Red Chair Meetings

We're still having plenty of virtual meetings, and I have a feeling those aren't going away. It's actually pretty convenient to be able to meet virtually instead of needing to drive to other campuses to meet. Pre-pandemic, the majority of our meetings took place at the "main" campus, which meant any of us from Red had to drive 20-25 minutes there and back. These virtual meetings can be nice to save on driving. It also means we can take meetings from anywhere, including the Red Chairs outside my office. I think I was sitting in on our virtual student leadership retreat here, and Kris (my former boss, current Dean of our campus) had the same idea to work outside. The weather is great and the scenery is beautiful. We joke about having "Red Chair Meetings" or a meeting "In the Adirondacks." It's also nice because we can be out here without masks on, which makes for a nice break. Sometimes it's the little things....

 

Tyler's school videos

Tyler has been making some cool videos for the various sports and activities at RMHS. He also helps with school announcements (video announcements that are filmed and produced every day, and shown during 5th period), and helps film sporting and theater events. I'm so glad he has gotten connected with this class--he's doing the work he really enjoys and has made some friends who have similar interests. It's great to see him connecting to school a bit more than he ever has.

His cross country video was one of the best he did, and it was the first one he did. For these videos, he has to interview some of the players/coaches, shoot some video of their practices and help tell the story about the activity. He went in before school one morning to film the cross country practice, and lucked out with some beautiful post-storm lighting. He brought his drone and his One Wheel, and that in addition to the amazing lighting and Tyler's mad skills, made for an awesome video. 

He ended up having to do the Cheer/Pom video at the last minute, which meant he had to go to the football game for some of the footage and interviews. I think the teacher saw how well Tyler did with the cross country video, so he had him do this one when no one else was doing it. 

I really like this band video too. My friend's daughter is the Drum Major for the RMHS marching band (and she's also Matt's girlfriend), so I encouraged Tyler to do their video if he had the chance. I think it turned out great, and it was fun to see Paloma interviewed. I never realized what the job of the drum major was in a marching band, so I learned something here. 

There's also a video here about the girls soccer team, and the boys basketball team, which I couldn't find on You Tube. I'll try to remember to share more of his school videos as they come up. 

So much homework

Ava is having a challenging year of school. Seventh grade at the Academy is tough, and Ava is definitely feeling it. There are a couple of teachers who are just known for being pretty demanding, even more than others at this rigorous school. Social Studies is a lot of work (I may have written about it back when Tyler was in this class), and takes a good chunk of Ava's time every night. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she spends 4-5 hours on homework most nights, and she goes to bed after me, staying awake until 11 pm or later some nights. I hate to see her spending so much time on homework, and waking up tired every day. Part of it is that Ava is a bit of a perfectionist with her schoolwork, so she isn't willing to do anything but her best work. When I reached out to her SS teacher with my concerns, he said that what he sees is Ava writing a paragraph for an answer that only needs a sentence or two. In addition to Social Studies, she also has 8th grade math, science (which has a tough teacher), English, Digital Tech, Spanish, and band. It's a heavy load for sure! I remember 7th grade being a lot of work for Tyler too, so hopefully it'll get better for her. This is what most week nights look like for Ava. She's such a great student, I only wish she didn't have to spend so much time doing homework. 

Tyler on the other hand...his nights mostly look like this. He worked really hard at the Academy too, but I think it over-prepared him for high school. He has homework, but not nearly as much as Ava, and we never really see him doing it. He is really enjoying his video production class, which has special projects where he gets to do short videos, school announcements, and filming/streaming sporting events. Here he is working on a video about the RMHS marching band. I'll do a separate post with some of the videos he's done. I keep reminding Ava that high school will be better because of all the works she's doing now. It's not very comforting in the moment though. 

Long awaited girls night

The last time the four of us saw each other was in July 2018 with our families, and it's been since April 2018 since just the four of us girls got together. There were a couple times here and there that 3 of us got together, but over 3 years since this happened. These ladies live very busy lives, plus the pandemic, and on top of that, we live in four very distant corners of the valley. It's not easy to get together. We managed to find a night to do dinner and drinks, and it was so wonderful to catch up! Even though it's been so long, we're able to jump right back into it like not time has passed. We always try not to talk too much about work, but considering that's where we all met and still work, it definitely fills the bulk of conversation. After we finish with the work stuff, we do all the family updates, and before we know it our evening is over. We managed to get another date on the calendar before the end of the year, so hopefully we can make this more regular. I miss these ladies so much! It was so good for the soul to be able to reconnect. I have some really amazing friends. These women are rockstars. 

