Landsharks.

I thought about opening up with the old land shark bit from Saturday Night Live. But, sometimes I think I'm funnier than other people do.

Madelyn and Sawyer are doing Landsharks this Spring. It's a track club. It's not exclusively with their school but because Ben Franklin Academy has enough kids to fill a team, our school has its own team. For the last month, they've had two practices after school each week. This week the meets start.

Last night was their first Landsharks track meet. Their team ran against four other teams. And, I'd say their team did really well. Each school has its own color shirt. Ours is red. There were a lot of red shirts and most of them in the front half of all the packs, if not leading.

How did our Mile High Madelyn and Sweet Sawyer do you ask? AWESOME.

They each ran a 50 meter and 400 meter race with boys and girls of their respective gender and grade. While they did not win either of their individual races, more importantly, they Did. Not. Quit. And, to me, that's HUGE. Also, they didn't come in last. They had great sportsmanship and cheered for their friends, teammates, and each other.

And, most importantly, they earned gelato from Mici afterwards.

Way to go, Madelyn and Sawyer! Dad and I are super proud of you and hope you are proud of yourselves, too!

And, if you still want to see the old land shark bit from SNL, here you go -

via GIPHY

All it took was a little hail.

June 6, 2016, hail storm damage repair is complete.

Among all our other repairs -- new roof, new windows, paint, etc -- the pergola was rebuilt and painted last Fall. Last weekend, Griff hung my patio lights, a Christmas gift from Uncle Jerky, and VOILA! The pergola and deck are ready for primetime.

We inherited the pergola when we bought this house six years ago. I wasn't sure about a pergola at first but, as it turns out, it's nice and really makes our deck usable. However, like a number of things we inherited with this house, it was built but not right.

Pre-hail storm, the top slats were rotting and beginning to fall out in small blocks. Post-hail storm, the pergola was shot. There was no repairing it. But, because our pergola had an obvious pre-existing condition, the insurance adjuster would only pay for half of the total repair needed. So...we ponied up the rest and had it rebuilt right.

And, it's awesome.

If you need us this Summer, we'll be on our deck chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool.