It's been a while!
When I started this blog, I set a goal to post at least once a week. Since the last two posts, it’s been almost a month. Well, a very busy month that has felt like a year. But if you need a refresher, read Sparring Tournaments Can Be Visits, Too and Sparring Tournaments Can Be Visits, Two. (Did anyone catch what I did there, or was it too/two confusing?).
Ft. Lauderdale
When we left off, Ben had taken his first flight alone to spend a week with Dennis in DC. Then they met Jack and me in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for a sparring tournament. Jack won silver! After that trip, Dennis returned to DC to prepare for a month-long work trip to India. Meanwhile, the boys and I returned home to Colorado to prepare for our next two trips: We needed to squeeze in a trip to St. Louis and another tournament, this time in North Carolina, that Jack qualified for with his silver medal win.
Less than two weeks after leaving Fort Lauderdale, Dennis flew to New Delhi, India for work. He was scheduled to be there for four weeks to meet and train some new team members. At the time of this post, he is still there. His four-week-long trip warrants its own post, especially since it’s the longest stretch that we’ve ever been apart, so we’ll focus on me and the kids in this one. But this story ties in, because what’s the first rule of surviving a long distance relationship? Stay busy! (Extra points if you answered “Don’t talk about the long distance relationship.”)
When we arrived home from Ft. Lauderdale, we had three weeks before we needed to be in St. Louis for updated family portraits. During that time, Jack trained every day to get ready for his next tournament, which were the trials for the “B” string of the National Team. Additionally, all three of us started training for our next big taekwondo test, which is a first degree black belt for me, and second degree black belts for them. And school starts soon, so there’s that.
St. Louis
Dennis grew up in St. Louis as the middle child between two sisters, Jenny and Kate. Dennis’s parents, as well as Jenny and her husband, Shawn, their children and grandchildren, all live in St. Louis. Kate lives in Belgium with her husband, Bill, and six year old daughter, Sofia.
Kate, Bill and Sofia were visiting the US for the first time in a few years, so Dennis’s parents wanted to get updated family portraits while the whole family was in one place. Since they only had a short window in which to schedule them around Kate’s visit, and we weren’t even sure Dennis was going to India, much less travel dates, they scheduled the photo shoot. Soon after, Dennis’s trip was confirmed and, naturally, conflicted with Kate’s visit and the family portraits. However, the boys and I promised that we’d still make it and would think of a way to include their only son in the pictures.
At first, I considered holding up a framed picture of him. The more I thought about it, I’ve only seen that done at funerals. Kind of a downer, and family portraits are forever. I can’t have our future great-grandchildren looking at them wondering why we’re all so smiley and happy when we’re at a funeral?
Someone suggested video-calling him from a tablet and holding that up in the photos. There’s a ten and a half hour time difference between St. Louis and New Delhi. Chances are good that he’d be sleeping during picture time.
Our solution to Dennis's absence
Then I saw the Groupon from a place called Build-A-Head. A giant head on a stick. With the Groupon, it would only cost $4.00! Hilarious and inclusive. And cheap!
The next time we spoke, I immediately told Dennis about the giant head idea. I didn’t want to surprise him with it, and even gave him the chance to select the photo we used. His response was something like, “I’d rather not have any picture of my head blown up and put on a stick, so just pick whatever.” So I did! We were running out of time though, so I selected the most recent picture with as much of a smile as I could find (he’s not very smiley), ordered the stick head and had it shipped directly to his parents’ house.
Hotel Linda
Since we were driving to St. Louis, we planned to bring our rescue dog, Georgie, along. We’d need a pet-friendly place to stay. My in-laws’ house was already full. While I have family of my own throughout St. Louis, we wanted to stay closer to my in-laws to see more of Kate, Bill & Sofia, and to make it to the photo shoot on time.
I called my friend Linda, who I introduced you to in A Different Long Distance Relationship. We’ve frequently stayed with her, so I thought I’d see if she had any plans that weekend. Now, if I were writing a movie, I wouldn’t even include this unbelievable coincidence in it: Linda would not be home that weekend, because she’d be in Colorado! That’s right, the very state we were leaving. Being the generous friend that she is, she immediately offered us her home even though no one would be there. When I suggested we swap homes for the weekend, she told me that her boyfriend, Jeff, who you were also introduced to, had the entire Colorado weekend planned for them and she didn’t even know where and what it included.
I told her we were bringing Georgie, so we agreed that she would leave her dog at home, we would dogsit and the dogs could have a long weekend playdate. Because, that’s right, they were leaving town the same day we were arriving, and returning the same day we were leaving.
