stacya

Hard to believe we are almost halfway through March already! I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Salt Lake City, while my luger is here for training and racing. Kendall raced in the Norton USA Luge Youth National Championships on Friday and Saturday for athletes age 14 to 17 (Kendall is 15), where she placed 5th in the nation. Aside from one, all of the girls ahead of her were 17 and are either on the next level up, or are her direct teammates, but have been sliding longer and had many more opportunities to train on this track. Her final race for the season, the Norton USA Luge Jr. National Championships are Thursday and Friday, where Kendall will be competing against athletes up to the age of 21. The first training sessions they had in preparation for this race took place Saturday night, where Kendall's time on her first run was the fastest out of all of the athletes training that night, and her second run was third fastest, so this will be a very exciting race! The video below is her first training run from Saturday night, which is almost a minute long - rather too long to make sure I don't miss her, than scramble at the last minute, lol 20250308_190618.mp4

Happy February!! It's been a busy month since my last post here. My luger had.a training camp in Lake Placid for 2 weeks, culminating in the second USA Luge North American Continental Cup race, in which Kendall redeemed herself after missing a bronze in the first part of that race in Salt Lake City by 0.025 seconds. She won bronze in the Lake Placid race, besting the Canadian that beat her in Salt Lake City by a large margin. Next up is Kendall's final training camp of the season for 3 weeks in Salt Lake City, with Youth National Championships (for ages 12 to 17) taking place over the course of 2 days the second weekend of March, Jr. National Championships (ages 14 to 21), taking place on March 14th. Kendall has a very good chance of bringing home a medal in at least Youth Nationals, but will have stiff competition in Jr. Nationals, though barring anything unforeseen, she should still do very well. A few days before she heads to SLC, she will be flying to Wisconsin to spend the weekend with her bestie teammate, and they will fly on to SLC together for camp. I'm heading out to SLC in March to watch both races, and to fly back with Kendall. I'm excited to.be in Utah again, since it's been 3 years, though with all of these recent air travel events, and me already being a nervous flyer, I'm not thrilled about flying anytime soon, nor with sending my child flying on her own. With Kendall being a Team USA athlete, this one accident hits way too close to home, as we have likely seen some of these ice skaters during Empire State Winter Games of years past. Surreal. Anyway, here is a pic of Kendall with her "bronze" wooden medal, lol

Happy New Year! My luger, Kendall, returned home a few days before Christmas from a 2 week training camp and race in Utah, and just left yesterday for another 2 week training camp in Lake Placid, culminating in another race on Saturday, January 18. In the Utah race, she placed 4th, after being edged out by just 0.025 seconds. Not the result we wanted, and she was pretty upset to be edged out of the medals again, especially since she was 3rd after her first run, but the athlete who edged her out is also 2 years older than her, and has spent much more time on that track, where this was only Kendall's second training camp there. These athletes will meet again next weekend, on what is Kendall's home track, and we are hoping for a better outcome for her. Looking forward to being there to watch her race this time. We bring her home on the 19th, and she will spend about a month home before heading back to Utah for the final training camp of the season, where she will compete in 2 levels of National Championships in that time. In the meantime, she had an awesome article written about her that appeared on the front page of our local newspaper, and will have a third article written for our local area weekly Merchandiser in the next week or two. Today's photos include the pic from the front page of the newspaper article, and a pic from race day.

Happy December!! After her rough start at the first training camp of the season in Lake Placid, my luger rebounded and qualified to race in the Park City North American Continental Cup in Park City, Utah on December 14. She leaves for SLC a week from today. She will be away for 2 weeks, returning a few days before Christmas, before she is off to Lake Placid again on January 5, to race in the Lake Placid North American Continental Cup on January 18. Kendall will also be sliding doubles with her partner, Lilly, while in Park City, and they are the only women's doubles team at this level. Today's video is of our doubles team, Kendall and Lilly. Kendall is the top slider, as the smaller slider is always on the bottom. Messenger_creation_61984992-6505-4E67-860E-FDC5888F6D0B.mp4

Happy November! My luger, Kendall, is at her first training camp of the season in Lake Placid as of yesterday. She had her first runs on the track this afternoon on a new sled, with less than ideal track conditions. She crashed out pretty good right in front of the finish line, and will be headed back to sports med tomorrow to see how she's doing, and determine how long she will potentially be sitting out due to a concussion and a back injury. This is her first more significant injury in her 5 years on the team, and I'm hoping this is not setting the tone for the season. If she doesn't have to come home early due to injury, I will be up in 2 weeks to watch race offs to qualify for the North American Continental Cup race being held on the Salt Lake City track next month. Fingers crossed that her injuries are deemed to not be all that significant, and that she's allowed back on the track in a few days! This sport is not for the faint of heart, for sure.

