a big sports day for Mac

I've come to the realization that if I wait to catch up on the blog, I'm going to get further and further behind, thereby increasing my guilt and frustration levels. So I've decided just to start blogging again and I'll catch up on all that pesky stuff like birthday parties and big visitors as time permits.

Sooooooo...

Yesterday, Mac's school had an inter-house sports day for what the Brits call Key Stage 2 which means in American English grades 2-5. And by inter-house, I mean like Harry Potter where the school is broken into four different houses of which each student is a member. Mac's a member of the Griffin house, and he and the other Griffin-ers (Griffin-ites, Griffinados,???) work to earn house points because whichever house gets the most points (through any number of ways, like academics, sports, performing arts, doing a good deed, etc) wins the house trophy, which is apparently a really.big.deal.

So back to the inter-house sports day. This is what used to be called Field Day when I was in school, but you were competing for yourself then and not for a house. They had individual events yesterday in the 800m race, 80m sprint, shotput (which they called the ball throw), high jump (which they called the wall jump), and long jump, and they also had team events for a 4-person relay, whole-house relay and 8-person tug-of-war.

Mac needs to have his face put on the box of Frosted Flakes because that was apparently the breakfast of champions yesterday. For his year for the boys, he came in first place for the 800m, 80m sprint, and long jump, and he and 3 of his housemates tied for 1st place in the 4-man relay race. He was also on the tug-of-war team that won the whole tug-of-war competition.

on the podium for 1st place tie in 4-man relay



















ready for the 80m sprint start

















wearing the bling

















heaving ho in the tug-of-war (check out the muddy pants - it was a bad day to be our washing machine)







At the end of the day, they gave out some other awards, including the Junior and Senior Victor/Victrix Ludorum awards. For those of you are as not as fluent as I now am in Latin, Victor Ludorum is Latin for "the winner of the games" (Victor is masculine and Victrix is feminine). (You can check that out on wikipedia if you don't believe me.) Basically each student got a point for participation in each event plus winners get increasing levels of points depending on where they placed. The Junior award is for grades 2 and 3 (years 3 and 4 in the British system) and the Senior award is for grades 4 and 5 (years 5 and 6 for the Brits).

Anyway, all of this to say that Mac got the Junior Victor Ludorum award which came with a trophy that looks like what they give out at the Masters golf tournament. (Not really, but pretty close, I think). Mac loves trophies and he thought his fake brass Little League trophy was something special until he saw this. Check it out:


He was presented with one trophy to keep (the one in plastic) and the other is returned to the school's trophy case where his name is put on a plaque.

It was a good day to be Mac.

Now I just need to figure out how he can make a living in Track and Field athletics that is sufficient to support me....