Well sometimes you have to look for silver linings in life and that is what Miles is doing right now.
He transferred schools this year in order to have a better chance of playing basketball. Basketball teams are small. Only 5 players on the court. We are in a super competitive area. And unfortunately he got cut a couple weeks ago. He got mono in the summer but all the tests (mono, strep, covid, etc) were negative until October when he finally got a positive mono test. He had off and on symptoms and struggled with fatigue, headaches, massively swollen tonsils, and lymph nodes. He missed a lot of school. When his symptoms were super bad it obviously affected his ability to play hard or play at all. The doctor said he needed a ton of sleep and finally that did the trick and he started feeling better. And then sprained his ankle on the second day of tryouts.
He still played great despite all that. He is incredible at rebounding and getting blocked shots. He was the last person cut. It was a bummer. But one that lots of kids experience in high school and unfortunately that is part of sports.
He was so sad. He found out about 30 minutes before heading on our drive to Oregon. I think spending 10 hours in the car with Elise, Ethan and Monet was good for him. I love how they all support each other. He is handling it like a champ. And a couple weeks have gone by and he is excited to have more time to work on his car and to go skiing! If he plays basketball, he isn't allowed to ski. Something great about basketball is that there are lots of opportunities to play pick up ball even if its not a formal team. So he's looking forward to that as well.
So this weekend he borrowed an engine hoist and pulled out his engine. And the transmission. Replaced a bunch of gaskets, replaced the oil pan, and the gas tank and carburetor. I don't know how he knows how to do this stuff, but he says it isn't hard. Still I'm impressed. That stuff I know nothing about.
And yesterday he was so excited to take Soren skiing up at Park City. He got everything all ready for Soren and they drove up to Park City ready to conquer the bunny hill.
But apparently there were only two lifts open and they skipped the bunny hill and went straight for the slopes. Soren was afraid of skiing before this year. He never wanted to sign up for lessons. But after finding that he was all of a sudden great at surfing this summer, his confidence was renewed.
He did so well Miles said! Every time he fell he got right up and even did some blue runs.
My favorite part of the day was looking at my almost 17 year old son and seeing how someday he is going to be the sweetest dad. The way he was so excited to spend the day with Soren, even though it meant he couldn't do the normal runs, was really cute. He took him to pizza and they got hot chocolate in the lodge. When I called to ask how it was on their drive home it was so fun to hear the excitement in their voices. I'm glad they got that shared experience just the two of them. I really wish they had taken a photo, but they didn't which is kinda typical so at least I wanted to record this memory on my blog.