Any thoughts on this? We do a lot of traveling, many trips in the winter to Lake Placid, which is a 7.5 hour drive each way, and the last 2 hours of the ride become increasingly more desolate, so if something were to happen, we could definitely be in trouble. I've been wanting to get something that will jumpstart our vehicle without needing to have another vehicle present, but I like that it can inflate tires, too.

So excited to see the snow globes making a comeback. My 15 year old daughter will be doing BF with me this year, and when she was a baby, I would get them for her to collect, and then they stopped doing them. But she is excited to get one this year!

We bought a mattress from Amazon last year, during Prime Day. Our old mattress had gotten to the point where I'd wake up in agony every day, with my back hurting, but we didn't have a ton of money to buy a Tempurpedic, and I didn't want it to take a lot of running around and trying out different mattresses. We considered memory foam, but I didn't want to have to buy a platform for it, so I decided I wanted something that we could still use our box spring with. That meant we needed to buy a hybrid, which is still much cheaper than a regular mattress and box spring set. I looked at several on Amazon, read the reviews, and knew I needed something at least semi firm, because the softer the mattress, the more my back hurts in the morning. And I knew I wanted a thicker mattress. We ended up with a 14" zelovtress, and I LOVE it! My husband says it's a little too firm for him, but I never wake up with my back hurting anymore, and I think it's SO comfy! The only thing I can be critical of is that the 14" mattress is a bit too high. I'm about 5'6" and I can't just sit on it, I have to hoist myself onto it, lol. But for the comfort of it, I'll deal with it.

So, when my now college junior was home over the summer, we found out he has absolutely no idea how to use the stove. He is an Eagle Scout, so he had to earn a cooking badge, but somehow this kid couldn't cook anything without using an air fryer or microwave. I haven't done him any favors in that regard, apparently. So, I've already gotten this for him, as well as a couple of others, to help him, as it won't be long before he truly needs to fend for himself. Plus, it has some nice meals that he could even make for his girlfriend. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1639384545?ref=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_ZETQN7KHKDKKETVPV3S4&ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_ZETQN7KHKDKKETVPV3S4&social_share=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_ZETQN7KHKDKKETVPV3S4&starsLeft=1&skipTwisterOG=1

Happy October! It's my birthday month, but I hate thinking of turning another year older. The sand in the hourglass is definitely running faster now. *sigh* Anyway, Kendall's first training camp in Lake Placid begins on November 3. I will have some pictures later in the month, when I go up to stay for a few days before picking her up. She will have a race off while I'm there, which will determine whether or not she competes in the North American Continental Cup race on the Salt Lake City track in December, as only the top 5 women and top 5 men sliders will qualify to compete. Based on her previous racing history, she should easily qualify, but she will be racing on a new sled this season, and we never know what that will mean for her performance. Send some good vibes her way, and I'll hopefully have some good news to share before Black Friday! Thanks for your support! And Brad, thanks for the gift! Not sure what it all does, but I'm sure when I show my son, he'll know!

Thank you! She *is* a pretty cool kid!

Happy September! And just like that, summer is done. Almost time for luge season, the only good thing about the cold and snow. Kendall makes 2 trips to Salt Lake City this upcoming season, to train on the 2034 Winter Olympic track. She has been on this track before, in 2022, when she was on the Development Team, and much smaller than she is now. Excited to see her train on this track again! This month's pic is from her training on that track.

Happy August! We took our oldest back to Temple last Thursday (he is an RA, so he needs to be on campus before students), for his junior year. My most recent high school grad is taking a gap year while he tries again to get into a watchmaking school, which is extremely competitive. He will apply to a program in Seattle again this fall. And my daughter, the luger, just got back from her last summer training camp last week. She had two great camps, and this upcom8ng season, she will be sliding in both singles and doubles. This month's pics are flat ice training, practicing their paddling, with her coach (and former Olympian), photobombing to let me know that Kendall and her doubles partner are doing well for just starting out, and Kendall taking 2nd place in a starts race against her fellow Candidate team level teammates, as well as the next level team (Jr. National Team), of athletes aged 17 and up (Kendall just turned 15 in June).

Happy July! My luge athlete just got home from her first training camp of the summer, and leaves in 2 weeks for another 2 week camp. My oldest just wrecked our third vehicle, that he and his brother share, so it's shaping up to be an expensive month. Most importantly, he's fine. Just 4 people with 4 jobs and 2 cars will be a challenge. First world problems.

Happy June! My youngest boy graduated on Thursday, and he is right now on a plane headed to Berlin for a 10 day whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe. My daughter, Kendall, turns 15 in 8 days, and then heads up to Lake Placid for her first 2 week training camp of the summer. Then she's home for 2 weeks, away for another 2 weeks, and a few days after she comes back from her second summer training camp, my oldest returns to Temple for his junior year, and summer is basically over. Unbelievable! I feel like summer is over as quickly as it started!