Our August

I realize I didn't post much in August. It might be the fewest posts in a month that I've had since I started this blog. I tried to find more, but I guess it was an uneventful month. I'm also forgetting to get daily videos for my One Second Videos, but I'm still managing to get them done. Here is a look at our August....

A Tyler school update

We are now a couple weeks in to Tyler's 6th grade year at a new school, Mesa Academy for Advanced Studies. We had not doubt that there would be new challenges adjusting to this very different educational environment, and while we were not wrong to expect some struggles, it really hasn't been too bad. I'm not sure if Tyler would agree, but the homework load has been manageable, but the biggest struggle has come in the form of time management.

Here's a look at Tyler's day. He and I get up and ready first, and we're out the door by about 7:25 every day. It takes less than 15 minutes to get to school, more like 10 on a good day, which is a nice change from driving to MEC. It's also right on my way to work, so very convenient for me to get him there. The first bell rings at 7:55, and his homeroom class is Science. After that, it's Computer Technology, Spanish, and then his favorite class (and favorite teacher), Social Studies. From there he goes to lunch. He usually packs his lunch, but about 1 day a week he'll buy hot lunch. I'm pretty impressed with their hot lunches most days. After lunch he goes to English, Math, and then ends his day in Music Notation and Theory. His last bell rings at 3:42 pm, and then he heads to his bus to go home. Some days Dave will be there to pick him up, and if he's lucky on a Friday, Tina will pick him up and take all the cousins to her house.

My overall assessment is that Tyler seems to be enjoying this new environment, even if he's not willing to admit to it. He is making friends, and has some kids who are in several of the same classes with him. Tyler's first "friend" is even in two of his classes! My friend Danielle, who we met when we first moved into this neighborhood, was the person who originally told me about the Academy. The teachers are seem to be really great, and Tyler likes all of them. Some are tough (science!), some are more lenient, others are super funny (Mr. Reilly), and they all seem to really care about the kids. I reached out to a few of the teachers who I thought might most need to know about Tyler's situation, and made sure they knew that he was new to the school and had come from a homework-less environment. They were all very understanding, and his math teacher even asked me to give him a call that weekend to chat about how we can help Tyler adjust. After talking to him that Sunday, we set up a time to meet after school the following week. I get the sense that many of the classes allow the kids to make corrections to their work without it having much impact on grades, and his music teacher even said that everything can be corrected. He commented something about how Bach took 100 tries to get his compositions right, he can't ask a sixth grader to get it right the first time.

As expected, homework has been the biggest adjustment. It seems to me that Tyler actually doesn't mind the work itself. The homework has been interesting, useful, creative assignments rather than busy work. The struggle has come when he has larger assignments that aren't due for awhile and he "forgets" about them until right before they're due. We experienced this recently on a pretty large English assignment. He had an alphabiography due a week (or more) after it was assigned, and while he did much of his rough draft right away, he waited until the day before it was due to finish it and get it all typed. Well, it was a 26 paragraph assignment that he had to type, add images to, and get into a book format. That takes awhile, and he didn't realize how long. He spent the Saturday of that weekend telling us he didn't have homework, and played on his Kindle and computer most of the day. That led to 8 hours of homework on Sunday to get it done. Ultimately, he did great on that assignment, but it made for a pretty miserable Sunday.

Time management is hard for adults, so I know we can't expect him to pick it up within the first weeks of school. There will be a large learning curve to this experience, but I know without a doubt that Tyler is capable of excelling in this school. I need to remind myself often that we need to be there for him, encouraging him along the way, and reminding him that he can do it. I'm very impressed with this school and am thrilled that he has this opportunity. As of right now, he has mostly As in all his classes, and has kept up with the work. I know we have a long year ahead of us, but Tyler is definitely starting to figure things out, and as long as he can get used to managing his time effectively, he's going to do well. We are very proud of him.

I'm the catcher!

Tonight was a very exciting milestone in my trapeze career. I climbed up the rope, started swinging on the catch trapeze, and my friend Ashley when she threw her knee hang across to me. This is a pretty big deal! If you'll notice, of the 22 people I've caught with, only one of them was female--and that was even pretty unique. Women just don't typically catch. But, I did! 

