On Tuesday, Alex graduated Summa Cum Laude from Marine Science Magnet High School. He has 21 credits from the University of Connecticut plus additional AP credits as well. His grandparents were able to fly in from Alabama to join us and recognize the achievement. Today, Alex celebrated his 18th birthday.
Alex had a lot of scholarship offers for various engineering programs around New England. In the end, he chose to accept a full-ride scholarship to Three Rivers Community College in Norwich to the Nuclear Engineering program. The program will give him an associate’s degree (for free) and a paid 12 week internship at Millstone nuclear power plant. After 2 years, he can decide what he wants to do next.
What does 12 miles in 2:35 on a gorgeous Sunday get you? 1st place in the Trailblazer division for me and 1st place in the Junior division for Alex. Today was our 3rd hunter pace of the summer and it was a fabulous day. King and Dakota were rock stars, as usual.
Alex is getting into the hunter paces and decided that we needed to match (I agreed). So, we wore our khaki breeches, blue farm shirts, matching Mystic Pony Club saddle pads, matching pommel bags, and even our protective vests match. While we aren’t setting any record speeds, I require the protective vests to instill good habits for the future when I expect he will want to jump a lot more than now.
Alex has also started to figure out it’s not always bad that there are not a lot of boys at the horse events…
Sunday May 11 2014 was Mother’s Day. I spent the day at the Pony Club games rally with my kids. Well, sort of, because parents aren’t allowed in the horse management area. We arrived at 7.30 ish. That meant we left home around 6.45. The rally was at Mitchell farm in Salem, CT. We helped the kids set up the pop up tent and chairs for the day, left a cooler of food, a cooler of water, and helped get their tack room stuff and horse management kits. Their C rated pony club advisor for the day was Grace Perkins who volunteered (!!!) to head up the walk trot grasshopper games team Pony Pals. 5 kids 10 and under, and five ponies for a full day, ending with awards at 6 pm. After the briefing at 8.30 parents were banned from the horse area. The kids had jog outs to check for soundness and later a formal inspection for turn out of horse and rider. There were horse management judges asking questions and doing inspections. Then they played games against the other grasshopper team ” the runaways”. Throughout the day they killed dead time around the trailer, reading, eating and playing games ( board games). At six pm the day concluded with awards. The Pony Pals came home with double blue ribbons, one for horse management and one for the riding portion. They were all exhausted. Rob volunteered for 4 hours on the field helping out with the games play. I watched Amanda and spent money at the food truck, while watching the games play and chatting with other parents. Amanda fell asleep in the afternoon.
Overall it was a good Mother’s day with great weather.
Today was the inaugural Colonel Classic 5k in Ledyard. Alex and I signed up and this was his first ever 5k. The course wasn’t exactly flat and it was about 42F when we started. Amanda came along for a ride in the stroller. Alex still needs to grasp the concept of pacing, because he tended to sprint for a few seconds, then walk. Eventually (around the 2 mile point), I gave up on convincing him to run a steady pace and we fell into a run/walk routine. 1:00 run, 30 sec walk. That worked well for keeping him moving. I also threatened that if he gave up, we would eat okra soup for lunch, but if he kept the 1:00/:30 routine, I would let him have Subway. About 1/4 mile from the finish, his friend Jack (who was watching his Dad run) met us along the route and ran back to the finish with Alex.
Alex’s first 5k was a time of 42:14, which equates to a 13:37/mile pace. Not too bad considering the hills. Best of all, he said he actually had fun!
Tonight ended Alex’s adventures as a Cub Scout. Pack 20 held their annual Blue and Gold Banquet and Alex, along with 6 other scouts, received his Arrow of Light award. This is the last event he will attend with Pack 20, and on Monday, joins Troop 20 to continue in Boy Scouts.
