February 22 - March 1

This week was a doozy. We didn't do very many exciting things, but we did have a lot of demands on our time.

Sunday was Forgiveness Vespers, but at 12:30 because we had a visiting priest. This is one service the kids remember, so that makes it one that I appreciate more. Once we made it home for the day, we had nothing else planned.

All the other nights of the week, though, were filled with services because of the first week of Lent. Now we decrease to just Wednesdays and Fridays until Holy Week.

Track suddenly started this week. Yes, I placed my modifier correctly. Track's communication since we've been involved has been ... lacking. We found out through the grapevine around 4:00 on Monday that practice might be starting. At 5:15 I texted the team mom who ran all communications last year and found out that practice had indeed started. The girls did not make it. Allegedly an announcement was made at school (at 3:00, for a 4:45 practice), but six Barhorsts did not hear it, so I am relatively certain that the school dropped the ball on that one. The girls were able to attend practice the rest of the week. At this point we know practices as much as one day ahead and we are supposed to be grateful for that extremely advanced notice. 

Gretchen got shin splints on day two of track, likely caused by running indoors (a theory not tested, but based on the fact that she did not suffer during cross country, nor have any of our off season runs bothered her). The new junior high coach gave her two pages of stretches and grounded her for a few days, which is more than anyone did when she sustained injuries last year. It seems unlikely that they will move training outside before the weather warms up more, so I guess we'll take what we can get.

Friday we had to go to the library to turn in winter reading sheets. We don't go to the library much at all anymore, preferring to read on kindles, but the boys wanted a chance at prizes. Now we have library books that we'll need to remember to return again.

Saturday I spent at a Mothers' Retreat with a friend. It's a Catholic retreat in farm country, Ohio, and I always find it refreshing and edifying.

I'm preparing for a half marathon in April and the training plan that I'm following has me ramping up the weekday miles, which is fun to try to fit in. I'm also starving all the time, but never hungry for anything, so that's great. In a related pondering, how much do we think I need to run to pull ahead of Dad's all time mileage? He put in more miles in high school, ran in college (which I did not), and trained for one marathon. Plus any other running he did just because. But this is my 7th half marathon build, so I feel like I have to be gaining on him.

Pictures:

This is how Theo went to church every night. Somehow the shoes are all that matter?

I am unreasonably proud of my tracking system for 4th graders learning to identify notes on a staff:

Theodore is unreasonably proud of his ability to stack oranges.

Kaitlyn and Matthias built a reading fort at the library:

Matthias dropped a stuffed animal down two flights of stairs and then couldn't reach it through the barrier, so Olivia had to help him. Then, coming back up, he was tossing it to Theodore and almost lost it again.