I first climbed up the rope to try swinging on June 8, and I've slowly been working my way to this point. Rod started by teaching me a few exercises on the practice bar, and then I worked on the first couple of moves while swinging in the catch trap. After that, he taught me how to get into a "lock" which is the move when I come down onto my knees, and then bring my legs around the outside and of the cables and then back through, and "lock" them  into catching position. It took many times of practicing this (at least 30) before I felt comfortable enough to think about catching someone. It still isn't totally smooth, but it's definitely getting more consistent.

Well, tonight I finally felt strong enough to have someone hang from me while I was in a lock, so I had Ashley climb the rope and hang from me. What happened? I immediately started slipping out of my lock. I was so mad! I figured it just meant I wasn't strong enough to do this, and thought I'd have to just keep practicing and building up strength. I tried doing another lock, and once I got into the position, I started slipping again! I had never slipped this bad in all of the times I'd practiced. This made me think there must have been another reason, and there was. My tights were WAY too slippery. Ashley had an extra pair of shorts in her car, so I put those on and climbed back up the rope. I had her hang from me again, and sure enough, the pants were the problem! I could have held on to her for days. Ok, maybe not days, but I was definitely ready.

After that, she said, "ok, let's catch something!" I said, "ok, we'll try next week." A minute or so later, I look back and see that she has a belt on and is climbing the ladder. I guess we were catching! Let's do this!

First time, no problem! It was so exciting! I can't believe I did this cool thing. I would have never imagined this would be something I would be doing. I can't say for certain that it is something I will keep up, but I would like to keep it up for a little while. It does take time away from flying, so I'm not sure I'm willing to give that up, but it pretty damn cool to be the catcher. There is so much to know when you're the catcher. Timing is key to any trapeze trick, and the catcher is the main person responsible for making sure timing is right. He (she!) has to know when to call the flyer off the board, and each trick--and each person doing each trick--has different timing depending on various factors. I can't even begin to fathom how much I have to learn. 

Regardless of how long I keep this up, it's definitely a trapeze bucket list thing, and I'm super excited to be able to check it off. I'm excited for some of the others to get up there too. Jen is starting to learn (she's wanted to for a long time), and she'll be amazing. She's the strongest woman in our crew by far, and she'd be a great catcher. It's so exciting! 

Here we are, this is me on the left in the catch trap, and Ashley on the right, throwing me my first ever knee hang catch. 

Here is video of our first....

....and this is our second attempt. 

There were a couple reasons that Ashley was my first. 1, she's the smallest and therefore the easiest to catch and 2, she's my closest friend out there! She has been watching me, and encouraging me like crazy through this process, and she felt like I was ready. I wouldn't have done it tonight if she hadn't put that belt on and started climbing. "You've got this," she said, and I believed her. She is the most supportive person I know, and I love her for being there for me. I'm also very grateful to Rod for teaching me, and to George for giving me the opportunity to be part of this world. I will always look back on this particular experience and recognize how strong and capable I am. This trapeze journey will make for some pretty great stories for my grandchildren to hear (and read, thanks to this blog) some day. It's all about making memories, and I think we're doing a pretty great job. 

Friendship bracelets

Ava had a friend at school who was selling "friendship bracelets" for a quarter a piece. When Ava brought the bracelet home, I looked at it and said "that's a friendship bracelet?" I told her that I could teach her how to make some cool bracelets that she could bring to her friends. That turned into some time spent watching You Tube videos (how did we ever learn this stuff on our own?!) and then a trip to the store to get new embroidery thread. It was fun to watch those videos, and it was surprising how quickly the technique came back to me. I remember spending hours making bracelets, and it'll be fun teaching Ava. You Tube makes it really easy for her to learn new techniques too, and maybe I'll even learn some new stuff! If you want a bracelet, I'm sure Ava would be happy to send you one!

Tyler's Alphabiography

Tyler had his first big assignment in his English class, and it was due today. He had a full week to work on it, and while he did most of his rough draft early enough, he procrastinated typing the final project. Learning to manage his time and knowing how long certain assignments takes will be the biggest learning curve for him with this new school. I'll write more about that in another post, but for now, I want to share his awesome final project with you.

The assignment was to write an autobiography, including something about himself using each letter of the alphabet. It couldn't just be a line or two from each letter, it was to be a paragraph, meaning this was a 26 paragraph booklet. It had to be formatted like a book too, so it took some special computer skills to get it put together properly. I'm not sharing the final project (he also included some photos, special headings, and other fun stuff), but I think you'll enjoy reading his words. He's such a creative kid and amazing writer. We love reading his work! Without further ado....here it is!

Tyler's Alphabiography

A is for Adobe!

I don't know what I would do without programs like Adobe After Effects and Photoshop. I use them for almost everything! Adobe After Effects is the software I use to do special effects on homemade films. It is the reason I have gotten so far in the art of filmmaking. It helps so much that my mom works at MCC. She gets an Adobe membership for just ten dollars a year, and it can be active on two computers, so both of us can use it! John Warnock and Charles Geschke (creators of Adobe) are geniuses. I thank them so much! Adobe is the best!

B is for Baseball!

Baseball is my favorite sport. I have been playing baseball on NYS for at least 5 years, but about a year ago I dropped out to join swim team. The Arizona Diamondbacks are my favorite team, but I like the Dodgers too. Since the Diamondbacks are in the same league as the Diamondbacks, you can imagine how fun it is for me to watch them play each other. Baseball is a great sport, and it's a big part of my family.

C is for computer!

I love computers. I have a lot of experience with computers. I’ve been working with computers since I was 5, when I started writing a book called “The Two Mountain Men” It helps that I happen to have a dad that fixes computers for a living. He’s helped me learn how to be able to control a computer properly. He also got me a really good computer for Christmas, 2016. Without computers I probably wouldn’t be attending the Academy. Computers are the best.  

D is for Dave!

Dave is my marvelous dad. He is funny, helpful, caring and great with computers. In fact, that’s wow he makes a living. He is great at teaching me many things such as sports and computers. I couldn’t have gotten where I am now without him.

E is For Erica!

Erica is my amazing mom. She is so cool! Can you say your mom is a trapeze artist? No? Well, I can. My mom is a trapeze artist! She has been in many shows with a trapeze school called iFly. Se really enjoys it! She is also the director of events at MCC Red Mountain. My mom is so cool!

F is for Film!

I love the art of filmmaking. I have had the ambition to script, record and edit films for about 2 years now. I mainly produce home made action films because of my ability to do amazing special effects through Adobe After Effects. I can make explosions, lasers, fire, sparks and a whole lot more action effect, but action isn’t all I do. I have made a various amount of stop motion LEGO films. My cousin Matt and I made a S.T.E.M. LEGO movie and won a prize of four hundred dollars! How cool can filmmaking get?

G is for Graphics

I attended a summer camp at MCC called “Multi Media Madness” where we learned how to use Photoshop, Gimp and other graphic creating softwares. I really enjoyed It. I made so many pictures like King Kong holding the Saturn 5 rocket, a bear coming out of a T.V. screen and Doge with a doughnut body! I love making graphics and using Photoshop. It is so fun to see what I can create!

H is for Harry Potter

I like Harry Potter. I have done everything a Harry Potter fan has to do. I’ve read the books, I’ve seen the movies, I've done the wand and house tests, I’ve gone to the theme park. As you can tell, Harry Potter Is one of my favorite things. Another thing I like to do is Harry Potter special effects. I use Adobe After Effects to make magic spells to come out of the actor’s wands. Fun fact, I actually use a Star Wars lightsaber After Effects plug in to make the effects. Trust me, it looks real. Harry Potter was a great idea J.K. Rowling!

I is for Individual Medley

An Individual Medley is a swim event when the swimmer swims each stroke in a certain order (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle) for a certain number of laps. I am on swim team. I don't like it very much. Baseball is much better, but In my league of baseball, not much exercise is obtained. Swim team is a great sport to get fit quick. The only problem is it’s boring! All you do in swim team is move your arms and feet to make yourself go. There’s the occasional dive here and there but it’s mostly just boring.

J is for Jellyfish!

Jellyfish, fascinating creatures, aren't they? 95 percent water and lacking blood, a heart and even a brain, jellyfish are, in my opinion, the oddest creatures on the planet. I don’t know how I got to be so interested in jellies. It might have been when we saw one washed up on the beach in Mexico and I saw how cool it looked. It might have also been while I was playing a hungry shark video game. Either way, they are still a fascinating creature.

