Yesterday the alarm went off at 5:30 AM. I woke up Jack and drove him to school to take the bus for his wrestling match in Lincoln. Then I came home and later got everyone else up to go. We left for Lincoln and got there around 9AM. We saw the final schedule and saw that Jack’s team wouldn’t wrestle until 10AM, and also that the last match was at 4:30! I thought that this would be like the last match in Lincoln, where there were only two other schools. I thought we would be in and out in two hours and then be on our way to Peoria for our annual bowling trip at Bass Pro Shop.

Jack ended up wrestling his first match around 9:30. He got pinned, which was expected. He had to wrestle in the next highest weight class all day, so we weren’t expecting much. This other kid was about a foot taller than Jack. It’s hard to take someone down when they have a larger foot base than you.

In between matches we went to explore downtown Lincoln. We went to a thrift shop and then to some little stores. We had great coffee and mocha and cookies at The Guest House. Then we piled back into the car to go see the next meet.

Jack lost the next meet; it went the whole three rounds. But then his next match he got a pin. Then his team found out that the would be wrestling for the championship later in the day. It got pretty exciting.

We left again to get sandwiches at Jimmy Johns. We headed back to the school to eat in the cafeteria and then it was time for Jack’s team to go. It looked bad at first as the other school had all these automatic wins, from having kids that were in weight classes we didn’t have. But when the actual wrestling started all of our kids were bringing it! It was amazing to see all the great matches, and to be in the crowd with all the other folks from our town. And then Jack had his final match and had another pin!

Our town won and got a big trophy and the kids and coaches were all ecstatic. This was the first match that Laina had ever seen and I told her she was lucky; most of these wrestling meets were pretty boring. This was by far the most exciting one I’d seen for sure.

After the match Jack was hurting. His hip and leg had been scrunched in a hard way during one of the matches. But we all headed out to Peoria to continue our trip. We stopped at Urban Artifacts, which is a cool thrift store. I bought a book on European architecture for my birthday. I consider my self a very amateurish architect, to go along with my love of finances, linguistics and behavioral economics. These are all subjects that I didn’t even know existed while I was growing up in my cow town. Now I feel like I’m scrambling to learn all the time, just to catch up to where I feel I should be.

We went to Bass Pro Shop but along the way I had to check out this crazy mural in downtown Peoria. Years ago someone had painted a Soviet-style painting with the Cookie Monster in it. It was listed in Atlas Obscura so I had to see it for myself.

We went to BPS and took the annual picture in front of the big Christmas tree there. Then we went bowling at the awesome underwater-themed alley. Everyone did equally good (or equally bad) this year. Elsa bowled without the bumpers. I ended up winning with like a 117. Bowling is hard when you don’t ever practice it.

Then we went to charge at the only supercharger in the whole Peoria area. They’re building a new station in East Peoria. It can’t come soon enough. On the way home we ran into crazy fog and drizzle outside of Havana but we still got home around 9PM.

It was a great day. The wrestling match was unexpectedly great and entertaining. Lot’s of core memories made there. And then just hanging out and bowling, especially with all four kids, just spending time together, is priceless. We don’t often just hang except on planned trips and vacations.

Speaking of vacations, the wife is talking to her parents and packing the bags now. We will travel on Christmas Day and plan on going to Disney Springs to hang out until our AirBNB is open. Also we will eat there! We hadn’t really thought about it before, but nothing is open on Christmas day. We will take plenty of snacks so we survive through the night lol.

Today is my birthday. I believe I’m 48. I’ll have to double check. Emma has a sore throat. I may have to take her to prompt care. Luckily they take our insurance again so I don’t have to go to the other prompt care where one has to wait 3 hours to be seen.

The steroids don’t seem to be doing anything for my ears. Oh well, no harm in trying. I’m going to see about going to a real ENT to see if they can suggest anything.

I made an appointment for mom to get hearing aids. She tried mine on and loved them.

Yesterday was the start of my vacation. I won’t go back to work until January 2nd. This will be my longest break ever. Next year will be a crazy start as our budget starts over and everyone will be hitting me up for capital projects.