Continued adventures in fencing!

Happy new year! (somewhat belatedly...) I hope 2016 is off to a good start for you and yours. For us, life continues on in it usual hectic manner. Aaron started working again in December, so we're all adjusting to having both of us out of the house full-time. It's a big change but a very good one.

Since I last posted, Maisie's fenced in two tournaments!

The first was in December, Windy City Super Youth Circuit (SYC), in Chicago. This was a tournament of many firsts: her first traveling tournament, and her first time fencing kids from other sword clubs. She did quite well!

She and I arrived on Friday morning. Her event was Saturday, but we didn't know at what time, so we came down a day early so as not to cut it too close... and to have some free time in Chicago! After checking in at the hotel, we hopped on the El to downtown. We stopped by Cathy and Jim's office for a brief but lovely visit, then we went over to the Christmas market! I'd heard a lot about it but had never been before. Maisie had hot apple cider, in a keepsake little booth-shaped mug, to warm up!

The whole time she was like "My friends are in school and I'm in Chicago!!" like she couldn't believe it.


Saturday was the big tournament day!

Maisie was ready to go. There were 9 girls in her age/weapon group, and in fencing tournaments, the top 8 are awarded medals. So her goal, which seemed really achievable, was to medal. (Also I did NOT want to see how upset she'd be if she were the only one who didn't medal!!) So with that, we were off and fencing...

The tournament itself wasn't the best-organized for the girls. There were 3 strips going, so as soon as one bout finished she'd get her mask off but would immediately be called to her next bout. There wasn't a chance to take a breather or listen to her coach!

At the end, she made her goal, placing 7th.

I was (and am) so proud of her! She worked really hard. I think she was a little disappointed in herself, but it ended up a very positive experience.

Then yesterday was another small tournament at our home sword club. This one only had TWO girls in the age/weapon category - Maisie and her buddy Inga. They fenced two bouts - a seeding round that Maisie won 5-3, then they did the final bout, which goes to 10. Maisie got down 1-6, fought back to bring it to 9-9, but ended up losing the match point. She was incredibly disappointed, cried a lot, and asked to go home immediately afterwards instead of sticking around to watch other fencers.

She perked up when I asked if she and Ella wanted to go to the Mall of America to ride the rides, and even ended up putting her medal back on and smiling about it.

Next up for Maisie is the North American Cup, in Salt Lake City in March. I've never been to SLC before. I'm looking forward to it! She's excited about seeing mountains for the first time, and seeing some of the girls she met in Chicago.

She's really enjoying fencing, and I'm really proud of how well she's doing. She's working hard and seeing the results! It's a lot of fun to watch.

Fencing

So I don't know if I ever mentioned it here, but a while back (spring? summer?) Maisie started taking fencing lessons!

We are fortunate to live just down the street from the Minnesota Sword Club, which has fencing lessons for people of all ages. (Well, as long as that age is 6 or older.) They even have medieval fighting classes, which my friend Kyle has been taking for a while now. They're really nice people and the kids we've met there have been great, too.

So anyway, there's more to this post than just a commercial for the Sword Club :) Last night after her class, the owner of the sword club pulled me aside to chat about Maisie's progress. He told me that they have an invitation-only group that trains specially for national competition, and would she/we be interested in her specializing in sabre and joining the team?

I was super flattered, but also very surprised! When we started her fencing it was just supposed to be for fun. To hear that she has the potential for being nationally competitive? That was not something I expected!

So Aaron and I talked about it, and Maisie's interested, so we're going for it! She'll be spending more time at the Sword club, doing more group classes as well as some individual lessons. We're going to try to let her lead it... Aaron and I definitely don't want to be "dance moms" pushing her so hard that it isn't fun any more. But as long as she's enjoying it, having fun and making friends, we feel like this could be a great opportunity for her!

See you at the sword club!

8!

Maisie is eight years old today!

