Paige ran in her first track meet of the season on Monday, March 4th. She competed in the 100m, 4x100m relay, and 200m events. Since Paige had some official times from last year, she was bumped up in the order of the heats. Paige ran in the second heat of the 100m event to start her day and she ran it in 14.10 seconds, which is a personal record for her. Paige placed 3rd in her heat and 10th overall for the event out of 90 competitors.
Paige's next event was the 4 x 100m relay and she was in the first leg of the race. The girls had some fast runners in their group, but they hadn't practiced the baton hand-off at all prior to the meet, which seems bizarre to us. Last year Paige was on her school's B relay team, but this year she was on the A team with the fastest girls. We were thankful that the girls didn't drop their baton, although the second hand-off was not very efficient. They could probably have cut a few seconds off their time if they practice the hand-offs before the next meet. Paige's team placed 3rd overall out of 19 teams with a time of 56.16 seconds.
Paige's last event was the 200m sprint and it's probably her strongest race. Paige was in the first heat against most of the fastest girls at the meet and she placed 5th in her heat and 6th overall for the event out of 87 girls. Paige's time was 29.24s and she was pretty happy with how she ran the race.
We are proud of our athletic girl, and love watching her compete and also cheer on her friends. It was a long evening on a school night, and after Paige finished running she wanted to stay around even longer to watch her friends and cheer them on. We let her stay a little while longer, but we were ready to get home for the evening.
Saturday, March 2nd, was Connor's 17th birthday. It seems like it was just yesterday that Andrea took him to the DMV to get his license, he's already been driving on his own for a year!
We were supposed to be going to Tallahassee for a tennis tournament with his high school team, but they canceled it since it was a rainy weekend. Connor was more than happy to chill at home and relax for his birthday. For lunch on Saturday, Andrea and I took him out to lunch at Outback for a ribeye steak. On Sunday we met our Florida family members for lunch at Cantina Louie so we could all wish Connor a happy birthday together.
Grandpa Rick forgot his glasses, so Paige had to read the menu to him.
Connor's had to study a lot lately and Andrea and I both have been working with him on some of his more difficult subjects. Andrea has done a lot of AP Environmental Science studying along with AP Art History. I've worked with Connor on the Art, US History, and English. It's a bit tedious subject matter at times, but we actually really enjoy hanging out with Connor and we have a fun time with him.
Andrea and Connor will sometimes work in the Family room on the recliner together, or in Connor's office. I'll sit in his office sometimes, but we both like to recline in the guest bedroom where we can pull up the art on the TV (using Airplay from my phone), so we can examine the details of the art while we read about it.
We get a bit distracted at times, and Millie Mae is often the cause of it. I snapped a pic of Connor on his laptop, and you can see that he's got Millie in a headlock underneath him. Millie likes to wrestle, and she's the most vicious and rambunctious with Connor. She likes to study more than anyone, but she isn't very helpful.
Some of the art we've studied was on my phone still, so I decided to drop it in the blog post so we could remember it.
Paige has been doing a tennis clinic from 5-6:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and it's a good opportunity for me to go for a jog or a walk on the beach. Of course, this is Millie's favorite thing to do too, so she always likes to come along. She loves to roll in the sand, and if it's not too cold she'll wade out a little and get her tummy wet. I snapped a pic of her as the sun was going down. It's kind of tricky to get a picture of her standing since she always likes to sit when I get the camera out, but I managed to snap a pic of her looking majestic as the wind tousled her curly fur.
Monday, February 26th, we all went to watch Connor's PVHS tennis team play against Buchholtz at his school. Unfortunately, the tiny biting gnats are horrible this time of year and they're always especially bad around the tennis courts. We sat out in our chairs for a while, but eventually we got in the car and pulled it around so we could be protected from the bugs while we watched Connor's match.
On Friday night, February 23rd, Amanda and Ryan went out with some of their friends and we hung out with the Goble boys. The weather was nice and cool so we went for a long walk and threw the football around before fixing a gourmet meal of chicken nuggies in the air fryer. After Griffin went to bed we played some "Sleeping Queens" with Graydon and chillaxed for a bit.
February 18th, Paige played a doubleheader in the rain. It wasn't pouring rain, but it was a pretty steady drizzle the entire time. Unfortunately, Paige hasn't been utilized much on her team lately, so not a lot of action in the videos from that night.
