The story of December and January in Minnesota was snow, snow, and more snow! At least it makes the trees beautiful for a while.
Sarah had some performances with her middle school honor band.
In the end of January, we took Trevor to Chicago for his first Regional fencing tournament!
Trevor rode in style watching movies while we drove.
We stayed at Uncle Jim's house and Trevor enjoyed staying in Kyle's room and serenading us on the piano.
At the tournament...his first very official equipment check.
Trevor did quite well for this being his very first regional tournament! He competed in his age group (Y10) and the age group above his (Y12). It was very fun to watch him, and he improved a lot even just throughout the tournament. The coaches say that participating in a tournament like this is the equivalent of 3 months of practices.
Trevor finished #51 out of 64 in the Y12 age group, which frankly is not bad given that he is brand new to this sport and was competing with kids much older and more experienced than him!
Trevor enjoyed playing an old school Game Boy he found in Kyle's room!
Trevor and Callen are both in fencing clubs from Minnesota, but Trevor is in Youth Enrichment League on the Minneapolis side and Callen is from Twin Cities Fencing Club in St. Paul. They fenced each other once at their very first local tournament, but became good buddies at the regional tournament!
Our tired boys after they had each been eliminated from the Y10 final bracket.
Trevor's age group (Y10 men's foil) was supposed to start at 4pm Sunday afternoon, but this tournament was very poorly run and they didn't end up starting his age group until almost 7pm! They were trying to run a local and a regional tournament at the same time, in a space that was way too small, with too few referees to run the bouts on time. As it got even later into the night, the referees had to leave to fly home and we ended up with only a few referees rotating to different strips 1 at a time to ref bouts. The coaches even had to leave to drive home and coached Trevor's last bouts over FaceTime from the car. We ended up not finishing and leaving until 10pm! That put us arriving home at 4:30 AM!!!
This being our first regional tournament, we were concerned that this is how it typically goes, however, the coaches assure us that this is not normal and was the worst regional tournament they had ever been to. I sure hope so!
Then it was Sarah's 13th birthday!
She opened gifts on her actual birthday day.
She got to lick the beaters when I made her chocolate cake.
Then it was off bright and early to a dance convention for the weekend.
We had Sarah's family birthday dinner when she got home from her convention on Saturday.
She said that she wants to be a ballet dancer, chef, and astrophysicist when she grows up, so Nanny made her a special birthday card reflecting all 3!
Happy Birthday!
And her 7th grade band concert. Back to flute.
They played a song called Darkwing and turned down the lights to show a projection of a video of birds flying in formations. It was very interesting visually and musically played very well!
Well done, my girl!
Sarah was nominated by teachers and peers as an "all star" at school and had a celebratory breakfast, at which her jazz band also performed.
Then it was my birthday and Sarah made me a cake!
It was an apple pie cake! It had a spice cake with homemade apple pie filling between the layers, all with a nice thick layer of buttercream frosting on top! Yummy!
Birthday dinner at Nanny and Grandpa's with my birthday buddy!
Part of Austin's high school band traveled to San Antonio for a long weekend to perform and tour.
Austin got to meet up with Melanie while there!
Austin is part of a successful Knowledge Bowl and Quiz Bowl team at BSM!
They have advanced to the Regional Tournament in Knowledge Bowl and the State Tournament in Quiz Bowl, as sophomores against mostly Juniors and Seniors.
Trevor was spotted (and photographed) reading atop the climbing web on the playground at school, which is funny because he is not an avid reader. He is my only reluctant reader and exclaims that he doesn't like reading.
Dress like a book character day at school.
Floor hockey champs at school
Sarah keeps making us yummy dinners and treats.
Yep, more snow!
This was the 2nd time in this storm Steve went out to snow blow! (and not the last)
We ended up getting about 19 inches of snow over 2.5 days.
Happily, we are used to snow, so when the snow stopped mid-day on Thursday, the roads were plowed well by Friday so I could drive Trevor to Peoria the next day for his 2nd regional fencing tournament.
When we lived in Rochester, we loved to go to Carlos O'Kelly's. We still go to Rochester occasionally for kids' sports events, Steve's game nights with the Geskes, etc. but now Carlos O'Kelly's in Rochester closed, so we have no chance to revisit it. There are still Carlos O'Kelly's restaurants in Iowa though! We drove part of the way and stopped in Cedar Rapids, IA to go to Carlos and see the Caseys!
Tim and Angie graciously hosted us for the night and we drove the rest of the way to Peoria in the morning.
Off to RYC (Regional Youth Circuit) tournament #2 for Trevor!
Day 1 was Y12.
Again, Trevor is pretty new to this, so we are amazed at how well he is doing!
For the pools round in Y12, he won 3 of his 5 pools (5-2, 5-1, and 5-2) and lost 2 (3-5 and 0-5). The one he lost 0-5 is against a nationally ranked fencer that he does well against the next day! He was an 11 seed (out of 30) going into the direct elimination bracket. He was eliminated in the first round of the bracket by a fencer that he would go on to defeat the next day in the Y10 bracket!
The Hatton family, friends of our from Notre Dame, live in Peoria and came to watch Trevor fence on Saturday!
We coordinated with Trevor's fencing buddy from TCFC and stayed at the same hotel so the boys could hang out and swim in the pool after fencing.
We started day 2 carb loading with chocolate chip pancakes at the Original Pancake House.
Then on to the Y10 men's foil fencing!
Trevor had Mommy all to himself this weekend!
Trevor and Callen warming up together.
Then time to go!
They ended up in the same pool and had a blast fencing each other! They are really closely matched and the bout was matched point for point until Callen got the last point and won the bout. Instead of the sword tap that they do at the end of a bout as a "handshake", Trevor and Callen hugged!
Trevor won 2 of his 4 pool bouts (1 loss was by 1 point to Callen and the other was a 3-5 loss). Trevor was seeded 8th going into the bracket. He got a tough spot in the bracket! He was first up against that kid he lost to the day before, but he won 10-5! 
The tough part of his spot in the bracket is that after that win, he ran straight into the nationally ranked fencer in the next round. He lost 4-10 and was eliminated, but he was very proud of himself because he got 4 touches on this really good player, when the rest of the fencers that whole day combined had only earned 3 touches on that kid! Way to go Trevor!
He got 8th place and earned a medal!
Sarah's jazz band played in the All District Jazz Band Concert
The concert was the all district concert, so it included the high school jazz bands. Donovan (dance teammate Ethan's older brother) plays percussion in the high school jazz band so they were in the concert together
She played in the Middle School Honor Band for the All District Band Concert as well, which was right in the middle of her final run through at the dance studio before the first whole studio competition.
Trevor loves pirates and all things pirate ships. He builds them out of MagnaTiles.
And makes a ship for his science fair project...
"Does the angling the sail of a ship affect its speed?"
We partially flooded the kitchen accomplishing this, but it turned out well.
Busy busy kids! I'll leave this post at that, because next we head into the dance competition season, another regional fencing tournament likely in May, and the club soccer season starting up in earnest. It doesn't slow down any time soon!
A teaser on the dance season...
From Sarah's ballet solo at the first competition in Duluth.
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