We celebrated her birthday with local family yesterday, which was super fun! Auntie Laura and Dylan hosted us, Gramma Liisa, and Jim. We had dinner followed by a beautiful cake that Gramma Liisa made. Maisie loved her presents - lots of clothes, all of which she liked (everyone seems to have her sparkly tops & knit pants style down!), a beautifully fuzzy blankie and cute knit owls from Gramma Jo, and a book she'd been wanting from Jim.

8-year-old Maisie is delightful. Her favorite things right now include fencing...

She absolutely LOVES fencing! As a leftie, she's got a natural advantage. I think she'll keep up with it for a while - we just finished our first three-month session and she's ready to go back for more!

She loves reading and writing...

Maisie always seems to have a journal with her, and is constantly drawing pictures and writing about things that she sees. Some of them she shares with me, other things she keeps private. She also loves to read - we're currently into book 6 of the Harry Potter series! She's also really into the Emily Windsnap series. She likes to bring a book wherever she goes, and will happily read to herself, or read to Ella and keep them both entertained!

Maisie loves Ella...

Yeah, they do fight sometimes. But most of the time they're each other's best friends. Sometimes on the weekend, they wake up and tiptoe out into the living room to watch Netflix or build with Legos before Aaron and I get up. They're never really all that quiet, so we usually do wake up. But we stay in bed and snooze and let them play. It's pretty sweet.

She loves her Finnish dance group, Pikku Kisarit...

Kind of random, right? But she absolutely loves this activity. The Finnish-American community here in the Twin Cities is really active and a great group of people, so I'm glad that she's having so much fun. She had a great week at Salolampi last summer, and is excited to go back for more. And of course, I think it helps that she has a Finnish pen pal! They send each other little gifts and letters. It's adorable.

At 8, Maisie is growing into a delightful person. I can see the beginnings of the young woman she is becoming, and I am excited to see who she is. Even now, though, Maisie brings a lot of joy into our lives. She's smart and funny, caring and considerate, enthusiastic and creative. We can't imagine life without her!

Take me out to the ballgame

Last week, thanks to my generous employer, I won 4 tickets to Saturday's Twins game! I thought it would be really fun for me and Aaron to take the girls to their first baseball game - it was a noon game, so the timing was right, and it was free, so if they got bored or antsy we could just leave without having wasted money on tickets. I was really looking forward to it!

Maisie, however, had different ideas. "Baseball is boring," she said, and refused to go. So I invited Auntie Laura and Dylan to join me and Ella at the game instead!

The four of us took the train to Target Field. It's super convenient - it's the last stop and lets you off right outside the gate. Between the train ride and getting to snuggle up with Dylan, Ella was having a blast already!

We arrived at the ballpark at 11:50 to an announcement of a rain delay. It wasn't raining too hard, so we decided to wander around a little while we waited it out. Laura, Dylan, and I ate turkey sandwiches, and then we went to a store to shop for Twins gear... Dylan needed a cool hat like Ella's, and they both decided they needed giant foam fingers.

There was music on the PA, and the cameras were showing people dancing in the stands. Dylan decided that he had to get on TV. So he and Laura headed down into the stands to dance and try and get the cameras' attention.

Mission accomplished! The giant fingers worked, or something. Just a moment after I took this picture I went down to ask Ella not to sit on the stairs. Then the cameras caught all of us! I immediately started dancing like a fool (because hello, camera!) and we all waved. It was awesome.

After that, Laura and Dylan went to go try their luck to get on camera again in a different part of the stadium. While they did that, Ella and I had a corn dog...

And got her face painted.

We'd just picked up some cotton candy when we found Laura & Dylan again, so we all headed up to our seats. We were actually sitting under a big awning, so they were dry! So we decided to wait out the rain delay from the comfort of section 325, row 11.

This section is called "skyline view" - rather lovely, as you can see, even on a gray, rainy day. And for being so high up, we actually had a pretty good view of the field.

Target Field is pretty remarkable in that respect. I've had good seats and less-good seats there, but never an obstructed view or even a difficult sight line. It's really well built, especially when compared to the awfulness that it baseball at the Metrodome.