 

Club Rush at Red

We're back to having events in person again, and I'm so excited! But first, we mask up indoors, and just got these new MCC masks. Funny story about masks--my department bought MCC masks back in 2020 as a giveaway item. We got rid of all 500 of them, and I submitted the paperwork to order more at the end of the spring 2021 semester. I had placed the order on this same day that the CDC made the announcement that vaccinated individuals didn't need to mask up indoors. Our college president reached out to me and said she didn't think we needed to order more masks at this point, and fortunately I was able to cancel the order. Fast forward to about the end of the summer, and our district made the announcement that we were requiring masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. Our president said, "well, I guess you should have ordered more in May." So, here I am modeling our new MCC masks. Will this be the last time I place an order like this? I sure hope so. 

Our club recruitment event looked pretty similar to previous semesters, except that there were way less students participating. Clubs really struggled to stay active during our remote semesters, so I think it will take some time for them to get back up and running again. We did what we could to promote the clubs that are hoping to be active again, but unfortunately, very few of them are at my campus. These are two of my three student workers that are in my office this semester, and both worked for me before everything went remote. They have seen quite a bit of change in Student Life in their two years in my office. They had one "normal" semester, one semester where we all went remote after Spring Break, one full school year working remotely, and now back to some version of an in person semester. They've been troopers for sure, so thanks Autumn and Alex!

The one thing we did differently this time was rather than having paper copies of the sign up sheet, the students could scan a QR code for the club they were interested in and fill out the sign up sheet electronically. It was definitely less personal than before when the clubs were actually there recruiting in person, but hopefully we can get back to that one of these days. For now, it's just great to be doing this on campus again!

Film photos from Munds

Tyler had some film to use up after our ND trip, so he brought it with when we went to Munds Park a couple weeks ago. He got some really good shots. Did I mention how much it cost to get this film developed? He had 4 rolls of film, which we took to a local camera store to have developed, and we had no idea what it was going to cost. We figured it has gone up in the years since we all went digital, and that it would no longer be $6 for a roll of double prints. Any guesses? $80! It was $20 per roll to have the digitized from film. I'm not sure if it would have been cheaper to have them printed, but we knew we didn't have any use for prints, so had them send us the digital copies of the images. Afterwards, Tyler said "I don't think I'll do that again, I'll just use a filter to give it the effect of being film." Enjoy these photos from his short lived film photography career.  

Here is one of the Stellar Jays that stops by for peanuts every day. They put them out on their balcony and the birds are very brave about flying in and grabbing them. They evens squack at you if you're sitting outside and there are no peanuts on the railing. They're very demanding birds!

This forest land is just across the street from their property. It's super convenient for a short hike in the woods. 

The birds don't come around as much when Mona is on the deck. 

I mentioned that morning coffee on the deck is one of our favorite things to do (and theirs too). It was pretty chilly when we first got up, but it warmed up nicely. Mona was trying to climb onto Heather's lap, which was already occupied by Lila. 

The girls were playing some card games to pass the time. These really are some great photos. If film wasn't such a commitment, I think Tyler could really be good at film photography. It was fun to see these photos from Tyler's perspective since I'm usually the one taking the pictures. It's so nice to have this cabin to retreat to once in awhile--grateful for generous friends!

Grandpa's birthday

We've done a few photo recreations over the years with the cousins, but this might be one of my favorite. When Tina suggested we retake this photo, I thought "good luck getting a bunch of teenagers to be this goofy," but I was wrong. They were all in! Look at each kid and compare their before and after--it was spot on! The results are pretty great. The kids all look quite a bit different, but Grandpa Ed has hardly aged! Happy Birthday!

Ditching the lines

Today was an exciting day at trapeze. I've been working on a trick called an uprise shoot for awhile now, catching it consistently with Rod. We have a new coach that's been coming out, Darrel, and he's been encouraging me to take it out of lines to catch. This is a trick that is tough to take to the net safely, so I've been hesitant to take it out of lines, even though we catch it consistently. The general rule, for us at least, is that you don't throw a trick out of lines to catch unless you've taken it to the net...but I'm making an exception for this one. I tend to go head first when I do this trick to the net, which is not ideal when you don't have safety lines to slow you down. I figure I'll be able to get to the net safely if I need to, but there's no reason to take the extra risk practicing it that way. Anyway, today was the day we decided to do it, and it went great! 

Here's a video so you can see the whole thing. The return wasn't great, but it was still a first time out of lines catch and return! So exciting!

