A lot of newness here! I finally got my hobonichi stack: techo cousin, 5 years journal, and weekly. I am so excited for what they will help me to achieve. I am still deciding how to use each of them, but so fun playing already. Once I set them up, I’ll share here, ALL inspired by Sarah
I took Sofia to the bigger campus for her swim practice (3rd of the week). The main campus has all 3 levels, so I was expecting that bigger kids would be in this team (bronze). No surprised, Sofia and her friends were the smallest/youngst ones in the group. Yet, Sofia was strong. Her lane mate was at least half head taller than her, and was way slower than Sofia. The training is no joke, 90 min of almost nonstop swim, mostly workout type, and timed 100ms. I was really impressed and inspired by Sofia… first time I felt this way. Not just as proud parent, but also inspired by her as an athlete that was strong, persistent, and confident. It is such a pleasure to be there seeing her in that way. No longer as baby, but a big girl, a strong girl.
I finished this book after two days of accompanying Sofia at swim practice. It is such a good book for women in the 40s, preparing physically and mentally for what’s the come, menopause. This book is targeted for active woman. I am glad to learn that we don’t need to stop doing what we enjoy doing, but we might have to make few changes so we can continue to do what we love.
I am loving our new routine of swim practice, reading time 🙂
Seeing Sofia with her new friends/team mates being so comfortable together made me smile. One of the girls locked the locker door and couldn’t open it until the security came. They shared snacks while waiting.
Then we had her friends’ family over to celebrate chinese new year eve. They brought dumplings, we made few dishes because at 3pm I realized our electric stove STOPPED WORKING!!! Anyway, we had another small electric stove as backup that saved the night.
It was the first time we had this family over so we shared our stories, how we grew up, their experience living in Canada, China, and how she got into my organization. It felt like first time dating. somedays I find meeting new people and learning about their stories interesting, other days it feels tiring. Like all relationships, we start from our stories, to shared experienced, before the possibility of becoming friends. I feel like starting over again… and wonder do I want to start over again? I didn’t let me entertain the question for too long. Just go with the flow.
final activity of the evening: fireworks for all the kids, 5 in total. That could be our new chines new year tradition. 🙂
According to chinese tradition, after new year, we all get one year older, so I’d be 43? oh well… who’s counting! 😀
Our New Journey 
Looks like a fun weekend! The pool looks nice! Great job to Sofia for working hard! I used to go to all the swim practices when Asher was little, but once they get into the older kid groups, NO parents go anymore. I think Asher would be embarrassed at this point if I went into the pool area, because literally, no parents attend the practices in his group. Everyone just drops the kids off and then comes back an hour and a half later to pick them up. 🙂 It was fun to watch them before, when he was little, but I am also glad to have that time back. I also used to sit and read, or sometimes bring my laptop… I didn’t mind it at all, and overall I enjoyed it. But I think the kids eventually get to a point where they just want to do their own thing, with their teammates and coaches, without parents looking on all the time. Also, he now practices usually like 5x a week, so it would just be soooo much to go sit there all the time….Oh, and happy early birthday 😉
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I heard as they move up to levels practice becomes more intense. 5 days a week sound intense!!! It wouldn’t allow them to do any other sport right? At what point did you and Asher decided that swimming is his sport?
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No, he still does other sports, just not all year round. In the fall he did school cross country team AND soccer AND swim- which was crazy. In the winter he just swims. In spring soccer will start up again so he will have to juggle swim and soccer practices – he will likely only swim 3-4x/week during soccer season. The nice thing is that while his team offers practice 6x/week, they aren’t “required” to be at all of them. So if he has soccer, he just misses swim that day and swims the other days when he can. Right now in the winter is big swim season, so he is mostly just doing that. This season ends at the end of February, then they have a month long break, and then it starts up again in April. Lots of the kids still do other sports and they just don’t always go to all of the swim practices- some weeks more, some weeks less- just depends on what else they have.
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Starting over would continuously would be hard. I have only had to do it once when I was relocated to Charlotte. I didn’t want to move so that made it even harder as I wasn’t invested in staying in the area/building a network. I am newer to your blog so don’t know if you plan to continue to move around to different countries of if this is something you’ll do for awhile before settling into a location long term!
That sounds like a hard swim practice! And swimming is sooo tiring for me! I took a swimming class as an extracurricular in college and it was taught by one of their collegiate swim coaches. It was so hard but really fun at the same time.
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Our thinking now is continuing this life style because it makes sense work wise and financially. We like exploring new things so we like it overall.
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Gorgeous planner stack! I am excited for you 🙂 🙂
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Love the planner stack.
I’m so impressed by your girls’ athleticism. You model it well and they seem to love it! How wonderful.
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Gorgeous planner stack!!
And go Sofia, how awesome that she is enjoying it and doing well. Your comments about feeling proud of her as an athlete are so wonderful 🙂
Happy Chinese New Year! x
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