Mark's Summer

Mark is having a very busy summer. On the 10th he left for a two-week camping trip in New York with his friend Max & Max's dad. They went to Fish Creek Pond, and apparently had a total blast. In addition to two weeks in a tent, fishing and boating and kayaking, the boys also played basketball and soccer and volleyball, biked and started a running program (6 miles a day). Max is awesome that way, he really pushes Mark on his athletics. Max is 16 and going into his junior year, so he also knows the ropes at the high school, which is totally awesome for Mark. Love Max.

They were supposed to come home on the 24th, arriving at about 2:30pm, and indeed started out, but had a breakdown in Vermont, in the TINY little town of Cabot, population about 1200. Mark said the people were very friendly, but it creeped him out a little bit that the entire town seemed to know all about them in about 15 minutes. All day long, every person they saw opened with "oh, you must be the guys with the boat who broke down." Everyone was super-nice to them, though.

After spending several hours waiting to find out what was wrong with the truck, they found out that it wasn't going to be able to be fixed until Monday. Mark called with that information, and I made ready to drive 5 hours to go pick him up. Then he called back and said never mind, they were going to rent a car and come home that way. THEN he called and said that they couldn't do that, the rental places were closed (the nearest one was about an hour away from them also), and that Max's sister was coming to get them. Which ended up being the final plan.

They were expecting to get home about 2am on Saturday, but this-and-that delays made it so he rolled in at 4am. I hadn't slept at all, waiting up for him, so Saturday as a whole was pretty much a blur. He insisted he wasn't tired, and wouldn't even try to get a couple of hours' sleep before his dad picked him up for the day.

Then, at 4pm on Saturday, he went to his cousins' house for a late graduation party. There was a HUGE food fight (planned ahead of time), and everyone got totally disgusting. Kim (the twins' mom) literally hosed everyone down afterwards. I saw the footage (in addition to some video, there were about 1000 photos taken, so it was all captured), and it was really really gross. And looked like a blast. Mark was really happy to be able to hang out with his friends again, they all get along so wonderfully, and I know he's going to miss that when they all drift apart come fall.

I picked him up at 8, we stopped in to say hi to my parents and some out-of-state company (who hadn't seen Mark in several years), and then we got back to the house and I made him go right to bed. Not much argument though.

Sunday morning, up bright and early to pack him up and take him to UMaine for basketball camp! That was really weird, driving Mark and his gear to my alma mater, and bringing him to a dorm and leaving him. A definite taste of bringing him to college. eek I met his roommate for the week, who seemed really nice and someone who would get along famously with Mark. They're going to be busy this week! Daily schedule:

8:00am—Breakfast
8:30 am—Free play in field house
9:00 am —Attendance / Stretching
9:15 am—Team Improvement Drills/Team Practice
9:40 am — Games / Competitions
10:30 am— Games / Competitions
11:30 am —Lunch
1:00 pm —Recreation Time
1:45 pm — Instructional Skill Stations
2:55 pm — Games / Competitions
3:45 pm — Games / Competitions
4:35 pm — Game situations instruction—lecture
5:00 pm — Dinner
6:45 pm — Team competitions —1 on 1/3 on 3
7:25 pm— Games / Competitions
8:15 pm — Games / Competitions
9:05 pm — Commuter pick-up /Return to dorms

Mark is gonna looooooooove it. He's all about the basketball. Got a text from him that night (he got a TracFone for his birthday in June):

* This camp rocks, my team kicks ass, and im having da BEST time!!!

So I guess that's going well. :D

I go pick him up on Thursday, at which time our friends from Florida will be here (they stay with my parents), so we'll be cramming in a lot of fun activities with them.

Then, holy cow, Mark will actually have about a week of no scheduled stuff.

August 13th he has a physical, which will allow him to play sports in high school.

The 14th he will be leaving for the weekend to hike Katahdin with X's in-laws. He did that last year, too, and had a fabulous time, although he was then VERY sore for several days. He's not allowed to be sore this year, because he comes back on the 16th and on the 17th:

Soccer tryouts start. A weeklong thing, twice-daily. Mornings from 7-8 are stretching and running, and evenings from 6-8 are drills and scrimmages. His performance over the week will determine which team he is on (freshman, junior varsity, or --unlikely-- varsity), and practices start the next week.

Then the 31st is his first day of high school.

So much for a relaxing summer, eh??? mk