This will be a super short post because, honestly, we didn’t do much! It’s been a while since I’ve been able to say that, and as much as I hate missing a travel opportunity on a long weekend, it was nice to slow down and catch up on rest.
This week’s wrestling tournament was in the UK at Lakenheath High School. The team loaded up Thursday night after school to set off on the long bus ride to England.
Fortunately, they did not experience the logistical issues that the softball team had last Spring. They ended up taking the car train through the Chunnel, which none of us have had the opportunity to do yet, and they arrived in London by 8 a.m. the next morning. They spent the whole day there, visiting the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and Hamley’s toy store. They even got to eat lunch at Nando’s Chicken, which was a huge hit!
Then they continued the journey to the High School in the Eastern countryside, where they slept in the school.
Saturday was the meet, and Ryan wrestled twice. He lost both matches but has shown significant improvement since the beginning of the season. He is in the #2 position for his weight class on the school team, and one of his matches was against the #1 seed. He would have beaten him but lost points on a technical move. We think he will probably move up into the #1 position very soon. It’s been fun watching him improve so quickly!
After the match, the team packed up and headed straight home. This time, they took the ferry across the English Channel to France. We asked them which they preferred, having taken both methods within two days, and the ferry was the clear winner. They said the car train was loud, bouncy, and boring. Meanwhile, they spent the ferry ride running around, playing hide-and-seek, and eating. If only they knew how lucky they were to experience all this with school!
Meanwhile, back at home, Matt got really sick on Friday and had to take off to go to the doctor, throwing our weekend plans into jeopardy. We had hoped at least to do a quick overnight to some unknown destination, but ended up staying home all weekend.
Despite this, we had forgotten we had made a reservation at the dog kennel. When they called to see where the dogs were, I went ahead and took them up there to stay in the kennel’s good graces. It was a quiet weekend at home with neither kids nor dogs. We watched a lot of TV and took a lot of naps. I also had the chance to do a deep cleaning of the house, which I hadn’t done in a long time. Since we don’t have central air or heat, the dust and spider webs pile up quickly, and they definitely needed some attention.
The kids were home by 9 a.m. Sunday morning and came home to rest. Ryan slept the rest of the day, but Brooklyn had to go to work at 2, and she worked the rest of the day. I’m not sure I would have been able to do that after such a long trip!
On Monday, we were all off and home together, so we worked on getting the house ready for some special visitors next week and then spent the rest of the day watching TV together on the couch!
Gilcrests Abroad 