New bike, looong athletics meet, and a game of cricket

Well, it's been an interesting long-weekend.

Friday

This was the quietest day. We got to sleep in (yay!), and then took an overdue trip to a bike shop to find a bike for my eldest son, who could stand over his former bike without touching the seat! 

One new bike.

But that wasn't a simple outing. It required me to drive said son to the bike shop so that he could ride home on his new bike (which wouldn't fit in the car). However David wasn't sure that our son could find his way home on his own (it was a bit out of our usual biking haunts), so David decided to ride down to meet us. Then we realised that this was a good opportunity to get the younger two some exercise (just 3.8km to the bike shop one-way). So, then we had to persuade them to ride down and promised we'd let them drive back with me in the car (their bikes fit in the car). 

We had a bit of a race too. The car route was about 5km. I was sure that the bikes would beat me, but it turned out that David made a few wrong turns on the bike, so they rode further than 3.8km!

All that being said, we found a bike, that met all our criteria, including price. And now, my biggest "boy" has a man-sized bike. This will do him until he beats 185cm!

After lunch we didn't do too much lounging. I headed off for some groceries and to buy those daisies I wrote about yesterday. It turned into quite a ride, (getting the exercise that everyone else got in the morning). Then I went out and pulled weeds with David.

Mid-afternoon the next man-sized item arrived for our eldest. Some new wrestling shoes (size 29, Japanese, or about 10.5 Australian) we'd ordered arrived. This is the plan for the next few months until school starts again: he's going to join a Japanese wrestling club to continue to work on his skills and satisfy that longing to have wrestlers his own size to work with.

Saturday 

I need a new camera! This was the closest we were
allowed as spectators to the shot put.

We got up early to go to our 13 y.o.'s last athletics meet (though not as early as the athletes, who left school at 6am). It turned into a very long day. We thought as it was just a middle school meet (the previous ones have been middle and high school meets), that it would be finished earlier than usual. Half the number of athletes and events...but no, the whole thing took just as long. Explain that?!? We didn't get home until after 7pm (after stopping for dinner at McDonalds).

Sunday

The morning was as usual, at church. But Sunday afternoon we spent playing a friendly cricket match with a neighbourhood international church. There weren't many of us who knew cricket, a couple of Indians and a Nepalese man. The rest were mostly Americans who were keen to have a go. 

Cricket is such an incredibly detailed game. It is basically throw-the-ball and hit-the-ball, but beyond that it is pretty detailed. We struggled with terminology, with "protecting your wicket". Running between wickets proved to be a challenge too: those brought up on baseball find it hard to run with the bat. And the understanding that you didn't have to run when you hit it, but rather had to judge whether you could make it, communicate that to your batting partner and then the concept that some part of you had to be behind that all-important white line!  Mind you, we did modify some of the rules in order to give everyone a go finish the game in only a couple of hours (i.e. change batters every two overs or 12 balls bowled). 

Anyway, it was fun. The "learners" seemed to have fun too. Our boys, though they've never played cricket in a team, have seen plenty on TV and didn't really want to go home at the end. David said he can't remember the last time he'd played a full game of cricket.

It was also nice to be outside an not feeling chilly. We've had nearly two years of "winter". Skipping out on most of last year's summer by going to a mild winter-Queensland. Some warmth is definitely overdue. Unfortunately with that comes the arduous ordeal of protecting out skin. We Aussies are viewed as a little bit odd, wearing our hats around all the time. However what happens when you don't? We compromise with our boys, letting them wear caps instead of full rimmed hats and then try to get sunscreen on those ears and necks (often not succeeding). Well after our outdoor weekend, our youngest has a nice bit of sunburn on his ear, including a blister. Darn!

Back to work again

And now the weekend is over and it's back to work. Friday was the last non-weekend day-off we'll have before the end of school. Tomorrow it's five weeks till the end of school. I really need a bit of a break (although having the boys home from school isn't always the break I'm looking for). But I think we could all do with a bit of a break from the school routine. As usual, it's been a long year (that's gone fast with everything we've been doing), and I would have liked those mid-year two-week holidays that I grew up knowing. Oh well.