Alex and Mark have been keeping us so busy this spring season! We regularly have to discuss priorities in our family, choices between good, better and best, and balancing life. Alex has always loved hanging out with people, do team stuff, compete, study, push himself as hard as he can and sometimes simply overbooking himself. Mark enjoys his responsibilities and is not afraid to say “no" to some fun things if it means he gets to compete in something hard. He also follows his own school schedule and juggles all the studying with his training, with me hardly ever having to help him or answer his questions.
This spring was amazing! It was Alex’s final high school year so he focused a lot on Speech and Debate tournaments as soon as rowing season was over in December. He was still doing his winter rowing training, but at least he could compete on the weekends!
Our Apex Friendship High is quite brilliant at Speech and Debate, if I say so myself. Largely thanks to Miss Eckstein, our team has been getting better and better in the last five years. It’s been a joy to watch them grow and improve.
Alex had a few very successful tournaments and placed 6th, 3rd and then 1st in the first three tournaments in Extemporaneous Speaking. And then he earned 1st place at the NSDA Qualifiers and qualified for Nationals!
Here is their Speech and Debate Team on their awards night.
Alex and his mates who qualified for Nationals in different events.
Alex looks pretty official with his suit and a nice clean cut.
Excited that Alex qualified for two National events! He had to choose to go to the one that was happening in Louisville, KY in late May because the other one, in Arizona, coincided with his possible rowing Nationals in June....
Quick change of topic...quite drastically...but this always on our minds. I decided to include these pictures here to portray the fact that as we are doing all these exciting things in our everyday lives, we can’t forget about the war that’s going on back in Ukraine. Alex and I were able to go to the vigil on Feb 24th to show our support to those fighting this unfair war.
It was a very moving night....
Praying every day that peace will come to Ukraine again.
Finally, a short report about Mark and his tennis journey.
Mark is getting stronger, faster and taller. He is still a bit shorter than his favorite doubles partner and friend, Connor, but not for long!
Mark and Connor won the L5 (hard) in Charleston, the tournament at the end of February (Robert usually takes him there). He also got 2nd in singles after a tough match with a match tiebreak.
And then he went on to get 3rd at the L4 (harder) in Florence, SC in singles, just a few days later.
Rainy day shenanigans of Connor, David and Mark at the arcade. Rain delays in Florence are a little boring....
And later in March, another fantastic tournament for Mark and Connor--an L3 (hardest) in Greensboro. They got third! Sadly, singles didn’t go as planned.
A cold front must have just come through because wow...both Kelly and I are wearing our warmest coats!
It’s always so rewarding to go back and see the pictures from these great memories of achievements... But sometimes it’s important to remember the emotional/sad ones as well. We get plenty of disappointments in life and in sports, but thinking about bigger issues brings us closer to figuring out the necessary perspective. I’ll be honest, I still struggle doing the normal stuff while knowing my country is suffering... and at the same time I don’t want to forget that there is something horrible happening there. And so life continues....one day at a time. And we feel grateful that our kids keep inspiring us, keep working hard and have faith in their bright future!
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