K is for Knight!

I am attending Mesa Academy, where, for reasons that I am not yet clear on, they call us the Knights. All my life I was attending Montessori Education Centre. It was not an ideal school for me. I was hardly challenged. My mom heard about the Academy while having lunch with her friend. She knew right away that the Academy would be a great school for me. That’s how I got to be where I am now.

L is for LEGO

Those little connectable bricks that allow you to build anything and everything. LEGO is probably the greatest thing ever invented. One of my greatest enjoyments with LEGO is making stop motion movies. Stop motion is when you take a series of images, moving your character a very small amount between each picture. Editing all the images together, each lasting .10 seconds or less creates the illusion of movement. Therefore, LEGO can take the form of anything, including life.

M is for Minecraft.

Thinking about it, I have been playing the video game called Minecraft for a very long time. Minecraft is a sandbox game that everything is made of cubes, a geometry teacher’s nightmare. It was, until recently, my favorite game by far. Now it is on the same level as one other game. I began playing the free version of minecraft, Minecraft Light, in first grade on my ipad. That version of Minecraft doesn't even exist anymore! My cousin Matt, who hadn’t deleted apps for years was just about to delete it, but I stopped him. I told him it would make a great topic for a YouTube video. Minecraft is a great old game made in 2008, and it is still one of my favorites.

N is for North Dakota!

My mom grew up in North Dakota. In a way, I did too. Many great memories were made on our summer trips to Williston, North Dakota. I have a lot of family up there and it’s sad that I only get to see them once or twice a year. Williston, North Dakota is a small town, but just outside are thousands of miles of farmland as far as the eye can see. My grandpa owns a farm up there. My cousins and I have a thousand acres of land and plenty of equipment to keep us busy. In summer of 2017, I learned how to drive! My grandpa had just bought a Ranger A.T.V. I spent almost the whole time driving it. I must have put at least a hundred miles on it in ten days. North Dakota is an immense amount of fun, ten days up there is never enough time.

O is for OSA!

The OSA has been around since I was in first grade, and it has gone through so many changes. The OSA is a secret agency that my cousin Matt and I made up. It originally stood for “Official Secret Agents,” but it was changed to “Official Secret Association,” then, finally, to “Official Service Association.”  The OSA has never had an official story. It has always just been a memory, an idea, a game. That will change. When I sign up for the novel writing club, I will write this book! The OSA will become a reality, sort of.

P is for Pooch

I love dogs, I always have loved dogs, I always will love dogs. The only problem is, my family does not share my affection for dogs. I have always wanted a dog of my own, but my parents say “They’re hairy, stinky, loud, expensive and too much work!” I have asked them so many times to get me a dog, but the answer is clear. NO! I guess I won’t be getting a dog until I move out. Mine or not, dog’s are still so great!

Q is for Quality

I am a quality freak. Everything needs to be the best quality video and audio. I want good quality films so much that I am willing to spend up to six hundred dollars on an HD video camera. Anything that is not good quality will be sent of to the recycle bin and never seen again. My rules are: Everything must be at least 720p or it will not pass the test.

R is for Random

I have said a lot of randomness in my life. I enjoy it too. One of the games we play in my aunt and uncle's car is “answer the question with the most random answer possible. For example, the question is “how many rubber bands grow on a apple tree?” and you answer “to find the answer, simply multiply x times cows trampling red carrot fields” random, right? We spent 45 minutes playing that game on a car ride to the AZ Science Center. We laughed our brains out. It was hilarious. Being random is a real enjoyment of mine.

S is for Star Wars

Star wars is a great series of movies, one of the best. The first time I used After Effects was so that I could Animate a 5 second video of me with a Star Wars  lightsaber. I admit, it looked bad. Animating a 5 second, bad video should not take me the whole super bowl to make. Well, it did. Now, with the help of Video Copilot (Andrew Kramer and his After Effects Wizards that made the “Saber” plugin for After effects) I can make real George Lucas style lightsabers and laser gun effects. If I put my mind to it, i could make an amazing Star Wars movie. I love animating Star Wars!

T is for tomatoes!

