Soccer season on the line. My youngest is going to Vegas. Montana is still heavy. That's this week.

This week had a lot in it.

Emmie has two soccer games left in the regular season. Playoffs are still possible — we don’t know yet. The team has been fighting through a tough stretch and these last two games matter and I’ll be in the stands for both of them regardless of what they mean for the postseason.

But here’s the thing that actually stopped me this week.

I watched my youngest at gymnastics Friday evening. She’s 10 years old. She’s been doing gymnastics for a while now and I’ve been watching her for a while now — the way you watch a kid at practice, present but not always fully present, tracking her while also thinking about whatever else is sitting in the back of your head.

This week I was fully present. And I noticed something.

She can fly.

Not metaphorically. She gets up on that floor and she does things that a 10 year old body has no business being able to do and she does them like they’re nothing. She’s going to compete in Las Vegas this year. Her first real competition at that level. And watching her Thursday I understood for the first time what that actually means — not the logistics of it, not the cost of it, just what it means that this little kid worked hard enough to get there.

Hard week. Montana is still heavy — I’ll get to that. But that Thursday evening at gymnastics was exactly the kind of moment that makes the hard weeks survivable.

I’ve been distracted lately. Montana. Work. Soccer season math. The general weight of November arriving with its full calendar and its holiday noise and its shorter days that make everything feel slightly more compressed than it should.

Friday I sat down in that gym and I made a decision. I was going to watch. Just watch. Phone in my pocket. Everything else parked for an hour.

And I saw my youngest daughter in a completely new way.

She’s been doing gymnastics long enough now that she has her own relationship with it — separate from me, separate from the family schedule that drove her there, separate from the cost of the lessons and the leotards and the Friday evening routine. She has the sport and it has her and that’s a different thing than just doing gymnastics.

I watched her work on a floor routine. The focus on her face. The way she resets after a mistake without anyone telling her to. The way she looks at her coach when she lands something right — not seeking approval exactly, just sharing the moment with someone who understands what it cost to get there.

She’s 10 years old. She’s already learned how to compete internally. How to want the thing for herself not just because someone put her in a class on Friday evenings.

Las Vegas this year. Her first competition at that level. I looked at prices this week and I’ll be honest — the cost made me wince a little. Flights. Hotel. Competition fees. It adds up fast when the gym is in Nevada and you’re coming from Oregon.

But I sat in that gym Friday and I watched her fly and I thought — yeah. We’re going to Vegas.

Some things you don’t do the math on first. You just say yes and figure out the rest.

What I will say is that this week had a hard moment with it. The kind of moment where the weight of something you’ve been carrying quietly gets heavier all at once and you feel it in a way you hadn’t quite felt it before.

I’m still taking it one day at a time. Still hoping for a miracle. Still doing what can be done from 700 miles away while trying to stay present for the life happening right here in Springfield.

Some weeks the carrying is easier. This week it was harder.

What helped — genuinely helped — was that Friday evening in the gym. Watching my youngest do something extraordinary. Being pulled fully into the present moment by a 10 year old who had no idea she was helping her dad get through a hard week just by doing what she loves.

That’s the thing about kids. They help you without knowing they’re helping you. They pull you into the moment when the moment is exactly what you need.

I’m grateful for that this week more than I can say.

Since I’m budgeting a Las Vegas gymnastics competition in real time let me share the honest numbers — because this is exactly the kind of cost that catches parents off guard when recreational gymnastics becomes competitive gymnastics.

Competitive gymnastics at a travel level runs significantly more than the monthly tuition most parents budget for. Here’s what a Las Vegas competition trip looks like for one kid from Oregon:

That’s on top of the regular monthly tuition which at competitive levels runs $200-400 per month.

The financial move worth making before a competition trip: open a dedicated savings account for competition expenses and transfer a fixed amount monthly. Spreading $1,200 across six months is $200/month — manageable. Discovering it all at once when you’re booking flights is stressful.

We’re going to Vegas. I’m also opening that savings account this week for future competitions because Friday made it clear this isn’t the last one.

Note: Financial education not personalized advice. Your situation is your own.

Montana is heavy. Soccer season is on the line. October is doing what October does.

And a 10 year old flew across a gymnastics floor on Friday evening and reminded me why all of it is worth it.

Two soccer games left this week. I’ll be in those stands. Playoffs or not — I’ll be there.

And sometime next year I’ll be in Las Vegas watching my youngest compete at a level she worked hard enough to reach.

Heavy week. Two good moments. A family that keeps showing up for each other.

That’s enough. That’s more than enough.

Quick useful note before November sneaks up.

The American Farm Bureau’s annual survey puts the cost of a classic Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people at $55.18 this year — down 5% from last year, the third straight year of price declines. Turkey prices are down 16% from 2024. That’s genuinely good news going into a holiday season where everything else seems to be going up.

The number that surprises most families: the average American will spend $952 total on Thanksgiving when you add food, drinks, decorations, travel, and miscellaneous expenses. The food itself is the smallest part. It’s everything around the food that adds up.

Six weeks out is actually the right time to think about this. Not because you need to start cooking — because Thanksgiving travel books up fast and the families who wait until November to plan are the ones paying $400 for a flight that cost $180 in October.

If you’re traveling for Thanksgiving book it this week.

Soccer season will be decided by then. Thanksgiving is six weeks out. We’ll talk about what gratitude actually looks like in a year that’s been both hard and good at the same time — and what the holidays mean when you’re carrying something heavy into them.