. Great season Conner!

 Calissa's team advanced to the Area Tournament this last weekend.  We spent a whole day of soccer in Pleasant Hill.  Luckily, the weather wasn't too cold.  They had three games that day and lost all three, but had a fun time playing as a team one more time.

 We managed to sneak away for a quick lunch at In 'n Out between games two and three!

Our last game was played as the moon was rising.  It was a fun day, but I'm glad it's over! Great season Calissa!

Pismo Get-a-way

While Travis and Parker were in Vegas running another Ragnar Relay, Conner, Calissa, and I packed up Trav's car and headed to Pismo for a quick get-a-way.

 All smiles on the way down.  I picked them up from school (the car was already packed) and headed down for the 4 hour drive.  We were lucky and didn't hit too much traffic.

 After checking in, I sent an email to update the teacher that I had been subbing for, for the past 2 1/2 weeks.  Friday was my last day.  It was a nice break after working so much.  Saturday, I woke up and headed out for a walk on the beach.  I love the early morning there and was especially lucky that there was no fog!

 I love the sound of the waves and they come in.  It's so peaceful!

Isn't it beautiful?

After getting the kids up and having some breakfast, we all headed down to the beach to explore.

 These two actually might like each other (a little)!

 After a walk on the beach and a swim in the pool and hot tub we decided to head out to try a cinnamon roll place.  A group of people on bicycles were there (a whole bunch of them) who looked like they had just completed a training ride.  It looked super busy, but it actually wasn't.  

Glad we tried the place out ... they were super yummy!!

 After eating our cinnamon rolls we headed down to the butterfly grove.

  There were about 25,000 butterflies there.  I wish I had had my nice camera. Instead, I just had my cell phone so the pictures aren't that great.  

 The tan-ish clumps in the trees are actually butterflies.

 You have to be careful and watch where you walk so you don't step on any butterflies!

We spent the rest of the day doing some shopping, washing Trav's car, swimming, reading, relaxing, and watching "Myth Busters." 

  After dinner, we headed to the show at the "Great American Melodrama."  We saw "Drac in the Saddle."  It was sooooooo funny! We love going to the Melodrama!

 After the show Calissa posed for a picture with a few of the cast.

 Sunday morning on my walk I was followed down the beach by several otters.  I also saw dolphins playing in the water.  After breakfast and a little more swimming, we hopped in the car to drive back home.  It was a different trip without Parker and Trav, but we had a great time!

Ragnar Las Vegas

In early November, Parker and I were able to participate in another Ragnar race, this time in Sin City (a.k.a. Las Vegas).  In fact, by competing in this race, we earned a special medal, called Saints & Sinners to signify completion of the Wasatch Back Ragnar and the Vegas Ragnar (Saints in Utah, Sinners in Vegas).

Much of the team from Wasatch Back joined us, though we had a few changes, partly due to an injury incurred by Azure while running a marathon in San Francisco.  Our van ended up being myself, Parker, brother-in-law Rob, Tyler Rossi, Teri Rossi, and Ronnie Trost.  So, it was the same van as Napa Ragnar from a year ago except swapping Azure for Teri.

We drove from California to Las Vegas on Thursday.  The ride was mostly uneventful but long.  We enjoyed some Dairy Queen for dinner and met a guy who did a relay race from the East Coast to the West Coast over 3 months!  Made our Ragnar seem much easier...

We stayed at the Excalibur hotel in Vegas -- it was pretty awesome, looks like a castle.  There were a few times when Teri and I had to cover the boys' eyes while heading through the casino to our rooms.  There's a reason it's called Sin City...

We took a walk down the strip in the morning.  Our hotel was across the street from the "Statue of Liberty" -- by the New York New York hotel that has a roller coaster you can go on for $15 per ride.  We passed.

We had a nice big breakfast at Denny's before heading to the grocery store for snacks and drinks and then heading to exchange 6 (where our van would begin)

 Below are Tyler and Ronnie at exchange 6.  They aren't looking all that excited, are they?

We don't have much in the way of pictures during the race (we were focused) though we have quite a few at the finish line.  A memorable aspect of the race was Tyler getting lost in the middle of the night.  He was runner #12 so we were at the exchange point with the other van and after a while we realized there was no way he should still be out on the course.  We tried calling him and texting him but weren't getting an answer.  Finally, his mom (Teri) and I got in the van and started tracing backwards looking for him.  Eventually, he called us and tried his best to describe his location.  Of course, never really having spent time in Vegas, it took a while to figure out where he was.  Eventually, we found out he had turned and followed some runners on the next leg which is why it had taken so long.  We picked him up, got him back on the course, and then went back to our hotel for a couple hours of sleep.

The weather was actually quite nice for the race -- a little cold at night, which was great for the runners, and warm but not too hot during the day.  Parker and I were happy with our times -- my last leg had a fair amount of downhill but after already having gone nearly 11 miles during the first two legs, I was definitely out of steam when I finished the last leg of 6.7 miles -- I was so grateful to be finished.

Parker passed a ton of people and a bunch of them were just shaking their heads at him when they finished.  One guy even told him to go eat some burgers and milkshakes and SLOW DOWN!  His running watch shown above says at one point, he was running a 3:44 pace.  I'm guessing that was downhill but he's pretty fast!  The team as a whole did a great job and we ended up finishing in 25 hours, 36 minutes -- good enough for 6th place in the Men's Open Division and 24th place overall (out of about 500 teams!)

Here we are at the finish line with our medals.

Do I look tired?  I am!

Here are some pictures of our van with all our kills marked along with a few hashtags we came up with along the way.

Amazingly, we ended up with 274 kills for our van alone!  As you can see, we passed a ton of people along the way.  Our team name was "The Clickers" and we held clickers as we ran to help us count our kills.  That's a lot of clicks!

We drove back to California the next day and could barely move as we stopped to get food along the way.  We were so sore!  But all in all, another great Ragnar.