Tomatoes are one of my least favorite foods ever! I Hate tomatos. They have the texture of a nightmare, the seeds get stuck in your teeth and the taste is just horrible! There is a certain mix of sweet, sour and bitter that makes the tomatoes even more revolting. If you have ever read or watched “The BFG”, just think of snozzcumbers. That’s what I think of tomatoes. They are the most wretched food ever to exist.

U is for untidy

I’ll face it. I am not very organized. My room is untidy, my backpack is untidy, my computer desktop is untidy. Almost everything I own is untidy. If you look at what I name my files on my computer you will see how untidy I am. I named one of my movies “Done.mp4” I can’t believe I would do that? I am not at all organised unless I really try to be. Someday I will fix that, but not right now.

V is for video

I don’t know how to express this enough, I love making videos. I love making all kinds of videos. Action videos, stop motion videos, animated videos. My favorite thing in the world is video art. And without cameras, microphones and software like Adobe After Effects I would not be able to do everything I can. Video art is marvelous.    

W is for Writing

I love to write. I started writing my first book when I was 8 years old.  It was called “The Two Mountain Men.” Sadly, I never finished it, maybe that’s for the best, though. I was about as good a writer as an average fourth grader, which was  above my age, but still not very good. This was some of my writing, “‘Let’s go build our house’ I said. Winston and I went to the woods then I peeled bark off a tree. Then I got out my pocketknife and got a long piece of the inside”. You can’t tell how bad it was from only a few sentences, but trust me. It was bad. I love writing and I am good at it now, I guess no third grader is that good of a writer, are they?

Y is for YouTube

YouTube is an unnecessarily big part of my life. Both making YouTube videos and watching YouTube videos. I have two YouTube channels. One is  “The FlameTroopers Animation” that I share with my cousin, Matt. On “The FlameTroopers Animation” I upload my homemade movies and animations. On my other channel, “Geode Ty,” I upload gaming videos. I play a video game, record my screen and commentate. Not everyone sees a purpose in watching this kind of video, but over 30 million people do enjoy watching gameplay videos. I am not popular on YouTube (only 35 followers), but I do enjoy making the videos.

Z is for Zoom

My favorite T.V. show is “The Flash.” I have watched all of “The Flash” seasons. I won’t spoil anything, but season 3 ends in a total cliffhanger. I didn't know until recently, but I actually enjoy superhero shows and movies. Now I have another thing in common with my cousins. We are actually planning on making a super hero YouTube original show called the “Legion of Legacies”, juvenile heros saving the world. What? Superheroes are cool!

Solar Eclipse 2017

We experienced a rather significant astronomical phenomenon today, the first complete solar eclipse visible throughout the US since 1979, shortly before I was born. Williston was dead center in the "path of totality" during that eclipse, so it was a pretty big deal. Growing up, this image was framed and hanging in our house, and was taken by one of my dad's best friends. Can you believe that it was daylight just moments before and after this photo was taken?

Unfortunately, where we were, we only saw about 63% of the eclipse, but everyone was still excited to witness the event. For us, it was also the first day of fall semester classes at MCC, and we also planned a "solar viewing party" for campus and the community. Even though everyone knew this was happening (thanks, science!), people were surprisingly unprepared. The solar viewing glasses were sold out everywhere, and Amazon had even recalled a bunch that they had sold that weren't safe for use. Well, we planned ahead enough that I was able to order 250 pairs of safe solar viewers, and we opened our campus up to the community with some other fun activities as well. We had free snow cones, make your own pin hole cameras, a solar telescope, free pizza and some other stuff. Well, we didn't need all of that other stuff because people started lining up at least a half hour before the event so they could get the glasses. I was actually getting pretty annoyed at people because it wasn't necessary that each member of a family needed their own--they could have shared! We ran out less than 30 minutes after we started. All we could do was encourage people to share. I had no idea we'd get that big of a crowd, but once I started hearing about how no one could find the glasses, I figured our event would be pretty popular. 

The hard part was that this was also the first day of classes, and we are always busy that day, even without all of this other stuff going on. We always have a Welcome Table on the first day, so that got a little lost in all of the commotion--and the community members were raiding our table of free stuff for the students.

