Derby Days...

The Girl attended her first roller derby tournament over the last weekend! We spent two nights, two days, in Bakersfield. While they did not come home victorious, our girls played hard, and played clean games. They lost the first bout, won the second, and lost the third. While I did take some photos of my own, there were professional photographers on the scene too, so here are a few pictures of The Girl from day 1...

I wish there was a better picture of her from day 2, but at least she can be seen in this one...

The nice thing is that they get another chance -- next month they are playing the team from day 2, the Bakersfield Juniors, but at a home game.

It was a good weekend in many ways. First, the girls spent all their time together, so it helped the team bond a bit more. Secondly, The Girl has never been away from me for the night before, so spending two nights, plus travel time there and back, with her coaches and teammates was an interesting experience for her, one that I think helped cement that she's growing up. I also got that lovely thing I have so rarely... alone time. I read all of The Other Boleyn Girl in my hotel room! And now I'd like to see the film adaptation. And, I rode down and back with a longtime derby skater/derby mom, so I learned a lot more about the game, and the players and players' families, in the six hours each direction.

Other than that, what have we been up to?

Math -- The Girl is burning through Life of Fred Cats, and The Boy loves Life of Fred Prealgebra with Biology. They are enjoying it enough that they agreed to continue with the books over summer, just a lesson (The Boy) or two (The Girl) a day.

Writing -- The Boy is working on an essay outline, and spends some of his time working on his story plot. The Girl is practicing sentence structure and spelling. She learned to text over the long weekend.

Self-taught -- The Boy is working hard on computer coding. He regularly chats with a computer science major at fencing, who helps him figure out what codes to tackle. The Boy has also set a goal, with his coaches, of moving up to competitive level fencing by fall, starting with smaller, local tournaments, and going from there.

The Girl has the next derby game to get ready for. She's been working on her sewing skills lately, altering a stuffed animal into something resembling a cat version of L. Frank Baum's "Patchwork Girl" (of Oz). She also learned how to use my vintage sewing machine, and made a purse for one of her dolls.

We're getting back into our regular routine bit by bit this week, and should be back in the full swing of things by next week! Hope your week is going well!