Even though I wouldn’t get to see my friend, I’d get to stay in her home which was close to my in-laws, and watch her cute, crazy dog. Plus, we now have the most inconceivable story to tell about how we had just missed each other.
Family time in the old neighborhood
My mom, sister and nephew traveled to St. Louis from Tennessee and Southern Missouri, respectively, to visit with us as well. My sister, Kristy, and her son, Cooper even stayed with us at Linda’s. The boys and Cooper had some much needed cousin time. We went to our favorite neighborhood pizza place, Faraci’s. We even drove by our old house and were surprised to find a new pool but annoyed to see our prized Japanese maple tree, vibrant Crepe Myrtle, and all our rose bushes gone.
"Flat Dennis"
On photo day, Kristy visited our side of the family while the boys and I met up with my in-laws to have our photos taken. They kept “Flat Dennis” in the envelope for me to unveil. It was just as hilarious as I expected! Everyone loved the giant Dennis head, and we joked that each family should take him for a few months and take pictures with him from all over the place. The photographer had a great sense of humor about it and captured some quirky shots with it.
After the photo shoot, we went back to my in-laws’ house to eat and catch up. We video-called Dennis at a somewhat reasonable hour so he could also see and talk to everyone. With the big head on the mantle, and his normal sized head on my phone’s screen, I realized that his expression really doesn’t ever change!
Exhausted and sufficiently caught up with everyone’s lives, we met Kristy and Cooper back at Hotel Linda later that day. This was Sunday night. We could have ended the trip there, driven home the next day and been perfectly satisfied, except that the next day also happened to be Ben’s 14th birthday. He adamantly refused to make the 12-hour drive back home on his birthday. It’s not that he wanted to celebrate it with a party, he was against that, too. (But gifts were certainly welcome!) He just didn’t want to be in the car.
Ben's birthday and our drive home
We talked him into a quiet lunch at another of our favorite local restaurants, Pasta House, with just me, him, and Jack, Kristy and Cooper, and my mom (Maw Maw). We even video-called my dad (Paw Paw) who stayed home in Tennessee since he was feeling a bit under the weather.
We squeezed in a little more time with Dennis’s family that afternoon before calling it a night to pack and get ready to leave the next day, which was Tuesday. So a 12-hour drive to Colorado on Tuesday, then flying out to North Carolina early Thursday for Jack’s weigh-in. Here’s where a smarter person may have handled things differently.
Why didn’t we just stay in St. Louis and fly to North Carolina from there? That would have kept us from the 12-hour drive with one day of rest before staying up all night so we could leave the house at 2 a.m. on Thursday to catch our early flight. There were a few reasons to explain my insanity; Georgie needed a place to stay, flights weren’t any less expensive flying from St. Louis, and honestly, I thought I could talk Ben into driving home on his birthday (I was wrong). Anyway, what’s done is done. We drove home on Tuesday with no issues at all, spent Wednesday doing laundry and packing again, and stayed up Wednesday night to catch our ridiculously early flight to Raleigh-Durham.
North Carolina
None of us remembers the flight or the drive to the hotel, because we slept so hard the entire time. The tournament weekend was great and without incident for once! Our hotel was packed with other Junior Olympic athletes (mostly swimmers and track), so it was very lively. Weigh-in went smoothly and afterward we ate at the neatest hipster bar and grill called Hops Burger Bar for incredible burgers and wings. The next day, Jack fought against a boy who was already on the National Team (he lost), and the boy who he lost to at Nationals in Ft. Lauderdale (lost that one, too). But it was great experience for him and hopefully will look good on college applications.
After the fights, we returned to Hops for more burgers and wings. (Seriously, the food was that good.) Then went back to the hotel to rest and recover, before heading out the next day.
School, black belts and Drums
After returning home, we felt like we could finally breathe. No more trips in the near future. Jack can take a break from training six days a week. Dennis still has another two weeks in India before coming home to Colorado for ten days, so that’s something to look forward to. Now school starts, we begin our intense training for our black belts, and Ben finally gets his birthday present: A drumset.
Thanks for sticking with us after the long break! If you missed us, remember that we now have an Instagram account, and it is updated more frequently than blog posts. If you’ve subscribed to the blog, thank you! And if you haven’t, please do. After reading this post, just keep scrolling down until you see the form. That way, you’re notified of all new posts. The next one will be all about Dennis’s trip to India!
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