Luckily, I thought to grab a couple pairs of glasses to send along to school with my kids. Ava's school had a couple pair that they all took turns using, but at Tyler's school, only a few classes (teachers who planned ahead) could go. There were 3 kids in Tyler's 10:30 class who had glasses (when it was the peak eclipse here), so they got to go out with one of the other classes. I had heard that schools were keeping kids inside all day (to prevent them from trying to look at the sun, you know, like this idiot), and that they weren't providing glasses. There were plenty of kids at our event who's parents had kept them out of school for the morning to witness the event, and I even saw two boys wearing Mesa Academy shirts. I'm glad my kids still got to witness this event, even if it wasn't a full eclipse here. I wrote about another time that we watched a solar eclipse in this blog post if you want to look back.

Next time this happens it will be the year 2024, so not too far away. We won't be in the path of totality again in AZ, but the kids say they want to travel to see it. We'll have to see if that's possible--they'll be aged 18 and 15, and might not be as interested.

Family date at Top Golf

For birthdays, I've tried to give the gift of experiences more than "stuff." For Dave's birthday, I gave him a coupon for a family outing at Top Golf. Dave and I have been there a couple of times with friends and have really had fun. We thought it would be a great activity to do as a family too.

Ava got to go first, and the very first picture I took was of Dave helping her hit her first ball. I love this picture. Dave is such a patient teacher and amazing father. 

It took both kids a couple of round, but they eventually got the hang of it pretty well.

What's a Sunday morning playing golf without a mimosa? Yummy....

 Tyler got some coaching from Dad too.

This was a fun way to spend our Sunday. The kids enjoyed the golf, and would definitely like to go again sometime. Happy birthday Dave!

5 years ago today

I didn't know it at the time, but five years ago today, I experienced an activity that would forever change my life. On a random invitation, I tried this crazy thing called "flying trapeze." The rest, as they say, is history. While it was another 5 months before I became a regular flyer, that first jump off of the platform would be the beginning of a love for for flying through the air. I had no idea at the time, but trapeze would take me to some amazing places, and bring some people into my life who will likely be lifelong friends. It's a lesson in taking advantage of every opportunity because you never know what will come of it.

Here I am before my first ever jump off of the platform, with George holding my belt. I was never scared to take that first jump, like so many people are. I was more excited than anything. Now I hold belts for new people who are practically shaking because they are so nervous. Sometimes you even have to push their feet out from under them to get them to go. Those were nerves I never felt. Even today, the only times my heart ever really gets racing is after a return back to the board.

This picture tells it all. This smile is still the one I get on my face when I think about trapeze. I may not have the braces anymore, or the extra 25 pounds, but the smile is still there.

I can thank Meredith (on the left) for ever introducing me to George, who would in turn make this all possible. If she wouldn't have invited me to join her on this random evening in August, I would have never known that trapeze was a thing the average person could do. I have to give her thanks again a couple months later when she invited me to join her again (after the school closed down) after an invitation from George. That was the time that really changed everything. After that day in January, I was invited to join this group, and I will be forever grateful. I can't imagine what life would look like if I'd never taken that first jump off the platform, five years ago today. I will be forever grateful.

First day of 3rd & 6th

It's the first week of school! I can't say "the first day of school" this time because Ava and Tyler start on two different days. Poor Ava. She had her summer break cut short by a week just because of my mistake. I knew that Tyler started on the 9th, and I thought Ava started the Monday after him. Nope, she started before him! She was very bummed when she found out--not because she didn't want to go to school, but because she thought it was cool that he had to start before her.

Turns out she got to start first, and was ready on Monday morning for her first day of 3rd grade at Montessori Education Center. If all goes as we're planning, it'll be her last 'first day' at that particular school, with her hopefully joining her brother at Mesa Academy next year. She's in the same class as she was in 1st and 2nd grade, with Ms. Shelly and Ms. Mylene. This year will be fun because she's the oldest in the class, and will be a big helper for the younger kids. She had a great first day, and was excited to see her friends and meet a few new ones.

Tyler's first day came two days later. He has some changes in store for him this year, and we're all anticipating some adjustments that will be necessary. He's going to have 7 different classes, 7 different teachers, a different lunch arrangement, lots of new kids, and a bus ride home after school. He'll have homework and he'll have to learn how to manage his time. Although this will be a challenge I'm sure, he'll get it figured out and will be just fine. This is such a great opportunity for him that we'll all deal with the adjustments, hopefully with a smile on our faces. Here he is on his first day at Mesa Academy for Advanced Studies. He looks good in that uniform!

