November 2021, Part 2-Tessa Races in Houston

I worked on the Gibbons family calendar and I needed a family picture of us together, so after church on one Sunday, I asked Abby to take a selfie picture of us all. I thought it turned out pretty good.

Abby loves to do photo shoots with her friends. Sometimes she'll show me her favorites and send them to my phone so I have them. These were two of her favorite pictures that she sent me recently. I love this girl and how confident she is in herself. She's a great big sister and an awesome friend. She's a hard working student and a dedicated athlete. We love her!

 

I hosted another high school lunch in November. We only had about 16 or 17 teenagers, so I had plenty of food which I was worried about. The kids loved the sandwiches and soup that I made and I love getting to see them during the middle of their school day. They're great kids. I saved a picture of my mom from Facebook. Her birthday was on November 17th and they made her a cake and celebrated outside since they're still trying to social distance. I love being able to talk to my mom multiple times a week. I miss having them live in the same town as me, but I'm glad they're still only a phone call away.

 

On the weekend of November 20th, Tessa's cross country team raced in Houston at the Nike Cross South Regional. They left El Paso on Thursday morning. I had to take her to school at 4 in the morning and we waited for at least an hour before the vans got there and they headed on their way. They spent the day driving to Houston with planned stops to get out and run some miles on the way to stretch their legs. Coach sent pictures along the way, so I was happy to see those and save them. Tessa hadn't been feeling the best when she left, but she said she slept a lot during the drive and just took it easy during their stretch runs.

They sent another picture of the entire team outside of their hotel in Houston. They spent Friday checking out the course and sightseeing. They stopped by a Buccee's on the way and shopped at a mall. Tessa had a great time with her friends. We drove all day Friday evening to make it to the hotel to be there too. The kids were supposed to be in bed early, and we got stuck in a lot of traffic, so we didn't even get to see Tessa Friday night. She was already asleep by the time we were checking in since she was in the group that had to run pretty early the next morning.

Tessa ran with the Rising Stars group which consisted of mostly freshmen and sophomores. From her team, it was the girls in this first picture - Hannah, Tessa, Sienna, and River. They decided to wear black and they were nervous and excited to race. I took a picture of all of them lined up to start their race. Tessa and the other girls were on the farthest right of the starting line in this second picture. There were so many racers and they had a cameraman on a four wheeler that led the race and filmed the lead runners. And they had a huge, big screen in the park that showed the leaders and the stats as they started to cross the finish line. It was so high-tech and fancy.

 

We watched Tessa start the race and take off. Her coach told them to try to stay to the inside of the course so they wouldn't get bumped by too many racers, but they realized as they raced along that the course sometimes had barriers with leg supports that stuck out and could easily trip you. The girls quickly adjusted and didn't stray too far to the inside of the course.

The course had them cross multiple soccer fields and then loop around the outside of the fields and then go into the woods. They did that loop three times for the full 5k, but that meant that we got to see them three times as they looped around us. We would watch them cross the fields and then we would run across the course to the far side and see them run past the edge of the woods before going into the woods to loop around. Here's Tessa as she passed the edge of the fields and woods on lap one and lap two.

Here she is again as she ran on the soccer fields. She kept her pace pretty good, but she was still a little under the weather and not feeling the best, so she finished with a time of 23:33. It wasn't her best time, but with how she was feeling, we were happy with her outcome. I took a picture right as she crossed the finish line. I think the final stats showed that she was about 90th place out of 160ish runners. For her first huge race, she was happy with how she did.

After crossing the finish line, we took a lot of pictures. Tessa ran with Hannah and tried to keep up with her, but Hannah finished the race almost one minute ahead of Tessa. They were a great support to one another and she's the one Tessa hung out with the most throughout the weekend. We also took pictures of Tessa with the girls.

Aubrey decided to hold Tessa on her back and Abby and Tessa had to take many pictures with different poses before they decided on this one. The girls struggled a little with the long car ride just to watch Tessa race before turning around to head back home, but while they were there they were great about cheering Tessa on and being her loudest supporters from the crowd.

I was glad we got to all go together and support Tessa as a family. It was fun to see them all race and to see Tessa with her team.

 

They took more pictures after the race. We purchased the event t-shirt for Tessa and they were all given this pink and purple ski hat. I got a picture of Tessa with her teammate Aiden, who they call Bob. The  rising star boys ran before the girls, and then they all waited while the 'varsity' runners raced. We hung around the team's spot while Tessa and the other girls did their cool down and then we headed on our way while Tessa stayed with the team.

The entire Franklin cross country team went to the starting line for a team picture at the end of their day. They had three vans full of kids and they did everything together over the weekend. We left to go visit friends on our way home, while Tessa and the team stayed in the hotel in Houston one more night before driving all the way home on Sunday.

While we were in Houston, we found the Houston temple so we could walk the grounds and take pictures. We took pictures of the girls close up to the walls as we walked around the perimeter of the temple.

 

I took a picture of the girls by one of the fountains and I needed a picture of Taryn with me and Tyler for the calendar, so we took some of us with the temple behind us. I really liked this picture. The Houston temple is beautiful.

 

We took some more pictures from the front as well trying to get the entire building in the picture, or at least the steeple and angel Moroni.

Our friends, the Bakers, live only a couple minutes from the Houston temple. I called Kristin up and asked if we could stop by and see them since we were going to be so close to them. They were happy to invite us over and include us in their family festivities. That same day happened to be the day their son, Dax, got baptized and their daughter Shayla was going through the temple to be sealed to her husband. We were able to make it to the luncheon they were holding at their house so we could eat and visit and catch up. It was so fun getting to talk to them. They were our closest friends when we lived in California for Tyler's optometry school. They only had their two oldest kids at the time and they were preschoolers. They moved from California to Texas when I was pregnant with Abby. We kept in touch through the years visiting when we could or when we passed through each other's cities. I love seeing how our families have grown and how we've been able to stay such good friends. It was a really fun afternoon.

We drove to San Antonio that night and met up with my parents and John and McKaye who also happened to be visiting San Antonio for the weekend. We met up at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. They had these huge angel wings in the restaurant so each of the girls had to have their turn for a photo.

A lady took a picture of all of us while we were eating and gave us a printout but I didn't have any pictures on my phone to put on here of all of us. We ate dinner and then separated to our hotels for the night. We woke up early the next morning and stopped by my parent's new home on our way out of town. It was good to see my parent's house and their property where they live with Scott and Nevla and their family. Scott and Nevla were also home, but we didn't get to see them since they have still been trying to quarantine and stay socially distanced from others. It was hard for us to be that close to all the little cousins and not be able to see them, but we wanted to honor their wishes. So my parents walked us on a tour of their little one bedroom home and of their land. We saw their chickens, their planted trees, their bees, and their gardens. It was nice to finally see everything in person that we have only ever seen in pictures or videos. After saying our goodbyes, we drove the rest of the way home and kept track of Tessa's traveling too. We made it home about 30 minutes before Tessa and her team made it home. It was a fast trip of less than three days spent mostly in the car, but we saw and did a lot in that short amount of time. I love my family and they don't even need these gold angel wings to be my angels. I just wished I had one of Tessa too. They're all my beauty angels.