Five Black Belts in My Shower

This week has been just...wow.  Too much to write about.

Trinity passed her Black Belt test!  It began on Thursday night at 6:30, and ended Sunday night at that same time.  It was rough being completely out of communication with her, but reuniting with her at the promotion ceremony on Sunday night was such a joyful experience.  Clint's parents came, along with his sister and her family, my parents, and Shan and her family. My sis had her dissertation due the very next day, yet still managed to make it, so she officially wins Aunt of the Year.  The ceremony was incredibly moving and Trin was nothing but smiles as she promoted, unlike Clint who looked like a prisoner of war when he promoted last year.  Clint also promoted to a first degree black belt that same night, plus I cooked a casserole from scratch without burning it, so it really was a night to celebrate.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the casserole. 

The hardest part for me was when she had to take a punch in the stomach from a gazillion black belts.  She was amazing though and had no problems with it.  From where I was standing, it looked like they were taking it easy on her, which I really appreciated.

While Trin and Clint were in the mountains, I busied myself with cleaning the house, going skating with Elijah, going out with Clint's mom, and putting together a photo story for the promotion ceremony.  I'm going to try to embed that photo story, so hold on....

Okay, it didn't work, so I uploaded it onto You Tube instead:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImISAKdUpos. That's probably better anyway, because now the family members of the other two black belt candidates can check it out as many times as they want.  I showed the candidates from oldest to youngest--there were only three--so Trin appears after the two boys (at about 5:15 in video).  Her very first picture makes me laugh so hard.  We ended up playing the photo story right before the candidates walked in, and all of the lights were off with dozens of candles surrounding the perimeter of the mat, so the mood was one of excitement.  It was pretty cool.  When we got home that night, Trin opened up some gifts from family members, talked our ears off until about 11:00, and then finally collapsed in bed (the girl hadn't slept properly in days).  It was just a wonderful night, and I know Trin will remember it for a long time.       

The weekend overall was an interesting combination of really sucky and pretty damn great, with not much in between.  Sucky because on Friday morning I woke up with a painful eye infection, which resulted in me having to cancel plans to see a really good friend (the eye infection got better by Sunday but was back full-force on Monday).  Great because Alana and Matt surprised me with a visit on Sunday, plus I was on a high from Trin earning her black belt. 

It was funny because about an hour before I was scheduled to go to the dojo, with not even a tiny smidgen of warning, five senseis showed up at my door, all needing to take showers.  So for a good twenty minutes I was running through the house, throwing towels in one bathroom, shaving cream in another, and telling the owner of the dojo (a fifth degree black belt) that I apologize but he's gonna have to use pomegranate body scrub because that's all I've got.  My parents showed up in the midst of all of this, and it was pretty priceless to watch my mom's face as she entered a house full of geed-up black belts meandering the house, hollering at each other to hurry up before the hot water runs out.

But nothing this weekend compares to Monday evening.  I'll save that for my next post.