Since we were home for Thanksgiving this year, we got a jump on trying to get our tree since we heard there were shortages on live trees this year. We have gotten trees from Costco or Meadows Farms every year in the past decade+ but we decided to try going back to cutting down our own this year. We went to a tree farm that was recommended in the county, but it was actually pretty terrible. As you can see in the picture below, their selection was a little on the small side!!! We quickly abandoned that idea and drove a little bit to find a great live tree lot with fresh cut trees and found a beautiful one there, so we came home happy. It’s always nice to have the tree and decorations up just after Thanksgiving so we have some time to enjoy them before the new year comes and all the Christmas stuff goes away.
We also finally got to take my mom up on her Mother’s Day gift. Bo, Shen, and I had gotten tickets to take her to the Immersive Van Gogh experience in DC, so we spent some time there learnng a lot about Van Gogh and experiencing immersive art, then we had a nice dinner out together afterwards.
The next weekend was the start of the high school indoor track season. It’s called indoor track, but it’s really outdoor track in in the winter since none of the high schools have indoor track facilities to compete or practice in. Nina’s high school moved up to 5A (the second from largest) high school classification, so their competition is tougher and their qualifiying standards for districts, regionals, and states became very challenging, but the team has done well so far in their first two meets as a 5A team.
There isn’t a high jump coach, so Mark volunteered to come in to practice twice a week (if he’s able with his job) to work with the jumpers. This only came after clearance from the daughter that it was ok to have dad as a coach. At first she wasn’t too hot on the idea, but once she realized that they’d have very little opportunity to practice high jump if there wasn’t a coach to oversee them while they practice, she changed her mind and coach dad wasn’t such a bad idea!
It’s been great to watch Nina jump, run, and hurdle again, and we’ve been fortunate to have two beautiful December days for both meets, so we’re getting a little spoiled there, but we’re just glad the kids are able to compete and have fun, and parents glad to be allowed as spectators this year (we weren’t last indoor season). High school meets are exciting to watch, and we’re definitely looking forward to more meets in the next couple months.