So finally, after a two and a half-hour delay... it was baseball time!

After all that time, the game itself was pretty anti-climactic. The first three innings were scoreless, and went fast. The big excitement was dancing to the music they played for the different batters.

They really liked dancing to the music.

We ended up staying through the end of the 4th inning. It was cold and damp, the Twins were down 2 runs, and we'd been there for over four hours at that point. We were all ready to head on home.

But despite the delays and the disappointing performance, it was a fun fun day with Laura and Dylan. We'll definitely do it again... and hopefully this time it'll be sunny.

Southside Sprint

As I mentioned earlier, we've been doing a lot of biking lately. Maisie wakes up and wants to go for a bike ride almost immediately. It's fun for both of us.

Yesterday we all biked up to the Kingfield farmers market - me with Maisie on the tag-along, and Aaron with Ella in the Burley. Unfortunately, Aaron got a flat on the ride home! So I ran up to the nearest open bike shop/art gallery, Bikes and Pieces, to pick him up a new tube and tire.

Much to my surprise, there was a whole bike race going on! It was the Southside Sprint, which I'd never heard of before. They closed off streets to make a 3/4-mile track, and there was a whole festival atmosphere - local bike shops and other businesses had set up booths, and people were having fun and watching the races.

Given Maisie's newfound love of biking, I figured this'd be a lot of fun for her, so the two of us headed up there. We saw the tail end of the kids' race (which was SO cute!) and then watched the whole men's race. I didn't think she'd be that interested, but I was completely wrong. We pulled up a shady section of curb and sat there for an hour, watching the race.

We were really impressed by how fast they went (it was hot out!), and how close they rode to each other. I have no idea how they managed to avoid crashing into each other, at those speeds and with those small distances separating them. Lots of practice, I suppose.

When the race wasn't in front of us, we spent our time taking pictures of ourselves...

 And of each other!

My face looks SO red! It was hot out, what can I say.

We also ate popcorn from the Parkway (as you can probably see in our pics), had snow cones, tried to answer trivia questions that we knew nothing about (how many times did Greg LeMond win the Tour de France? Which American had the highest finish in the Tour de France this year? Which nation has the most wins in the Tour de France? I have no idea.), and just enjoyed being outside together on a sunny summer day.

Maisie's thinking about entering the kids' race next year. Or rather, I'm encouraging her to think about it - she's still not sure. But whether she races or not, I think this is going to become one of our regular summer activities.

Almost over now...

It's hard to believe, but the summer's almost over. Only 3 more weeks until Maisie's first day of Kindergarten! Holy cow, I can hardly believe it.

Since last weekend the weather's gotten a lot better. High temps are more reasonable - mid-80's instead of upper 90's, and not too humid - so Aaron and the girls have actually been able to get outside!

They've been going to a little park near our house to run around. We have a kid's sized soccer ball, and Aaron's teaching the girls basic soccer skills - how to kick, how to pass, how to stop the ball. Ella's still working on it, but Maisie's picking it up really quickly. On Monday after work we went to the park, and I taught her how to throw a frisbee (turn your body so you throw across your body, look where you want the 'bee to go, flick your wrist like this) and she picked that right up, too. By the end of our little outing, she was throwing confidently, and getting the 'bee where she wanted it to go probably 50% of the time. I am super impressed!

Yesterday they went back to the park - here's some of the pics that they sent me...

Ella resting, post running-around:

(It was still in the 80's, hence the very pink cheeks.)

Picnic lunch time:

Aaaah! Apparently Aaron packed a seafood lunch!!

Oh, did you notice Maisie's new short haircut? It's funny because she's such a girly-girl in a lot of ways, but she really loves having short hair. I like it too because it means fewer fights about combing out tangles.

Overall it's been a good summer. I know Maisie's excited about starting K in a few weeks but I'll be sad to see the summer over. I did take the Monday of the last week of August off work so we can all go to the state fair together - it'll be our last hurrah of the summer - school starts that Wednesday. Just 3 weeks away!