Vacation

One week ago I took a vacation. I drove down to California, played two days of ultimate and drove back. All kid-free. The whole thing felt so normal for a pre-kid Mizu, and so totally bizarre for the now-Mizu. It was fun. I found I still love road-tripping like that (four or five women in a car, not a lot of time, and even less of a plan). You can really cover the miles when every stop doesn't entail exiting car seats, getting shoes on, reclothing three kids who have somehow removed every stitch they had on ten miles ago, tag-teaming the bathroom, and getting loaded back up again---only to repeat in sixty miles.
This trip also reconfirmed my love of the game of ultimate. Our team was twelve women who practiced very little together pre-tourney. The other teams were legit teams with 20 women and a whole summer of practicing and conditioning under their belt. As you may be able to deduce, our record wasn't very good at the end of the weekend. But I found, despite my fondness for winning, that every time I jogged (or crawled) out to the line to play another point that I was full of joy to be doing just that.
Thank you to the other women on Further--both those that came to Regionals and those that played any of the rest of our patchwork season. I enjoyed being on the field with you for practices and games. Hopefully it will fit into all of our busy lives again next season.
Coming home was wonderful. I had missed the family lots and apparently missed an achingly beautiful fall weekend in Deadwood. This weekend it is raining, but are working on one of the year's most satisfying tasks for me--filling the woodshed. Opal, Helen, and even Lucie are old enough now to help a little, which makes the whole process even more fun. Here are a couple of pictures of them in action: