Happy 14th Birthday, Alex!

My dear sweet Alex turned 14 on Tuesday, June 18th. Last year he didn't ask for anything at all except to play on the PS3 all day. I also bought him some snacks. This year he didn't play on the PS3 at all. He has also been trying to be better about not snacking. He and Anthony even went to the gym to exercise--at Alex's urging, not Anthony's. Patrick and I at least gave him his choice of what to eat. We had offered to throw him a party for his birthday, but his friends were all either at camp this week or out of town. He plans on having a few friends sleep over here and there instead.

He didn't get up until late morning, and I use that term "get up" loosely. He awakened in the late morning, but didn't get up until about 12:30 when Eric got home from Vacation Bible School. We then went as a family to Chipotle, one of Alex's favorite places to eat. Patrick had offered to grill for dinner, but Alex got it into his head that he wanted a Buffalo burger, so for dinner, we went to the only place we knew definitely had Buffalo burgers--Fuddrucker's. Alex actually allowed me to take this picture of him at Fuddrucker's, just after he had taken his first bite of his Buffalo burger. Anthony had one too, and they both enjoyed their burgers. All of the kids asked for shakes with their meals, so that was their "dessert" in lieu of birthday cake.

Alex has been a big influence lately on the shopping habits of the younger kids. Alex and his Aunt Melissa saw a pair of sneakers that looked like dinosaurs when they were out shopping two weekends ago. Alex, Eric, Natalie, and I went to the mall the weekend before last, and Alex really wanted to show me these sneakers (Vans brand shoes). Of course Eric loved them. Never mind that I just bought him some new Cars sneakers a month or so ago. How could I resist? They're so cute and they were even on sale! The price was also about $5 more than the Cars sneakers that I had bought at Payless. Eric wore them immediately.

What was also cute was that Eric changed shoes later that evening when we went to church. I asked him why he didn't wear his new dinosaur shoes (apparently they are T. Rex sneakers, specifically). He told me that they were "sleeping". The next morning he decided to wear them again because they were "awake". I love it when the kids use their imaginations like that.

My dear daughter loves the color red. When the red laundry gets washed, most of the laundry basket is hers. I just bought her a pair of boys' red shoes from Target a couple of weeks ago, when she was looking for a new pair of shoes, and she specifically sought out red shoes. She picked her sneakers before that one based on the fact that the bottom part was red.

Recently, she has managed to pick out some non-red clothing. She loves teal and turquoise especially. While we were at the Vans store trying on the dinosaur shoes, she found this pair. Alex, the fashion consultant, told her she should get some different colored shoe laces for these shoes. He even helped pick out the colors. Natalie has also been wearing mismatched socks for the last year or so--on purpose. Even Eric wears mismatched socks now. He likes to take his socks from the clean laundry basket and put them all in his drawer, not bothering to match them. Natalie loves wearing this combo of colors/mismatched items.

I took this picture shortly after buying the shoes. Alex has always had such a gorgeous smile. His smile looks so natural even when he is "posing" for a picture. Eric is still in that awkward smile phase when he poses for a picture.

Alex has matured so much this past year.  At one point we were really worried about him going to high school in the fall. Now we are looking forward to his starting high school. He has so many new opportunities to look forward to. We just hope he can take advantage of them. He has so much potential and he is such a smart kid. We love you, Alex! Happy Birthday!

Summerfield vs. Hunter's Creek

The memory of the chaos and of a sobbing little boy was still fresh on my mind, but we had another away swim meet on a weekday. Where we were worried about rain with the swim meet last week, we were worried about bugs and sunburns with this one. Wow, it was super humid outside! Patrick and Anthony were fresh from their trip to London, having just arrived on Sunday night. With the time difference, the meet felt like it was starting at 11:30pm for them. Natalie's friend Margot had also returned from a trip on Sunday. Her trip was related to her maternal uncle who died last week from cancer.

Margot came with us to this meet because one of their school friends, Ally, was also swimming at this meet, except she was swimming for Hunter's Creek. I took the kids early so we could get a good parking spot and so I could help a little with the set-up. Anthony brought Patrick a little closer to the start of the meet and he stayed to watch Eric's first race, the Boys 5-6 25 meter Freestyle.

Eric got first in his heat, with a time of 47.25 seconds. His seed time was 1:11.97, so he improved his time by over 24 seconds! I knew that he seems to be swimming faster and faster, but now I have proof. Never mind that his heat was the slowest of the three heats. He got 8th place out of 13 boys overall. All he knows and cares about is that he got first in his heat. All I know is that I was happy that he got to swim the freestyle this time. Patrick personally took him to his spot and stayed with him until it was his turn. A lot of parent volunteers stood by to make sure everyone got to swim at the right time. My friend Alicia, who is the team parent, did not relax until all of the five- and six-year olds got to swim their freestyle and backstroke races.

Eric also swam in the Boys 5-6 25 meter Backstroke. His seed time was 58.71. He was in the second of three heats this time, and he got second in his heat! His time was 48.53 for an improvement of 10 seconds! He just asked me this week if he could join the swim team again next summer. Of course I told him "yes"!

For this swim meet, they got to sit down in chairs behind each starting block when they were awaiting their turn to swim. This is way more organized than in the last meet. I caught Natalie in a moment of concentration here. Patrick joked about how she wouldn't be able to do her pre-swim routine while she was sitting down. She likes to do a series of stretches and joint cracking just before each race.

At these neighborhood swim meets, each swimmer can swim up to two relay races and three individual races. Natalie's relays did well, placing first in the Girls 9-10 100 meter Freestyle Relay and the 100 meter Medley Relay. However, apparently their Medley Relay was disqualified for a technicality that Patrick thought was wrong. I preferred to focus on the positive part of that. Those teams won pretty handily as they have this summer so far and hopefully they will do well in the Championship Meet in a couple of weeks. They also had some excitement. During the Medley relay, they were pretty much neck and neck until the third leg (Natalie's butterfly leg) where she pulled ahead with such speed that several parents remarked on her swimming ability. This is just her proud mama bragging. :)

Natalie was equally impressive in her individual events. She swam in the Girls 13-14 50 meter Backstroke. Because she hadn't yet competed in this event for the neighborhood team, she didn't have a time recorded. That meant that she swam in the first heat, which is usually the slowest heat. That also meant that she would have to go as fast as she could without the feedback of other swimmers being close behind her to push her faster. She beat the other girls in her heat by almost a pool length. When all the girls swam, Natalie's time was two seconds faster (39.56) than the girl who came in second place. Sorry--more mama bragging.

