BUSY & Kara Turns 15

Kara turned 15 on February 12th. She had multiple days of celebration. First, the Mitski concert. Then, we celebrated as a family on Saturday, February 10th. Kara wanted us to go to a park, have a picnic, and hang out like we did on Thanksgiving in Tennessee. We went to Fort Christmas. We tossed around a football, then Thomas made up a game where we played basketball with the football. The rules were that once you had the ball, you either had to pass or shoot. It was pretty fun. Then, we played baseball, had our picnic and left.

Just a picnic in the park.

That night, we had Kara's chosen dinner, meatballs, asparagus, and mashed potatoes. She made her own cake again this year. It was a fancy strawberry recipe with vanilla buttercream. It was delicious, but we agreed the strawberry flavor wasn't quite strong enough. 

Sunday was the Superbowl and my friend Bevin's baby shower. Bevin's daughter, Beya, is Luke's age and Luke was invited. He was the only male in the house and felt a little awkward, but toughed it out. Beya was the first friend Luke made when we moved to Florida. Then, they were in the same Kindergarten class. They are also in the same class this year.  After the baby shower we came home and watched the Super Bowl. Thomas was in first place in our work poll (about 70 people) and he had to pick the correct winner to stay on top. He chose the Chiefs and we were very excited that they won.

The week passed busily. The girls had a lacrosse game on Kara's actual birthday. It was a varsity game, but the coach let some of the JV girls play, including Kara and Anna. Their team won handily. There is a big dichotomy here in lacrosse. Some teams have never played and some are really good. I would say our team is in the middle. We have had three games, we lost two by a huge margin and won one by a huge margin.

Jack had track practice everyday. He is running distance and feels like he is making improvements. And, of course, Luke still has baseball. So, every day it is a minimum of 2 activities, and some days 3. Thank goodness the girls are doing the same thing or I don't know how we would manage! We thought about pushing Jack on getting his license (which he is on board with), but there is no parking for Sophomores at the high school, so it wouldn't do us much good. We still plan on having him get it around summer time. Then, we will focus on Anna, and then Kara. Ugh!

The girls also had their first JV lacrosse game this week. The coach appointed Kara as one of the captains (just for that game). She played a lot and did really well. Anna had been sick and missed two practices this week, so she didn't play as much. Oh, speaking of being sick--Luke had strep throat last week and was home for three days. 

Kara playing in the "draw"

Blurry shot of Anna (had to zoom way in, she was across the field)

I am writing this on a Saturday. Kara has a few friends over for her Valentine's/birthday get together. I am hanging out in my bedroom. Luke was supposed to have a baseball tournament, but it got canceled for weather. So, the boys went to Arcade Monsters. Anna is also avoiding the party, she is hanging out in her room.

Kara and I were proud of how cute the pretzels looked.

With most of the party snacks.

Impromptu Concert and Sports

Kara turns 15 on the 12th. She has been vacillating for a while on what she wanted to do for her birthday. First, she wanted to see Mitski, a singer, in concert. But, then we couldn't get tickets. So, she decided on a Valentine's themed-party. The Mitski concert was on Tuesday at 8pm. I went into the office that day, picked up the older kids from their sports activities (Thomas took Luke to baseball) and had just settled on the couch after dinner to relax when Kara came bounding downstairs announcing the Mitski tickets had dropped in price and maybe we should go after all. I was completely on board, her birthday, her choice of celebration. But, she also wanted the party, so she was torn. She asked a Magic Eight ball and flipped a coin and both said concert. It was around 6:30 and the concert started at 8. We bought the tickets, prepaid parking and left the house about 15 minutes later. Fortunately, the venue was less than 30 minutes away and we had plenty of time to park, go to will call, and check out the merchandise table (concert shirt was obviously a necessity). We watched the opening act, a sad male singer named Tamino. He had a beautiful voice and was enjoyable to listen to. It was just him and a guitar and almost felt like meditation music, it was melodic and peaceful. 

Pre-concert, with time to spare for a picture :)

Then, Mitski performed. I had never heard of her, but I enjoyed her music and the concert in general. We had great seats and it was a fun night. We got home around 1130 and both us were up in time for work/school on Wednesday, like it had never happened (Kara wakes up before 5!). It was way more spontaneous than I would ever be without a push from an energetic teenager, but I am grateful for the experience and happy that Kara got the birthday gift she wanted most. She is still going to have a little get together with her friends (I think), but it will be a more mellow affair.

Mitski herself

Post concert, who's tired? Not us!

The rest of the week was busy. The girls had lacrosse, Jack had track. Luke had his first baseball tournament at the USSSA level. They have three types of tournaments here (that I am aware of): Greater Orlando Baseball (GOB), USSSA, and Perfect Game. Our team could not hang at Perfect Game, those kids are like mini professionals, but they were kind of killing it in GOB, so the coaches decided to try the middle ground. Luke was the starting pitcher for the tournament and did great. At the end of the first day, the Vipers were the number one seed. I have never seen them play better. The whole team was on fire! On Sunday, they won their first game, but fell short in the championship match. I hate to sound like sour grapes, but they really should have won. One of their players was sick, so they only had 8. That meant an automatic out every 9th batter and a giant hole in right field. Despite that huge disadvantage, they still only lost by 3. The competition didn't actually seem much different from GOB, but maybe it was just a weird week. We will see how the next tournament goes. 

Jack had a professional driving lesson on Friday. We are working toward him getting his license and he is pretty close. All three kids did an online drivers ed course that included 6 free instructional hours. Jack is our guinea pig. Although, Anna is getting anxious to get her license as well, but she had told us months ago she was in no hurry and didn't care when she got her license, so we decided to focus on getting Jack ready. She seems to regret her choice, but we are making her stick to it. We don't have the time to get two kids all the required hours and ready for the test. Plus, the insurance increase is going to kill us, so better to work our way up.

The older kids did their course selection for next year. Jack and Anna only have 2.5 years of high school left! I hope time goes by very slowly (except at work-- I want a magic time machine that makes work hours feel really fast and family hours feel really slow). 

In kind of weird "news," I had to drive to Lakeland today for my dad, on the way, I was minding my own business driving in the stop and go mess that is I4, happily listening to a Podcast when a driver got right on my tail and then sped around me, using the breakdown lane to pass me. Then, he gave me the middle finger out of their sunroof. I have no idea what I did. I was driving in the left lane, but was keeping up with the car in front of me and again, it was stop and go traffic. There was no passing lane, we were all just crawling along. The only thing I can think of is maybe he had been in other lane and wanted to get in front of me and it was a moment when I had sped up a little? I legit had been driving in the same lane with the same car in front of me for 10 excruciatingly long miles. That is the second time recently someone has given me the bird. I think I am good driver, I make way for other cars, I use the left lane for passing (unless it's stop and go traffic where we are all kind of parked anyway), I don't tailgate, etc. I feel like society is so much less kind than it was 10, or even 5, years ago. Is this a Florida thing? Drivers here definitely are way more aggressive and mean than they were in Maryland. But, the two flip-offs in two weeks is disconcerting.