Hunter's Creek Swim Meet

Another Saturday in June means another neighborhood swim meet. This one was at our home pool, which we love because it takes us that much less time to get to and from the meet. The downside is that there is limited parking, so they ask that we leave our cars at home and walk to the pool. Patrick is super nice to us and drops us off then walks back by himself. This week he even got me my favorite Starbucks drink and dropped it off before going home to park.

This is Eric with his friend Sofia. Sofia's mom Alicia remarked that they were both in the same events, so I took a picture of both of them showing the numbers written on their arms. Sofia was in events #1 (100 Freestyle Relay), 13 (25 Free), 25 (25 Back), 53 (25 Fly), and 63 (100 Medley Relay doing Fly). Eric was in events #2, 14, 26, 54, and 64. It usually helps me a lot that Sofia goes first, because when I see her line up for her race, I know that Eric needs to be there too.

In case you didn't notice, Eric was on the schedule to swim the butterfly for the first time in a swim meet. Patrick and I have seen him swim the butterfly in practice. Patrick, of course, knows more about the particulars of each stroke, but it's pretty obvious even to me that Eric cannot swim the butterfly legally. Patrick did his best to give Eric a few tips, but Eric pretty much ignored him. He's just his "Papa" and not his coach, after all. Unfortunately, Eric was swimming butterfly in an individual event as well as butterfly in the Medley Relay. He got disqualified in both. Luckily, he did not take it as hard as Natalie did the first time she was disqualified. Hopefully he will either listen to Patrick before next week, or his coach will give him the same pointers.

Natalie actually posed for a picture for me--yay! She was with her friend Anna, whose father was pressuring the both of them (with me) to have their picture taken together. Natalie was in the same events as Eric, except for her age group, and the same events she has been swimming in this swim season. Her back was doing okay during this meet, so she got to swim everything she was scheduled for.

She again got a first place in every event except for the 25 Free, where she again got second place after her teammate Riley. I'll describe the particulars at the very end of this post.

This meet was unique, however, because about a half hour before the meet started, the skies opened up and it started pouring. Honestly, I wasn't concerned about getting wet myself. It was already so hot and humid that the rain really helped cool things down. I was carrying my camera on my, however, and I was very afraid of it getting wet. Luckily I was under cover already, and I stayed there.

Notice how serene Eric looks in this photo, as if he is just taking it all in. He is clutching his Pokemon book (a different one from last week) to keep it from getting wet. Notice the puddles of water in the chairs behind him. We didn't sit very much after the rain because our chairs were all soaked. Notice the two girls running in the background. Interestingly, several of the kids were saying that they didn't want to get wet--even though they were all wearing swimsuits and they had already been in the pool for warmups! Thankfully, the rain did not return, and there was never any lightning or thunder, so the meet went on as scheduled.

This is Eric with his friend Cameron. Aren't they adorable? It's great that he has friends to pal around with during these meets, because I haven't heard him say that he didn't want to go to any meets since that week before the first meet of this swim season.

We have one more neighborhood swim meet next Saturday, and then the Championship Meet the Sunday after that. Then maybe we can have a little more free time.

The rest of this is boring stats, but I need to record this for my information.

Eric's results are as follows (seed times)/finish times (place):

#14 Boys 7-8 25 Free (32.47)/ 36.34 (11th out of 11)
#26 Boys 7-8 25 Back (38.12)/ 39.82 (6th out of 9)
#54 Boys 7-8 25 Fly (NT)/ DQ
#64 Boys 8 and under 100 Medley Relay - 'B' Leg 3 (NT)/ DQ
#2 Boys 8 and under 100 Free Relay - 'B' Leg 3 (2:07.83)/ 2:19.38 (3rd out of 5)

Natalie's results are as follows (seed times)/finish times (place):

#17 Girls 11-12 25 Free (13.32)/ 16.06 (2nd out of 13)
#29 Girls 11-12 25 Back (17.97)/ 18.16 (1st out of 12)
#57 Girls 11-12 25 Fly (17.59)/ 17.22 (1st out of 10)
#67 Girls 11-12 100 Medley Relay - 'A' Leg 1 (1:15.07)/ 1:19.18 (1st out of 4)
#5 Girls 11-12 100 Free Relay - 'A' Leg 4 (1:03.33)/ 1:09.47 (1st out of 4)