A Change in Plans
My kids, Rose and Ryan, started a theater day camp today called Young People's Theater Workshop (YPTW). YPTW is a program put on through the Northfield Arts Guild during which the kids, grouped by age, write a play, rehearse it, and then perform it at the end of the three week session.
Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year.
Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well.
I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found other friends, too, and at the end of the day said he had fun. Rose, no surprise, had a great time to and is excited to be in a group with one of her best friends.
Big sigh of relief for me. Ryan is my tricky kid on things like this. He really would rather stay home all day with me. And, though I'd love to have him home every day with me during the summer, I do need some time to work and don't want to make two round trips to town to drop off Rose, go home to hang out with Ryan and drive back to pick her up. We've tried that before. And we've tried hanging out in town while Rose was at camp. Either way it just gets to be too much.
I've been looking forward to this first day of camp because I planned to kick it off with a whole lot of bike riding. Today I planned to haul my bike to town in my van, park my van at camp and then ride my bike to the coffee shop to work and to do errands. The rest of the week I planned to haul my road bike to town and spend much of the day putting some serious miles on my bike in and around Northfield. Like a lot of miles - a couple hundred by the end of the week.
Guess what? I've changed my plans. Why? The weather here in Minnesota is dangerously hot. We had temperatures of 98 by late afternoon today, which may not sound hot to my friends in the south but factor in the dew point in the 80s and you get a heat index of something like 112. We had the same sort of dew point yesterday and I read on news station KSTP's website that "...the only other spot in the Western Hemisphere with a dew point in the 80's Sunday was the Amazon Jungle in South America." (a quote from Meteorologist Ken Barlow)
Gee, I thought I lived in MinneSNOWta :) Guess not.
It's hot here. Sticky. Yucky. Walk outside and come in all dripping wet hot outside. And, suffice it to say, I did not ride my bike around town today. It is not likely I will ride my road bike tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Maybe I'll be riding again on Thursday when the temperatures are supposed to drop to around 85. Or maybe not. We'll see.
So I'm changing plans. Instead of week of intensive bike riding I'm opting for a week of intensive writing. I know I'll get some cooler bicycling weather here in Minnesota soon. In fact, given the right clothing (and maybe a fat bike like the Salsa Mukluk) I can ride all winter long!
But until cooler temperatures hit, I have a whole lot of writing to do.
Rose loves the camp and this is her fourth year. In her first year I saw a huge change in her confidence from the beginning of the session to the end. She has grown each year since and I expect she will benefit from the camp again this year.
Ryan has never been in YPTW and has been somewhat reluctant to go. But, to save on gas (it's a 30 mile round trip to town), make our schedule easier and give me time to work, Owen and I decided that Ryan should give YPTW a try. Given how good the program has been for Rose, we're hoping Ryan will benefit from the program as well.
I dropped the kids off this morning and right off the bat Ryan found two friends from his class at Greenvale. He found other friends, too, and at the end of the day said he had fun. Rose, no surprise, had a great time to and is excited to be in a group with one of her best friends.
Big sigh of relief for me. Ryan is my tricky kid on things like this. He really would rather stay home all day with me. And, though I'd love to have him home every day with me during the summer, I do need some time to work and don't want to make two round trips to town to drop off Rose, go home to hang out with Ryan and drive back to pick her up. We've tried that before. And we've tried hanging out in town while Rose was at camp. Either way it just gets to be too much.
I've been looking forward to this first day of camp because I planned to kick it off with a whole lot of bike riding. Today I planned to haul my bike to town in my van, park my van at camp and then ride my bike to the coffee shop to work and to do errands. The rest of the week I planned to haul my road bike to town and spend much of the day putting some serious miles on my bike in and around Northfield. Like a lot of miles - a couple hundred by the end of the week.
My favorite place to ride - the lovely, shaded Cannon Valley Trail
Gee, I thought I lived in MinneSNOWta :) Guess not.
It's hot here. Sticky. Yucky. Walk outside and come in all dripping wet hot outside. And, suffice it to say, I did not ride my bike around town today. It is not likely I will ride my road bike tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Maybe I'll be riding again on Thursday when the temperatures are supposed to drop to around 85. Or maybe not. We'll see.
So I'm changing plans. Instead of week of intensive bike riding I'm opting for a week of intensive writing. I know I'll get some cooler bicycling weather here in Minnesota soon. In fact, given the right clothing (and maybe a fat bike like the Salsa Mukluk) I can ride all winter long!
But until cooler temperatures hit, I have a whole lot of writing to do.
Riding in the snow - in April!
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