I wasn't the only one ditching the lines today. Ali does a trick called a 540, which is 1 1/2 twists, and she was ready to ditch the lines for the catch too. She's been doing this trick for a long time, but not with Rod, but they want to get it ready for the show we're doing in October. I don't have a video of it, but they had a great first time catch! It's such a cool trick. Here's a video of one that they didn't quite catch, but it'll give you the idea. We have a cowbell that was given to us by a friend, which is meant to be rung whenever someone catches something new out of lines. I think we usually forget about it, but remembered to ring it this time to celebrate our two new catches. 

After all the fun flying, it was time for another pool party. This might be the last pool party of the season, as it's finally that time of year when the evening and morning temperatures dip down to comfortable levels. It's always fun to do this when we have guests in town too, so Darrel got to get in on a summer pool party. 

I love these days and these people! It's been quite awhile since I've taken a new trick out of lines, so today was really fun. I am so grateful for the encouragement and the vote of confidence I got leading up to this day. Thanks team!

10 years ago

This photo popped up on my Facebook today as a memory from 10 years ago. It's one of my favorite pictures of little Miss Ava. This was one of the best pouty faces of all times! 

You better believe I asked her to make the same face so we can see how she's changed in a decade. Should we try this again when she's 22? 

September food distribution

We've started our food distributions for the community again. This was the one event that we did on campus all through the 20-21 academic year, and it was so great to come together each month to help serve our community. With this being the first distribution after the break for summer, I wasn't sure what kind of traffic we'd get. I shouldn't have worried though, as it seems that the word is out about this service. We get food for 100 people, and we had gone through all of it (except for a small cart full of watermelons) by the time it ended at noon. It's so great to be back on campus with my staff and friends.

The other exciting thing is these cool new Adirondak chairs that we have around campus. When I saw them unloading this week, I made sure we got a couple outside of our office. It made a great place to relax for a bit after we got done with our distribution today. Our campus is so beautiful, and now we have these super comfortable chairs where we can sit and enjoy the view. 

I've also decided that this is where I'll spend my mornings when I get to work--coffee with a view while I check email. After working from home for so long, I finally have a laptop for work. We've only had these chairs for a couple days and I've already put them to good use. Can't beat this view! 

My new catching shorts

I'm trying out some new shorts for catching. The majority of catchers wear tights (long leggings), but I've never been comfortable catching in tights. I always feel like I'm slipping out of my catch lock, so prefer to wear shorts and have bare skin helping me stick to the bar. Sometimes I even spray rosin (sticky stuff) on my skin to help lock me in there. The problem with this is that it tends to be pretty tough on my skin, and I've even started to develop callouses on the front of my thighs. I did a search online the other day for "sticky leggings" and it brought me to a site that sells clothing for pole dancers, so I decided to give them a try. 

Guess what....they're perfect! They fit great and they really help me stick securely to the bar, even when I'm catching George! I took a few photos in the shorts to share with the company so they could see that they have uses beyond pole dancing. 

See where the bar sits on the front of my legs? That's usually where I like to have bare skin, but these are so much better....and the skin on the front of my legs will appreciate the layer of protection. 

The real test of these things is when I'm catching George, the heaviest person I catch, but instead I'm catching the lightest for these photos. 

Here's a couple videos of me doing some catching as well. I hope these things hold up for awhile because they sure work well! This first video is funny. Nadia told me she was doing a split, which is a trick we catch all the time. When the time came though, she actually did her Aussie Whip instead! Luckily, both of these tricks have the same timing, so it worked out just fine, but my first reaction was "that was not a split." You can actually hear me say it to her as soon as we caught. I guess we should start catching this trick too! 

Here is me catching Ali's layout.....

...and Jan's seats off. It was a fun day!

Another coach visit

Our new coach friend, Herdlyn came out again for the weekend. He was just here for the weekend again, since it's hard for him to get away for any longer than that. We didn't quite have the rainy, "cool" weather that we had in July, but it was still a great weekend. Here is one of my split catches with Herdlyn. 

We had a fun pool party after our Saturday practice. We had some snacks and drinks, and a really good time!

On the Sunday, Herdlyn taught us all how to do an angel return. It's something I've always wanted to try (and did once, it didn't go well), so it was fun to learn it from someone who knows how to catch it. I can't find the video of the one I did, but trust me that I did a couple and even returned one of them. I also tried doing an angel return with Ali, but I tossed her into the net instead. Here is that video, in case you'd like to see me toss my friend into the net. 

We are so fortunate to get to have all these coaches come out to work with us. Herdlyn is definitely a favorite since he can catch us too, and I appreciate the catch coaching I get from him as well. It was a super fun weekend!