Her next individual event was the Girls 9-10 100 meter IM. She came in first place with a time of 1:34.75 and about ten and a half seconds faster than her friend Anna. She was trying to beat her time from a couple of weeks ago (about 1:32) but she was happy with that time because it had only been about five minutes or so after her last race.

Her last individual event was the Girls 13-14 50 meter butterfly. I videotaped this one because I figured it would be a close race. There were only four girls in this race, and one of them was a 14-year-old girl named Sydney, who is very athletic and comes from a family of athletic kids. Sydney's seeded time was 41 seconds, which is around what I thought Natalie's time would be. She again had "NT" or "no time" since she had not yet competed in this event for the neighborhood team. It was a photo finish. In fact, I was watching at the end so intently that I didn't focus the video at the point where they were touching the wall at the end. Natalie out-touched Sydney in real life. Their official times were 39.53 and 39.97 respectively. That was an exciting finish!

I've bragged enough about my kids for now. I was going to post a little about Alex's birthday today, but this post is long enough. Today is Alex's 14th birthday. I will post about him tomorrow.

Happy Father's Day 2013

It seems like I get one child back and then I lose another one. Alex got back into town late Friday night, but Natalie went to a sleepover on Saturday night, so I still had two children in the house. Today I picked up Natalie from her sleepover, only to lose Alex to a sleepover. At least Patrick and Anthony will be back tonight. Alex will come back tomorrow and we'll all be together again for his birthday on Tuesday. This is the first time Patrick hasn't been home for Father's Day and it feels a little weird.

I took this first picture at the swim team pool/pizza party on Friday afternoon. The kids all wanted to swim, and they did for a few minutes, but then we heard thunder, so I made them get out of the pool. They played in the playground instead. At least the thunder stopped for a bit, enough to get the swim team photo done. After that, I helped serve the pizzas. A lot of people didn't show up because of the threatening rain. I guess the promise of free pizza wasn't enough to entice them to come, so we had lots of pizzas left. After everyone ate, they all pretty much left, and the rain began shortly after they finished cleaning up after the pizza party. The kids were a little bummed that they couldn't swim (because of the thunder and lightning). Natalie, who had already had swim practice for a total of two hours that morning plus she played in the pool for another hour, was the most bummed.

This is a picture of the kiddos on Saturday morning, curled up on my bed playing a new game on the iPad. At last we could relax in the morning instead of rushing off to morning swim practice. Natalie and Eric had plenty of iPad time, but who cares? They were entitled to a little relaxation, and frankly, so was I.

I picked up Alex from the airport on Friday evening at about 10:30pm. A good friend and neighbor offered to come over and sit in my living room so I could leave the little ones at home when I got Alex. It was raining and he walked over from his house with an umbrella. Al and Alicia have been so good to me this week!

Today was also a relaxing day, although I did drive around quite a bit between picking up Natalie and dropping off Alex. I wanted to make time for Eric too, and he's been asking to go to the Lifetime Fitness pool, so I took him there this afternoon. I probably mentioned this in a previous post, but at Lifetime Fitness, they test the kids to see of they can swim 25 meters, and give those that can an armband. The parents don't have to stay quite as close (10 meters) to their kids that have armbands. Eric passed this test last year, but when he did he had to stop a couple of times to turn on his back and rest. This time he did the whole 25 meters without stopping. I didn't think to time him, but with being on the swim team this summer, he has gotten better and faster. He asked me if he could join the swim team next year. I said, "Of course you can!"

I want to wish a "Happy Father's Day" to all the fathers out there. We got to talk to Patrick on the phone a little while ago during their layover in Minneapolis. I finally got through to my Dad just now. I'll try to post again tomorrow about the kids' swim meet tomorrow evening.

Swim Meet June 8-9

I'm a little behind on posting about last weekend's swim meet. Natalie was bummed about this one because she wouldn't be able to play with her cousins. We signed up for it because she was the one that wanted plenty of chances to achieve her TAGS time. Grandma and Grandpa did come to see her swim on Saturday morning when the weather wasn't too bad. I would have posted a picture of them with Natalie, but Grandma's eyes are closed and she probably would not want me to post that photo. This picture is also from Saturday, June 8th. Natalie hung out with friends in between races. She only swam in two races each day. It rained pretty hard at the start of the meet on Sunday and then it was unbearably humid after that.

The results of her four races during this meet are as follows:
100 m Freestyle--1:26.29 (added time from personal best=1:25.86)--placed 14th out of 32 girls ages 10 and under
200 m IM--3:28.74 (added time from personal best=3:27.57)--placed 7th out of 20 girls ages 10 and under
200 m Freestyle--3:06.80 (did better than previous personal best of 3:07.93)--placed 12th out of 18 girls ages 10 and under
50 m Freestyle--37.90 (did much better than previous personal best of 39.23)--placed 7th out of 31 girls ages 10 and under

Of note was the fact that her 50 m Freestyle time was more in line with what her time should have been the last time she swam the 50m Freestyle, when they had all of those glitches with the starting system. She did much better on Sunday than on Saturday. She was unhappy on Saturday, but felt better on Sunday. She's still on a quest to get TAGS times. We have another chance at the end of the month.

Between Eric and Natalie, they have been to 12 swim practices so far this week (more or less), with one more tonight. The one tonight is more of a team picture/pizza party, but still--that's a lot of swim practices. That's not even counting the two they missed. Our good friends took Eric to two of his evening practices, otherwise I've been to every single one, so we haven't been at home very much. Yesterday we had lunch with a friend of mine at Chili's after the second swim practice of the day (the neighborhood one) and then we got to spend a little time at home. This afternoon we get to spend a little time at home again, thankfully, and the kiddos have a couple of friends over here and they're watching the movie "Despicable Me" and eating popcorn.

Because it's only me here this week, I've been taking Eric to a lot of Natalie's swim practices. I took this photo this morning. I had just changed him into his swimsuit since we were going straight to the neighborhood practice after Natalie's morning practice. He couldn't resist stepping in all the puddles around the natatorium pool, of course. He also realized that his wet flip flops made a pattern on the dry pavement, so he kept looking back where he had stepped to see his footprints on the pavement. I love the joy of experiencing the simple things at this age.

Alex is coming home tonight! Yay! Eric is getting excited about Alex coming home. We miss him!

Summerfield vs. Knight's Cross

We had the second neighborhood swim meet on Tuesday night, June 11th, and it was hosted by another neighborhood team, the Knight's Cross Crusaders. Wow, what a disorganized meet. Some of the problem was due to the weather. The skies opened up with rain, thunder, and lightning before our team had a chance to even warm up. We sat in their clubhouse for about half an hour, waiting the standard 20 minutes after we last heard thunder. The meet started a little late--at 6pm. They seemed to be rushing to get the meet done by 9pm. We (our team) learned our lesson that we need to be more attentive to our kids if this happens again. I'm not sure if the home team learned that lesson or not.

They rushed to get the kids all lined up and ready to swim. They didn't give out updated heat sheets with the last-minute changes, not even to the officials. We usually have "ready bench" volunteers who make sure the kids are where they need to be and ready to swim their races. The parents who volunteer for the "ready bench" have a lot of experience, but several small children were missed, even though they were in the right place to swim. Eric was one of those. The other team rushed through the first events and didn't put up their sign to tell everyone what event number they were on--until they started missing kids. Only then did they put that sign up. We still haven't received the final results, so I don't know for sure, but it certainly seemed like the kids that missed swimming in their races were all from our team. There were at least five of them that I know of, mostly the five and six year olds. When we host a meet at our home pool, the individuals who run our meet usually make sure there is a child on each starting block when the race starts. Sometimes there isn't a child assigned to that spot, but they find out and then they move on. This team didn't do that.

To say that I am upset is an understatement. They blamed our parents/volunteers. They refused to let those kids swim. All those kids wanted to do was swim. It wasn't about winning or getting the best time. The kids just wanted to swim. Eric just wanted to swim. He was crying when they told him he had missed his race and that he couldn't swim the freestyle like he thought he was going to do. I calmed him down and told them he would get another chance. Then the parent running the meet suddenly made an announcement saying the "three" kids that missed their races could swim again--but wouldn't get timed. Then they started the race almost immediately after making that announcement. That was like rubbing salt in an open wound. Eric wasn't there again, of course. He was sobbing for a while. I held him almost until his next race, the backstroke. I stood right next to him to make sure he didn't miss that race. Several other parents did the same thing.

I found it interesting that for one heat where there were only Knight's Cross kids swimming, the parent running the meet stopped to call out the three kids names that were swimming--because only two were on the blocks. I also found it interesting that they had a kid swimming that wore a flotation device. He didn't have any chance of winning, because everyone finished in half his time, and technically that is against the rules, but they took the time to let him do that. Sure, all the parents are doing this for the kids, but let's do it for ALL the kids, not just for one team. I also found it interesting that several kids from the other team had false starts (but didn't get disqualified). Were they used to having to start quickly and didn't want to miss their races? Maybe so.

One parent went home early with her five year old child. She was so upset about her child missing her race that she wrote an email to everyone on our team. She left because her child had been "left out". That was not the way to handle it. Her child didn't get another chance to swim. Eric had another chance to swim. I am so glad he got another chance to swim.

All was forgotten after a while. Eric got to swim and everything was better. This is a picture of him with his buddy Sofia. He was goofing off and having fun with her the rest of the meet. He'll swim again at the next meet (next Monday) and this will all be just a memory.

I want to end this post on an upbeat note. Natalie was slotted to swim in the Girls 9-10 25m Breaststroke. She hates doing breaststroke, mostly because she thinks she's not good at it. When Eric didn't get to swim his freestyle, she was very upset about it too. I told her to focus on her races and beat the pants off the other team. I sort of did it to get her motivated, but I was also really mad at the other team for doing that to my little boy. Natalie won that race. She won by almost four seconds. She also swam in the Girls 11-12 25m Butterfly and she was faster than #2 by almost a second and faster than #3 by three and a half seconds. She won in the Girls 9-10 100m IM by over 19 seconds. She amazes me sometimes. Her two relay teams also won pretty handily. Go Natalie!

Anthony's Graduation

I barely spent any time at home today. We started out by going to breakfast at IHOP at 8:30am. We then almost immediately turned around and went to the neighborhood swim team practice at 10am. I let the kids play an extra hour, so we didn't get home until after noon. We showered and changed and had lunch then we were at the library by 2pm. We took a short shopping trip to Bath and Body Works for their "Semi-Annual Sale" then had ice cream at Brindles. We then had an early dinner at 4:30pm at Fuddruckers'. It was too early to head to Natalie's club swim practice, so we took a short shopping trip to Old Navy then went to swim practice. I'm a little burned out on swim practices, but I'm enjoying the time I'm spending with the little ones.

This is the only photo I have of Anthony with his graduation gear on. He was too far away on the night of his graduation to get any good photos plus they made the kids turn in their stuff immediately after the ceremony, so he didn't have anything left by the time we saw him. Besides what he is wearing here, he had a grey satin stole for his magnet school, DATA (Design and Technology Academy). He didn't receive that until right before the ceremony. By the time he got a friend to take a picture of him with the DATA stole on, he had already turned in the National Honor Society stole (the white one you see here). The grey one hung down at the sides instead of around the front like the NHS one.

He left ahead of us because he had to be there at 6pm. There were over 600 students graduating with their accompanying loved ones in the audience, so there were lots of people at the Freeman Coliseum, where they hold the graduation ceremonies of all of the district high schools. The ceremony had the usual speeches by the principal and various important people. Before this graduation, I had only heard of valedictorians and salutatorians giving speeches at the ceremony. Anthony graduated as number 2 and his friend Jake graduated as number 1 in the class, but neither of them were slated to give a speech. Instead, a student was chosen from tryouts held when Anthony and his friend Jake were out of town for college visits plus the president of the student body gave a speech. This still seems weird to me, but I guess the speeches weren't that important anyway.

The first names to be called were the students that graduated with the Summa Cum Laude designation, then the Magna Cum Laude, then Cum Laude, and then everyone else. At this school, Summa Cum Laude is defined as those students who have over a "100" average. They can achieve that by taking Advanced Placement (AP) and Pre-AP courses, which come with additional multipliers that tend to inflate their scores.

Because they announced the Summa Cum Laude graduates first in alphabetical order, Anthony was actually the 30th student to walk across the stage and receive his high school diploma. That meant that we could have left after about an hour because Anthony was done (at 8:30pm). We may end up doing that with Alex, but this is our first child to graduate from high school, so Patrick and I stayed for the whole ceremony. His parents, Alex, and Eric stayed with us and everyone else left to go to our house. Eric held up well, considering we didn't leave there until about 9:30pm. He played on the iPad almost the whole time except for when Anthony was crossing the stage--then he clapped and yelled like the rest of us. Alex left for a bit to visit with a friend whose brother was also graduating.

After the ceremony ended, we met everyone back at our house where we watched the final minutes of the NBA Finals Game 1 with our hometown San Antonio Spurs winning over the Miami Heat. Since this was an out-of-town game, they had a viewing party at the Alamodome this same evening, which caused problems for us getting to the graduation since the Alamodome is right next to Freeman Coliseum.

Tomorrow I need to start catching up on current events, like the second neighborhood swim meet of the season that was held last night, Tuesday, June 11th.

Alex's and Eric's Graduations

I feel like I'm either getting ready to go to swim practice, at swim practice, or coming back from swim practice. Yesterday I dropped Eric off at a friend's house so they could take him to swim practice at our neighborhood pool while I took Natalie to her club swim practice. Alicia was good enough to allow him to shower off at her house also. Her daughter Sofia is also six years old and she and Eric are good buddies. Alicia gave them a choice of who would get to take a shower first. Eric, who bathed with Natalie up until about last year, of course asked if they could take a shower together. Although it doesn't really matter at their age, it was best to not invite questions later (about why they could shower together when they're six but not when they're ten or at whatever age), so she told them "no". Wise choice but still, I could picture Eric asking and thought it was a cute thing to say.

Eric chose to sleep in my room last night. Amongst his many stuffed animals, he chose his big triceratops that he got from the Children's Museum when he had his birthday party there, and he also chose his little (beanie baby-type) triceratops. He seemed to sleep pretty soundly, but he and Natalie were both awake by 7am, despite getting to bed late at 9pm. We were up and out of the house by 8am to go to Natalie's 8:30 swim practice. We went to the grocery store on the way home. Natalie wore her swim parka inside. We got some healthy things like strawberries and blueberries, and something to eat for lunch today and for dinner tomorrow. I indulged them a bit with the snacks. I was about to say "no" to Fruit Rollups but decided it was okay. I told Eric to go get one and he said, "It's already in there." Yes, Eric likes to just put whatever he wants into the grocery cart.

Speaking of someone who likes to snack, Alex loves to snack, but he has been so good about eating the right things since he was in track this past year. Of course that change wasn't due to him actually paying attention to Patrick and me telling him not to snack so much. That change was due to his track coach telling him that he would do better in track if he made more healthy food choices. He still snacks, but he has actually used some restraint and has even chosen to eat fruits and vegetables. He is currently touring Washington, D.C. with a group from his middle school. I exchanged some short texts with him last night. He has been quite busy but seems to be having fun. They have a lot of ground to cover as they are going to New York City as well--all in four days.

He made me promise not to bring my big camera to his awards ceremony last week. As a result, all I have are bad, blurry photos like this one. I'm still happy with this because at least he's looking in my general direction and this is more than I got last year. He even gave Patrick and me a hug at the end of the ceremony. Like Natalie, he also got certificates for the President's Award, All "A" Honor Roll, and Perfect Attendance. There was definitely a time this past year when we weren't sure he would make all "A's" so kudos to him for getting his work done.

After the awards, they had a short little film with pictures of everyone in the eighth grade. Luckily, they didn't have everyone in the eighth grade walk across the stage or the ceremony would have taken forever. Only the kids that got awards got to walk across the stage. For this reason I can't really call this a "graduation", but the principal did address the eighth graders specifically with words meant to inspire them to greatness in high school and beyond. We were out of there in about 45 minutes.

Eric's ceremony was even more low key. They don't have letter grades in kindergarten, so there was no certificate for getting all "A's". My sister Melissa arrived with her daughter Emily just as we were leaving for the school, so we were a very large group--all for Eric. We were surprised that we were the only family members there. None of the other families were there. That's unusual for kindergarten, but maybe they thought they weren't supposed to come. In any case, we made sure to clap for all of the other kids too. Eric was super excited to see all of us there.

It was a simple ceremony, not at all like the other kids had when they "graduated kindergarten". Eric's teacher merely called each student by name, gave them a certificate of completion, and gave them each a hug. She showed us this little headband with a graduation cap on top and told us that each child could pose individually with the headband for pictures if they wanted to. She also joked about how she could only afford one on a teacher's salary.

I asked Mrs. S for a picture of her standing next to Eric because I figured that one of these days, he would be taller than her. She laughed and posed for me. Unlike Natalie who always wants to ride the bus, Eric elected to go home with us instead of going on the bus. We still had lots of activities left for us that day. I'll post about Anthony's high school graduation ceremony tomorrow.

For today, instead of another swim practice to go to tonight, we have our second neighborhood swim meet of the season tonight. I'll have to post about that also whenever I can get to it.

Natalie's Fifth Grade Graduation

Half of my family left town this morning. Patrick dropped Alex off at the airport at 4am, and I dropped Patrick and Anthony off at 8am. I have some time off this coming week, but somehow, it's not the same without the rest of the family around. I'll get to spend lots of time with Natalie and Eric, at least. After dropping off Patrick and Anthony, we went straight to Natalie's club swim morning practice. We came home to eat lunch then we went to the dollar theatre to see "The Croods". Natalie had the chance to see the new animated film "Epic" with some club swim friends, but she chose instead to see the older movie. It was cheaper for me, although with popcorn and an Icee, the "dollar movie" cost us $14.25 total. This evening I get to drop Eric off with friends to go to the neighborhood swim team practice while I take Natalie to her club swim evening practice.

Before the running around this evening, I need to catch up on last week's events. Natalie had a fifth grade graduation ceremony on the last day of school last Thursday, June 6th. I came home from being on call and immediately got back in Patrick's car to go to her school for the ceremony. She received the President's Award, an award for being on the "A" Honor Roll all year, and a Perfect Attendance award. She had a variety of other certificates in her yellow folder. We're very lucky that our kids are smart and do well in school.

This is a picture of Natalie shaking her teacher's hand on stage after her name was called. The other fifth grade teachers were on stage as well along with the principal. They called the name of each fifth grade student in alphabetical order class by class (three classes). The whole ceremony was a little more than an hour long. Too long since most of us were sitting on the cafeteria benches that were uncomfortable. After the ceremony, they got to parade around the school being cheered by the other students and then the rest of the day they walked to a neighboring pool for a celebration pool party.

Patrick's Mom and Dad went to the ceremony. They went to all the ceremonies on Thursday, which made for a very long day for them. Natalie's friend had done her hair and she started taking it out by the time I took this photo. We don't see the grandparents nearly enough, so it was nice to get them in pictures with the kiddos.

Alex's and Eric's ceremonies weren't very long or very big, so I'll combine them into one post for tomorrow. Until then, I'll be at swim practice.

Family Visit

I haven't had much time to post the events of the last few days on this blog. I wanted to take it all in and enjoy my family while they were visiting. Despite that, there were so many activities in such a short period of time that I still felt like I didn't spend much time with them.

This is a picture I took during our final meal together, lunch at Panera Bread yesterday (Saturday). I'm a little surprised that they are all looking in the same general direction of the camera. Panera Bread, of course, is where Natalie always requests to go after a swim meet. Instead of going there on the last day of the meet, as per our tradition, we moved it up to Saturday. For those that want to know but don't know already, left to right, Patrick is on the left then his parents Angie and Ernie, my paternal Uncle Nany and his wife Myrna, my sisters Melissa and Cynthia, my brother-in-law John, my nephew Nick, Alex, then my parents Linda and Tony. Eric is, of course, is front and center and did not want to put down his yogurt for the picture. My nieces Emily and Aly are behind me at a separate table with Natalie. It was tough to fit all of us at one table.

Besides my immediate family, Patrick's parents came on Wednesday morning (June 5). My paternal uncle and his wife arrived in Houston on Wednesday for my Dad's birthday (82nd). They celebrated with the family in Houston then drove to San Antonio on Thursday. They also visited with their good friends in San Antonio. My sister Melissa and her daughter Emily arrived at our house just before we went to Eric's informal kindergarten graduation on Thursday afternoon. My brother-in-law had to work on Thursday morning, so we didn't see his family until we met them at Anthony's graduation ceremony on Thursday evening. They usually all stay at my house but this time most of them, except for my parents, stayed at hotels.

This is a picture of my niece Aly with Eric. Every time my nieces visit, I always regret not getting more photos of Natalie with her girl cousins. She really misses being with them when they're not here and they're an inseparable trio when they get together.

Everyone left on Saturday. They didn't stay long at all. Patrick and Anthony are leaving tomorrow for their big London trip (Anthony's graduation present from us). Alex is leaving on a school trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City tomorrow also (sort of a graduation present). That will leave me with Natalie and Eric shuttling back and forth in between three daily swim practices. I'll have to post more about that later.

Mindfest 2013

The kids have an event called Mindfest at school every year around this time. Patrick and I try to volunteer for it every year. We would have split the day with me taking the morning shift and Patrick taking the afternoon shift, but they were short of volunteers, so we were both there the whole day--seven hours! I do stuff like that on my day off.

The event was put together by the GT Teacher, Mrs. Amee, but all the kids participate (in all the grade levels), not just the GT kids. The kids were split up into groups of at least three and they went to different stations. Each station had some sort of brain teaser. I had word picture puzzles at one point, where there were word pictures that represented a common phrase or saying. An easy one was the word "Fiddler" on top of the words "The Roof", which of course represented "Fiddler On The Roof". Many of the kids had never heard of that musical before. Another one had the word "partridge" in between two "tree" words. The answer was "Partridge in a Pear Tree". I was allowed to give some hints but I had to be consistent in giving the same hint for all the groups. All the groups had so much trouble with most of these puzzles that I had to help them a little. I gave them the hint, "The 12 Days of Christmas". Only one group, or really only one kid, got the answer right. Some of them knew about the song "The 12 Days of Christmas", but they couldn't remember the words! I couldn't believe it.

At one point, Patrick had the same station except for different groups of kids and he didn't help them at all. Some of the groups had aides for the special needs kids or sign language interpreters for the hearing-impaired kids with them. Those adults were helping them much more than I thought they should be helping. Those kids got way more answers than some other groups that had just kids. Then there were a couple of groups with one bright kid and several other kids that were special needs and the one bright kid did all the talking and answering.

Besides the word puzzles (some of which I myself had trouble figuring out), there were also stations with logic puzzles, math games, and one time I had an "Analogies" station. I thought it was interesting that one of the analogies was "Skeleton is to Orthopedist as Child is to _____". Many of the kids knew the answer was probably "kid doctor" but they couldn't come up with the actual name.

All the volunteers were given a lunch too, which was great because we only had half an hour between the morning and afternoon sessions. Eric and the kindergarteners were the last group to come before lunch and Natalie and the fifth graders were the last group of the day. As always, when Eric saw us, he gave us a big smile and waved frantically to get our attention. When I motioned to him that it was okay that he leave his class to come over, he came and gave us big hugs. So sweet! That was in sharp contrast to Natalie who barely acknowledged my presence. The fifth graders had a field trip to Natural Bridge Caverns in the morning and they had just come back when they came for their session. They all came with their backpacks also because they were going to be dismissed from school right after the Mindfest activities.

So, Mindfest was yesterday and today was the Fifth Grade Talent Show. I might try to give a little recap of that tomorrow, but it's just going to get busier around here. Patrick's parents just arrived and my family will get here tomorrow in between all the last day of school awards ceremonies. Wish me luck!

First Swim Meet of the Summer Season

Today was the first meet of the summer season AND Eric's first ever swim meet. He has not worn a swim cap yet, so when I put it on him, I had to chuckle because the cap pushes his face down so that he looks more "Asian". Of course Natalie responded to that by saying, "But Mama, he IS Asian." Yes, Dear, but he can barely open his eyes now.

This photo also shows Eric eating a giant chocolate chocolate chip muffin. As soon as Natalie saw that muffin at the concession stand, she had to have it. She did agree, as did Eric, to eat a breakfast taco first. I tried to make them wait until after some of their races, but Natalie had five, including one of the last events of the whole meet, so I couldn't hold her back for too long. Together, the four of us (including Patrick) bought a total of $42 worth of items from the concession stand. To be fair, we bought probably at least eight of the small Gatorade bottles, and those were $1.25 apiece. The rest of the time they ate a variety of foods, like nachos, pizza, fruit-rollups, and ring pops. I couldn't talk them into eating anything healthy, except for one time when Natalie actually got some orange slices. They're lucky that they can handle that type of food right before their races.

Natalie was reluctant to get her photo taken as usual, but I was designated the "team photographer" again, so I had to keep taking photos. That was my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ;) I took over 200 photos, but I only saved 123. Most were of other kids and adults, but I managed to take a few of my beautiful children.

First I'll summarize the results of Natalie and Eric's races, then I'll go into the details.

Eric swam in the following events:
Boys 5-6 25 meter Freestyle--1:04.84--11th out of 11 places
Boys 5-6 25 meter Backstroke--1:03.94--3rd out of 4 places

Natalie swam in the following events, in the order she swam them:
Girls 13-14 200 meter Freestyle relay--2nd out of 2 places
Girls 9-10 25 meter Freestyle--1st out of 14 places
Girls 13-14 100 meter IM--1st out of 6 places
Girls 9-10 25 meter Butterfly--1st out of 6 places
Girls 9-10 100 meter Medley Relay--1st out of 2 places

This is Eric showing off his heat ribbon after his first swim meet race ever--the 25 meter freestyle. He was given a fourth place heat ribbon for both of his races, but he ended up actually being in third place in the backstroke. I'm not sure what happened there, but he was pretty excited to just be swimming. The beautiful girl next to him is Sofia, the 6-year-old daughter of our good friends. Sofia and Eric are good buddies as well. The rest of the time Eric hung out with his friend John Daniel, who lives across the street from us. John Daniel is 8 years old and is swimming on the swim team for the first time too. They were quite a pair.

Patrick and I are so happy with Eric's swimming today. Sure, he's not the fastest by far, but he can swim across the pool without holding on to anything and without stopping. Even with the freestyle, earlier this year he often had to turn onto his back to rest several times before proceeding across the pool. He even did that at the first swim practice three weeks ago. He doesn't have to do that anymore. When we first moved to this neighborhood 11 years ago, Anthony couldn't swim across the pool either, until he joined the swim team. Eric loves swimming. We don't expect that he'll want to be in a swim club like Natalie, but at least he's on the road to enjoying swimming as a lifetime activity.

I've mostly stopped taking pictures of Natalie during swim meets because, after all, how many of these photos do I need? I went ahead and took photos today, because at least in the summer swim season, the meets are outdoors with better lighting, and I can still see the way her face is changing over time. This is her least favorite stroke too--the breaststroke, but she did a great job with it during the IM.

Notice that Natalie swam up two age groups in two out of five of her races. Several of the older boys and girls were not at this meet for whatever reason. We don't have that many older swimmers as it is, since they start getting busier with other things at that age and they don't want to be on the swim team anymore. Coach Jesse knows that Natalie swim club elsewhere, and she swam up a couple of times last year as well. Natalie knew she would be less likely to win those races because, frankly, the older girls, even if they don't swim club, are bigger and stronger and therefore faster. At least for today, we were wrong.

Her first race was the 100 meter Freestyle relay. She swam the third leg, and I don't think this is just her proud Mama talking, but she appeared to swim faster than the other girls on her team. Patrick agreed. Her relay team was behind when she got in the water, she totally caught up and passed the other team during her leg of the race, and her team fell behind again after her leg and eventually lost by two seconds. Now, it could have been that the girl swimming the third leg on the other relay team was their slowest swimmer, but a Mama can think what she wants, right? Coach Jesse clocked her leg at about 36 seconds, which is the fastest that she has swum the 50 meter freestyle before. She was pretty excited.

We were even more impressed with Natalie during the 100 meter IM. She raced against 13 and 14-year-olds and one 12-year-old who is on our neighborhood team and who also swims club. Natalie has had faster times against her before in a swim club meet. This is one race that I wish I would have videotaped. Natalie was leading through the butterfly and backstroke legs. Those are her best strokes. She started losing ground to the 14-year-old in the lane next to her during the breaststroke, but held on to out-touch her by 0.25 seconds. I couldn't even see the finish because I was on the other side of the pool, but I could tell from the reaction of the people on the other end who the winner was. Natalie was so out of breath when I saw her after the race, but she definitely looked exhilarated by her exciting win.

Sometimes it might seem like bragging when I write one of these blog posts, and in a way it is. This blog is my way of record-keeping nowadays instead of scrapbooking, so I reserve that right to brag like I would on a scrapbook page. Patrick and I are very proud of our two swimmers today.

Field Day 2013

Today is Field Day at Natalie and Eric's school. I signed up to help set-up from 7:15-8:15, so after breakfast at home (Cinnabons from Schlotzky's), I took them to school. I loved watching Natalie help Eric out of my car. Eric has been sitting in the third row seat and rather than have him stepping all over the second row seats and middle divider, I have him exit the car through the back. Natalie helped him get down then she held his hand as we walked to the school and inside. I told her that I wouldn't get to see her holding Eric by the hand to walk him into school much anymore since they'll be in different schools after this year. At first she wouldn't let me take a picture, but then I told her that I had already taken some pictures from behind. She grudgingly agreed.

We had been running late as usual because Eric was finishing up an application for the Lighthouse team that Natalie was on this past year. The Lighthouse team is supposed to be made up out of student leaders. I'm actually not sure exactly what that job entails, but Natalie gets to make the overhead announcements every morning. One of the ladies in the office told me when I was checking out of the school after my volunteer shift that she was so happy to have been able to work with Natalie this year doing the announcements. She said (about Natalie), "You have a good one there." Yes, I have to agree.

The application consisted of a question, "Who is a leader?" and a picture of what a leader looks like. Eric's answer to the question was, "Teachers, principals, and parents." He had to be prompted a little bit, but that was all his idea. Patrick did have to put a "translation" down because those words are a bit hard for him to spell at this point in time. His picture was of him as a line leader with his friend Christopher right behind him and his teacher in the front.

After the set-up, Patrick and I volunteered for the Sno-cone table from 8:15-9:15. We volunteered for this station last year also. It's great because you can be in the shade and you have plenty of ice to cool you down if you need it. Field Day consists of a bunch of these stations. This year it's 12 different stations, from playing in the playscape to various games (obstacle course, water slide, etc.) usually involving water. It's usually very hot outside at this time of year. Every eight minutes, the kids switch stations, so that's when we get a big mass of kids all wanting Sno-Cones at the same time. Last year we only had two flavors, one red and one purple, I think. This year they have three, one cherry, one grape, and one strawberry. The first class we served all wanted cherry. The other classes were more mixed. It's interesting that they have the big jugs right in front of them with the already made Sno-Cones in front of each jug and they still ask what flavor it is.

Patrick has all the tips down from last year. We can't make the Sno-Cones too early or they will melt. We also can't put the flavors in too early or the ice will melt from the syrups that are warmer than the ice. After our shift was over, we left. I went to get my hair cut then we had lunch at La Madeleine. We return for another shift this afternoon at 1:15-2:15.

I thought I would go ahead and write this blog post now while I have time. I'll probably take more pictures this afternoon.

Getting Ready

As an update to my last post about Natalie shopping, we went out again on the following day, Sunday, this time with Margot's mom with us. I bought Natalie another shirt, a skirt, another denim vest, and a pair of summer boots. She actually wore a dress paired with the boots when she and my family (minus Anthony) came to bring me lunch and visit me while I was on call on Memorial Day. I love her new look. :) Maybe this is her way of getting ready for middle school next year.

This is a picture of Eric at his swim practice today. Like Natalie, he doesn't want to miss any swim practices. It rained yesterday and he actually didn't want to go to swim practice, even though the rain had stopped. He didn't hesitate to get in the pool today, even though the water has been cold lately because of the recent rains.

Today they practiced how to do relay starts and the practiced what the start of each race was going to sound like. They used the same starting horn that they will use this coming Saturday. Eric is very excited about his first swim meet. He is adorable when he swims--he pulls his entire head out of the water to breath, unless it's the backstroke, in which case he seems to go faster because he doesn't have to worry about when to breathe. He can breathe all the time--like his sister.

Natalie had planned on going to the neighborhood swim practice tomorrow instead of her club swim practice so she can get to know those coaches a little better, in anticipation of the first neighborhood swim meet. Also, she can go to bed earlier when she swims in the neighborhood since her practice there is right after Eric's at 6:30-7:30 (instead of 6-8 for club swim). She didn't go swimming at all today, however, because of her period starting. She says she wants to swim tomorrow.

The kids are all getting ready for school to be over for the summer. Anthony has one more project due tomorrow and then he has one English final exam next week and that's it for his high school career. The rest of his classes either had projects as their final exams or he is exempt from their final exams. (He can be exempt from three final exams each semester but he was only able to be exempt from two.) His last day of school is Tuesday, June 4th.

Alex has finals this week and then supposedly he doesn't have anything next week. Natalie and Eric don't really have anything left, except fun stuff.  They have their Field Day tomorrow. Tuesday will be Mindfest (I'll blog about that next week), and Natalie has a Talent Show next Wednesday. Thursday, June 6th is the last day of school for all of them. Patrick had I will have at least two awards ceremonies on that day (for Alex and Natalie).

Then of course we're getting ready for Anthony's graduation next Thursday, June 6th. My friend Alicia told me today that I was right when I told her even though we think that we are busy now, we always get busier later. Both of her daughters had graduations the past two days. Yes, we will get even busier.

Natalie Goes Shopping

Natalie suddenly loves shopping. We went to Kohl's two weeks ago to get her a dress for a Bat Mitzvah that she was invited to. On that trip she also wanted to "look around" and found a sparkly, frilly shirt. I thought it was over when I offered to go shopping with her this past week again and she refused. Fast forward to today.

We went to swim practice this morning, but when we got there, her coach told her that he was told to cancel practice because of the thunderstorms rolling through our area. Instead of going home, she wanted to shop at Kohl's. That was just the beginning. The total haul today for Natalie was as follows:

Kohl's--three tops and two jean shorts
JcPenney--two tops
Love Culture--Denim vest
Forever 21--two dresses and one romper

Notice the photo above. Not everything listed above is in the photo, but you can see lace and flowers. There is still the obligatory red clothing (her favorite color), but there are other colors. To be fair, she still wanted me to buy a boys' shark shirt like the one I bought for Eric at Gymboree.

What is the difference? We went shopping with her friend Margot, and Margot encouraged her to try some things on--like dresses and clothes with flowers on it. Natalie still has her limit. One thing Margot suggested apparently had flowers that were too big and bold on it, and Natalie nixed it. She's not completely girly and not completely a tomboy. She's rather like me, actually. She even said she was going to wear one of her new dresses to church tomorrow.

I took this second photo at North Star Mall this afternoon. We picked up Margot at about 1pm and headed to the mall. The new Lego Store opened yesterday. We got to build big bricks that the Master Builders were going to use to make an eight-foot R2D2 to decorate the front of the store. They had people dressed as Star Wars characters roaming around posing for photos.

We ate lunch at the Food Court and then Margot and Natalie were off shopping. Margot had a phone, so I stayed in touch with them that way. I stayed with Eric. They had a line to go into the Lego Store, so we went to the Disney Store instead. Eric bought two Cars cars (Fabrizio and Rip Clutchgoneski) with his allowance money). We then pretty much followed the girls all around the mall, not necessarily shopping with them, but near where they were so I could swoop in and buy things for my dear daughter. Eric held up fairly well, but at 4pm, he was asking to go home. Natalie had shopped for three hours and they were talking about going back tomorrow. I should have counted my blessings when it was only Alex that was the super shopper!

DATA Awards Night 2013

Anthony's last awards ceremony for the year was last night, for his magnet school Design and Technology Academy (DATA). Patrick said he thought this night was even more important to these kids than the whole school graduation in two weeks. We've been to this ceremony before, because they also hand out awards for the other grades on this night, not just the seniors. This time was more special, of course. Anthony finally got one of those cool wooden statues that they hand out to every DATA senior!