I had Ava join her brother on his first day of school--her 3rd day so we could get this traditional picture of the two of them together. We're very excited to see what this year holds for both kids! They're going to do great!

Tyler's first day went pretty well. He was able to find his way around just fine, and will just take a little while to learn his class schedule and locations. He did have one hiccup on his first day though--he missed the bus! I was in a meeting at about 3:30 today when I got a phone call from a number I didn't know. I didn't answer it the first, or even the second time it called, but picked up on the 3rd time. It was Tyler calling to tell me he missed his bus. He didn't see it out there where the rest of the busses were parked, so he went back inside the school to ask. While he was doing that, the bus must have came and went because when he went back out, there weren't any busses there. I was in that meeting, so Dave as going to be able to get to him before I could, so he and Ava ran up to the school and got him. If that's the worst thing that happened on his first day at a new school, I'd say it was a pretty good first day. I'm so excited for him to be at Mesa Academy!

PS: Happy 39th birthday Dave! His birthday sort of got lost in the shuffle of this busy day. We went out to a nice dinner with Claire and Ed, so we celebrated both of their birthdays. It was great! I'm kicking myself, of course, because I didn't even think to get a picture of Dave and his mom together on their shared birthday. We'll have to make sure we get that next year on his big 4-0! Love you Dave, thank you for being the amazing you that you are. You're truly the best husband and father I could dream of.

California Trapeze Workshop

I just got back from the most enjoyable weekend of flying trapeze! Earlier this summer, one of the coaches that I met at IFly invited me and a bunch of other AZ trapeze people (and probably people from other areas too) to take part in a 2 day trapeze workshop in the beautiful mountains outside of LA, California. Efe is the owner of the rig, and every summer, he offers trapeze lessons to kids who are attending the Pali Adventure Camp in the Big Bear area. This looks like such a cool camp, but at $2000 per week, it's not very realistic for 99% of families. Luckily for me though, I was able to fly out and enjoy a weekend of trapeze with some really amazing coaching. 

I made plans with my trapeze friend, Carol, to stay with her. I flew into Burbank, which is only about 20 minutes from her house. It was a pretty annoying flight. It was delayed leaving Phoenix, and then there was an issue with the number of people they had counted on the plane. I was supposed to arrive in Burbank at 8:45 pm, but it was almost 11 pm before I got off the plane. It made for a long day. The next morning, Carol and I headed out for our drive up the mountain, which was about 70 miles from her house. It was a nice drive and with great conversation, the drive went quickly. I was so excited to get to the rig and see this amazing place. Efe has 2 rig back to back, one which is brand spanking new! 

There were about 10 of us in the workshop, a few who I knew from IFly, and a few from various rigs in California. I knew 4 of the others, including Carol. I knew it would be important to pace myself throughout the day because I'm used to flying for only an hour and a half at a time with some time in between days to recover. This workshop was going to be 3 x 3 hour sessions of flying over 2 days, which could be tough on the hands. I worked on my swing a little, taking some advice from Brian on how to get my height up, and trying hard to stay tight in my swing. I knew he was going to try to correct my bad habit of bending my knees on my sweep, but it's so hard to break! He put me through "tight school" on the ground, were he had me lay down and squeeze every muscle in my body as hard as I could for as long as I could. It was tough! He said that's how I should be in the air. Um....sure, I'll work on that.

The first day was great! I got some really helpful advice on my swing, and then when it was time to start catching, I worked on my returns. My main goal for this weekend was to work on more consistent returns (the part after the catch where I get back to the bar), so I threw an easy trick that I can catch consistently. I threw 3 splits to Efe, and returned every one of them back to the board! That was a very satisfying way to end the first session of the workshop. I also threw an Aussie Whip, which we caught, but it wasn't a smooth catch so no chance for a return.

After the first session, we headed over to the house where the circus team stays for the summer. Hillary (Efe's girlfriend) made us a delicious, healthy lunch and we ate while we went over the video footage from the morning. The main revelation from watching the video review (in slow motion) was that all of us who were doing returns were forcing out too late in the apron after the catch. I know that doesn't mean anything to most of you who read this, but it's good for me to note for future reference. Once we fixed that in the second session, the difference in the timing was clear, and the return was smoother because of it.

