Synchromom strikes again

As I have mentioned before, February is prime time synchronized swim season. And this whole week has really had me involved as well, as the YMCA team had not been sufficiently proactive to get the nice swimsuits snatched this year. For one of Teresa’s routines we were left with the option of some hideous blue and orange cowboy themed suits (but why......) or to purchase regular bathing suits and decorate them ourselves. And guess who immediately thought “yay, that could be fun ......”🙄

The music for the routine was somewhat mambo inspired , so Teresa and I came up with the idea of putting a black mamba on the suit.

The swimsuits finally arrived a week before they were to be used, and they were tight! As in one-size-too-small-but-we-don’t-have-time-to-return-them-tight. And working with stretchy fabric stretched to the max is not really my expertise, so I decided to make the snakes and attached them only when they were all done. Here are the heads:

Wonderful green snake eyes (on sale at JoAnns....) and glittery black tongues. Every zoologist would know that this is exactly how you identify a black mamba in the wild!

And here are the girls in their suits (I am quite certain that not all of these young ladies would like to be recognized on this picture. A few of them looked incredibly dorky as I took the photo, so you will have to do with this):

Unfortunately the glue for the tongue did not survive in the chlorinated water and all the poor little snakes will need a new one - with better glue - before the next meet.

The meet yesterday was a so-called “Midwest invitational” for kids aged 12 and under. Teresa does obviously not belong in this group but the whole team went and all the older girls showed their routines anyway. I was assigned timing duty:

Which is making sure the the girls get in the water within 10 seconds after the music starts, and that the length of the routine lives up to the assigned standards. We were 3 people watching with stopwatches. And that might seem like overkill, but do you have any idea how easy it is to screw up the buttons on these things? Just sayin’!

On a positive note the other Mom and I got along really well. To the point where we made plans to get all the moms together to set up a synchro routine to show the girls. We had plenty of ideas, like doing our deck work to the theme of Jaws for instance. Let’s see how it goes, but I can only imagine that doing this will be anything by boring.

Dam dam dam dam dam dam dam dam

Snow days

Yes that is plural! Two snow days this week. First time was Wednesday with 2 inches of snow that was cleared from the road that same afternoon. The kids loved it (duh) but it kind of made me roll my eyes that it took that small an amount of snow to close the schools. This weekend we are having the pleasure of aquatinting ourselves with “Mateo”, who decided to roll in and cover our part of the states in a thick white blanket:

And this time it is bit more serious. It is not too windy but there is a lot of snow and it keeps coming! Here’s the view from our bedroom window this Saturday morning:

And as I walked the dog last night (who had some issues doing his dog business with snow all the way up to his stomach) I had the pleasure to watch the Dominos pizza car struggle to go down the street without getting completely stuck in the snow.

Kristian and I both decided to work from home Friday. I did a marathon “brain stain and microscope imaging” session Thursday so I did not have to come in at all Friday (right now I do not have any animals that require daily attention - phew). And in the afternoon Luca and I made our way through the snow to go visit Fabiana and Nina with strawberries and chocolate. Not bad at all. Here is a “snowfie” from the return walk:

Unfortunately Kristian was supposed to go to a Men’s Retreat with our church, but they had to cancel all of Friday and some of Saturday, and he has just decided not to go at all. Teresa’s big swim meet Friday night was also cancelled, so it does feel a bit like we are snowed in without much to do. I’ll probably put on my sturdiest boots and my biggest coat and walk over to JoAnns (nope - I am NOT driving in this weather!) to buy supplies for decorating those sparkly swim suits for Teresa’s group routine, that I somehow got into signing myself up for😳.

February is.......

- by far the coldest month. But somehow January went by so fast this year with the remnants of our North Carolina visit, extra long Christmas break, and my conference trip to Colorado. And I am getting just a little bit better at handling the cold as the years go by. And as long as the temperature does not dip unbearably low (below -20C in the night and -10C in the day) I can live with it.

- college application time. Ulrik is a senior in high school and this summer he will be moving on to the next stage of life - college. As I write he has already been accepted to Alma. A small liberal arts school up north that is private and thus rather expensive. They sent him an acceptance letter filled with confetti. Thank you Alma........ But since he has a high GPA (overall high school score) they already offered a scholarship of 20.000$ reduction per year. And they might throw more money at him, so I guess we’ll wait and see what happens. Today he is getting ready to visit MSU (yes that MSU with the creepy athletics doctor.......😕) for the annual portfolio day. Since he is applying to art and design school he needs to display his work, and in 20 minutes he will leave with his dad and some ceramics in the trunk.

- super bowl! The stores are overflowing with beer and dip and more beer and more dip. And then some dip. Because that’s what you eat during the show. I have to admit that that I love the dip and the halftime show and the commercials. My professor hosts a party every year (with plenty of dip and a very large TV), so of course we are going. Justin Timberlake will be performing this year and I am curious to see if he is going to brand himself as a new person with his new super weird single.

- synchronized swimming prime time with meets here and there and everywhere. Teresa currently swims in two teams (the high school team and the YMCA team) and she is steadily moving up trough the ranks with more advanced routines, super serious level testing, and new sparkly bathing suits. I have somehow gotten myself into decorating suits for one of the routines. It is only 4 girls for that particular suit so I think I can manage.

- time for me to set up new techniques in the lab. With all the chaos that comes with it and endless visits to other lab to learn how to do things right and order in the right equipment. Including a gazillion weird equipment photos on my phone

Well. I guess it is time for me to get out of bed. “Someone” needs his morning walk and even though he does not complain loudly I can tell that he is more than ready. Here’s a picture from last weekend where we had sunshine and mild temperatures and you could be outside without gloves. Just one day - but what a day