The Beginning After the End

Another Labor Day weekend is over, which means the unofficial end of summer. Even though school began last week for Deb and Hannah, Lily has her momentous first official day of kindergarten tomorrow. I'm going to drop her off at school in the morning, but she'll ride home on the bus with her sister. She's pretty excited.

We had a great weekend in NJ. Lots of outdoor activities. On Saturday, the girls went water tubing while Matt and I got runs in. I did a quick 5-miler just to test out the sore leg and felt okay. Matt did a beast of a trail run: 23 miles in 6 hours. And he saw a friggin' rattlesnake out there. We went down to the lake again and hung out until dark. Yesterday, I ran 10 miles and felt pretty strong for the most part. The kids then took part in an impromptu triathlon: swimming at the lake, a quick bike ride and then a .6 mile run to Matt's house and back to the lake. Tricia got Hannah, who to this point had been unwilling/unable to ride her new bike (which doesn't have training wheels), to ride her bike around the parking lot. It basically involved running with her and then letting go; Hannah wiped out a few times but got the hang of it. She's still pretty scared of injuring herself, but she can do it. Matt and Tricia then hosted a little get-together that was full of beverages, good food and backyard games. I played beer pong for the first time since the early '90s when my old college roommate Smitty and I visited his brother at Harvard. This time was different in that we were tossing the balls into cups of water and then just drinking from our beers, as opposed to throwing balls into cups of beer and then downing those. At any rate, I did pretty well, even as I got progressively inebriated. Luckily for me, I had the good sense to stop drinking around 9, which meant I wasn't hurting as we drove home today.

We got home in mid-afternoon and took the girls out to ride their bikes, but Hannah wanted no part of it. It was kind of discouraging; even when she was pedaling without help, she was freaking out a bit. She just needs to get used to it, I guess.

Wednesday night hockey in Lynn starts up again this week, so that will be fun, although I'll miss the earlier hour at Pingree. And I found out today that my Reach the Beach team starts at 12:20 p.m. on the 18th, which is about in the middle of the pack. The slowest groups start at 7:30 a.m., while the fastest groups are heading out at 4 p.m.