What I haven't mentioned yet is that we had another coach there doing the majority of the coaching. His name is Brian Flint, and he's the best coach I've ever had since I've been flying. His background is as a catcher, having started after a random encounter with trapeze at Club Med Turkoise (where we went!). His identical twin brother is a film maker, and they documented his whole 8 year journey to become a catcher for Cirque du Soleil. You can watch the film on Amazon. It's called Catching Dreams. I just knew the basics of his story at the time of the workshop, but we watched the film once I got home. It was so fun to hear his story after spending the weekend learning from him. He was such a thorough coach, spending time with each of us after every trick we threw. His saw stuff and corrected things I've never had anyone see before, and it was so easy to understand what he meant and how to try to fix it.

The second session was fun too. It was crazy how much cooler it was up there once the sun went on the other side of the mountain. It was a beautiful evening. I worked on my cutaway half for the second session. George and Rod had been up for the previous workshop 2 weeks before, and mentioned that Efe didn't have a twisting belt. George said I could borrow one of his, which made for an odd thing to bring on the airplane. I'm glad I had it though so I could get some help on this trick. The trick was looking ok, but I didn't have much luck catching it. My foot slipped off the bar twice, two had timing issues, but I finally caught the 5th one.  Not the prettiest or smoothest catch, but I'll take it after nearly 7 hours of flying!

The rest of the group stuck around and had dinner together that night at a restaurant in town (they were all staying nearby), but Carol and I headed back to her place since we had a long drive. It was close to 9 pm by time we got home. Her husband had a delicious dinner and a bottle of wine ready for us when we arrived. It was a great end to a fund day!

The next morning we had another nice breakfast at their house before heading up the mountain for day 2 of flying. I didn't mention it before, but as you can see from this photo, there were some sore and bloody hands after that long day of flying. Several of the others in this group fly with IFly, which means they haven't flown since the end of April. If you go any significant amount of time without flying, you quickly loose your callouses, and are at high risk of tearing your hands open. Well, that happened to several people on day one, making for a very painful day 2. I knew it was important to pace myself on that first day, but my hands held up just fine. Flying 2-3 times a week definitely prepared me and my body for this workshop. I thought this was a funny look at our second morning--everyone was getting taped up to try to make it through day 2 with sore and bloody hands. It was pretty amazing to me that these people could fly with their hands in the condition they were. I think I would have called it a day if I had ripped like they did. Way to be tough, friends!

Efe is a beast in the catch trap! He had to have caught 40-60 times per session--and there were 3 session throughout the weekend. That's a crazy amount of catching! He's got to be the best catcher I've ever flown to.

Efe's girlfriend Hillary was our trusty board worker all weekend. She's great too! She dropped me some awesome bars.

Here are some screenshots from my videos from day two. 

On day 2, Carol and I had to get going a little bit before everyone else was done catching. I had to get to the airport, and we wanted to make sure we had enough time in case we hit traffic. I didn't really get to say good-bye to Efe and Hillary (nor did we get a group picture, which I'd wanted), but we did get to get a picture with Brian before we left. I feel very fortunate to have had this time with such a great coach, and really hope we're able to get him out to George's sometime this fall or winter. I know our group could benefit greatly from his coaching.

Here's a few more screenshots from my catches.

Look at me sweeping without bending my legs! It may have only been for a split second, but it made for a pretty picture at least! Now if I could just get some more flexibility in my back....

This was one of the highest returns I had, but of course my legs came apart. If only I could have stayed tight, this would have been my best ever! I love this view though--I had plenty of time to turn and see that bar. It was so fun to get all of these awesome round trips...talk about a trapeze confidence booster!

It was such a fantastic weekend. I was feeling a little bad about leaving the family the weekend before the kids were starting school, and after we'd been gone the previous 2 weekends in ND, but I am so very glad that I went. I am grateful for Dave's support of me taking these crazy trips to follow my passion. I definitely want to go again next summer if the opportunity arrises, and hopefully others from our group will be able to go at the same time. Many thanks to my friend Carol and her husband Mark for hosting me for the weekend. It was so fun to get all that time with her. I am so lucky to have made all of these great new friends thanks to trapeze. It's one of the many reasons why it's changed my life so much. Here are a couple more videos from the weekend...

I love this view!