November 6-8 was another Ragnar weekend for Jason! He was in charge of it this time around and did a good job keeping it low-key and still covering all the bases. Despite a major hiccup (their teammate Jon couldn't finish two of his long runs for medical reasons, so teammates Carol and Nate ran an extra leg each...), the team finished spectacularly well! Out of 423 teams, they finished 34th with a time of 28:30:52!!!! They were 16th out of 300 in the Regular Open Mixed division.
Their team, called "Lost in Pace," also had the youngest member--Leah Tomlinson is 10 years old and was a cute "celebrity" that weekend. People were so impressed!
This race was a big deal for Jason because he wanted to win the coveted "Saints and Sinners" medal. Here's what he said about that on Facebook:
"After completing the Wasatch Back Ragnar earlier this year, I earned the coveted "Saints and Sinners" double medal for also finishing the Las Vegas Ragnar. It was exhausting, but I had a great time with great people once again." Here are some fun pics from the weekend!
Nate Kimbler, Carol Astle, Kate Winder, Jeff, Andrus, Jason, Karen Coy, Gavin and Emily MacGregor, Jon Meikle, and Rob, Crystal, and Leah Tomlinson!
So happy for Jason's hard-working team and thankful everyone got home safely! Way to go, babe!
It's a busy week for Wade. His official campaign for student council vice-president starts today! Should be lots of fun....I hope. :)
Erasers to pass out to his hopefully future constituents
T-shirt--hopefully I can peel it off of him and wash it every other day. :)
Our favorite part: "My name is Wade Cushing and I approve this message."
Posters: they allow you to make 7 of them. :)
He gets to give a speech to all of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders on Wednesday morning, and then the election is on Friday. His speech is pretty short but it includes quotes from Spiderman and Napoleon Dynamite, so it's good. :)
Yesterday Rhiannon was pretty nervous about playing her piano piece at the Honors Recital. She had put in so much work on this song and knew it by heart, but she was worried about messing up.
So we're in the van heading to the recital, and Wade knows that his big sister has some nerves. He says something like, "I remember when I was really stressed out about messing up at my baseball games, and Mom would tell me that line from Batman Begins..'Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.'"
It's a pretty cool moment to hear one of your kids trying to comfort your other kid with some small thing you said a LONG time ago.
We thought Wade's last baseball game in the playoffs was a couple weeks ago--his Red Sox team played his friend Nick's Yankee team and beat them by 10 points, BUT they had to play again because the Yankees hadn't been double eliminated.
So we played again. On Rhiannon's birthday.
The game started at 5:30 and ended at TEN O'CLOCK at night! It was crazy! At 9pm the president of the league came on the field and said we'd played past the time limit but had to finish the game--the kids could keep playing or meet again the next night to finish the game. Jason and I yelled and waved our arms--"KEEP PLAYING! FINISH THE GAME!" We got some looks from tired folks, but I think many of us just wanted to be DONE!
Hang in there, Wade! He was tired, but still smiling!
Wade's team was behind but finished out the 6th inning and tied the game....so we kept playing!
Wade's team was "Home." The game was tied at 19 after the 6th inning so we had to keep going!
Here's Rhiannon with our good friend Sophia--her brother Nick was on the opposite team. It was about 9:30pm, and this is how most of us looked! It was so sweet that these sisters stayed to see the game through--they were worried about not getting enough sleep for their middle school finals the next day! Not to mention Rhiannon was spending 5+ hours of her 12th birthday at the ballpark! :)
And
then
something
AMAZING
happened.
Our team had burned through all our pitchers and then some. So Coach Griffin called Wade out of the outfield, where he'd been the WHOLE game, and asked him to pitch.
Jason and I looked at each other, our jaws dropped and eyes wide, probably thinking the same thing--"this could be really BAD or really, really cool."
Wade practices some pitches and gets tips from his coaches
We woke up a bit when Wade walked out to the mound!
Wade got up to the mound and had to be taught how to place his feet. Here was a kid who'd thrown a few "pitches" in the backyard with Mom and Dad and hadn't been practicing all season like the other kids.
A kid came up to bat, and Wade's first pitch was a beautiful, perfect STRIKE! I went a little crazy and hooped and hollered a bit after that!
Wade kept throwing these awesome straight pitches--some were too high, but they were straight as could be. He got two strike-outs and was able to get his team out of a painful first half of the inning. The Red Sox weren't able to get enough runs to come back, but they made it through a nail-biter of a game!
It is very difficult to put into words how proud we were of Wade, but I think his coach put it perfectly. After the game and pictures Rhiannon and I went home, and Jason hung out for Wade. Jason thanked all the coaches for a great season and for helping Wade out so much. One coach replied that he wished they'd had 12 Wades on their team--he worked hard and did everything they asked him to do, including stepping onto the mound for the first time in his life during a final championship game.
I'm thankful for Wade's "20 seconds of insane courage" and the wonderful way he carried himself--what a great kid!
There was one other really cute moment during the game. I missed it while I was gone signing up Oscar for obedience classes. Jason said Wade got hit by a pitch and went to first base. As he touched home plate, he did this to Dad:
No one knew what that meant but Jason and Wade--they made a deal that everytime Wade got hit by the ball, he'd get a scoop of ice cream. The "peace sign" from Wade was his signal to Dad that now he owed Wade not one but TWO trips to Baskin Robbins! Too funny!!!!!!!!
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