Anthony received a DATA Award of Excellence, which means that at least one DATA teacher nominated him for his/her class. He has only one DATA teacher this year, Mrs. Vines, who already nominated him for the Core Value award for Perseverance (see last blog post) at the awards ceremony on Tuesday morning, so we figured that she had nominated him for this award as well. She was still out of town and couldn't be at this ceremony either. Apparently her daughter is competing at the NCAA Golf Tournament in Georgia this week and is up for the Woman Golfer of the Year.

Rackspace is one of the big companies in town and probably partly because of their proximity to Anthony's high school, they are big supporters. All the students at DATA have to give a Senior Design Project Presentation. This year, Rackspace asked the DATA faculty to choose ten student presentations to present at Rackspace with various employees from different levels of the company in attendance. The lady in this picture said that when the students were finished, she said they all looked each other and said, "Wow, these kids are all smarter than us." That was nice to hear since they chose Anthony as the first place winner! He received a $500 scholarship from Rackspace as his prize. Not to take anything away from Anthony, who did a lot of work and did a fabulous job on the presentation, but I told Patrick that prize partially belonged to him. Patrick guided Anthony through some of the technical aspects of building his model that I would never have thought of. Anthony's friend good friend Jake received third place. That was really awesome too!

Jake is the valedictorian of the class, and Anthony is the salutatorian. Amazingly, neither of them will be speaking at the whole school graduation. This concept seems so bizarre to Patrick and me, that #1 and #2 don't automatically get to speak at the graduation. At least Jake got to speak at the DATA graduation. He gave a very good speech that was a good mix of serious and fun.

Anthony also received a DATA Alliance scholarship for $1000. DATA Alliance is the PTA for DATA. They were able to raise enough money this year for eight such scholarships. Besides Anthony, four of his friends also received DATA Alliance scholarships, Maddy, Matt, Izzy, and Jake. They looked cool up there with their big checks.

The last award was for students that had received all four Core Value Awards. This was special because each student can only be nominated once per year. There were only sixteen seniors out of 88 that got all four Core Value Awards, and Anthony was one of them. We are SO proud of him!

This is a picture of the awards that he received all stacked up on the floor after the ceremony. He was socializing and didn't want to risk dropping any of them. I have to say that I got a kick out of seeing him and his friends carry around their big checks like the big lottery winners do. There were snacks afterwards as well, and Anthony typically wanted to have some treats, especially the traditional chocolate fountain. Anthony tweeted after the ceremony, "Plus that chocolate fountain. Highlight of my night. The awards were cool too. But they weren't smothered in chocolate." He totally puts things in perspective, and I love him for his humor. So proud of you, sweetie!

Senior Awards Night

This was the stage set up before Anthony's Senior Awards Night last Thursday, May 16th. This was the first of three awards ceremonies for him, and the only one that included students from all of his high school, not just the students from his particular magnet school. The ceremony was held at the Littleton Gym of the big Blossom Athletic Center complex, and started at 7pm. We were there at 6pm, however, because Anthony was told to be there early. We were there a total of three hours! Thank goodness we didn't bring the other kids!

I love how when Anthony sees me with a camera, he knows that I want to take a picture and he doesn't hide from me--unlike two of his siblings. Anthony was recognized with the following awards: National Merit Semi-Finalist (although he is actually a finalist), Summa Cum Laude, Distinguished Achievement Scholar, All-Districk Athletic Achievement Scholar for Soccer, and the Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies Departmental Awards. He was the only one to get recognized with three departmental awards. The others only got one or two. They announced them all at once, with each person standing as their name was called. Since his name was called three times, he bent his legs a little and then stood up straight again after his name was called the second and third time. He can be such a goofball.

The Distinguished Achievement Scholar award was for the curriculum that he had in high school, which included four years each of Math, Science, English, and Social Studies, as well as a Foreign Language. He actually exceeded even those requirements. The All-Districk Athletic Achievement Scholar award was for getting all A's while participating in a sport for four years. While he participated in Cross Country and Track, he did not participate in those sports for four years. He was picked for the Departmental Awards by his teachers.

The reason why the ceremony lasted so long was that everyone who received an award had to walk across the stage, receive a medal from the principal and shake his hand, pose for a picture, then walk off stage to get their packet of certificates. The gold cord designating Anthony as Summa Cum Laude that he will wear at graduation was also there. For his school, "Summa Cum Laude" means he has above a 100 average.

Anthony's second awards ceremony was yesterday morning (Tuesday, May 21). Anthony's school promotes four "core values", which are Perseverence, Integrity, Commitment, and Kindness. He received the award for "Perseverance" from his Senior Project teacher, Mrs. Vines. He can only get one award per year and he received the other three awards in his first three years of high school. He also got to stand up and be recognized at the end with a handful of other kids who had also received all four awards. We have one more awards ceremony tomorrow. I'm working late, so hope I can make it.

Elementary School Track Meet

Natalie missed swim practice one day last week, and that was for a track meet. Interestingly enough, they didn't tell the kids what events they were going to be in until the day before. They didn't seem to assign events based on talent. Natalie said she signed up for "anything", meaning they could put her in whatever event they wanted, which meant a field event since everyone else wanted to run. She just wanted to participate and be with her friends. I think they just wanted to spread around the assignments so that as many kids as possible could participate. Both the fourth and fifth grades at the various schools participated.

She was picked for the "Softball Throw" event. Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard of "Softball Throw" being a field event in Track and Field. Still, I came from work and met Patrick and Eric at the stadium. Patrick had to pick both kids up early because Natalie had to be there by 3:45 and their bus doesn't drop them off near our house until after 3:15 sometimes.

There were a lot of elementary schools there, I heard someone mention 15 schools. The kids participating in the field events were grouped together on the football field, while they ran the track events simultaneously. When it was Natalie's turn she just stood up there and threw five softballs. I don't know if she was even aiming. Five times all in quick succession--she threw the ball. All five times she hit the target. She got a blue ribbon for hitting the target five out of five times. Her friends that play softball want her to try out for the team.

It was really hot that day, so pretty much after her event, I took Eric home with me. I had to shower off and change clothes. We had to go to another event, Anthony's Senior Awards Night. I'll blog about that tomorrow.

Do Over Get Better

We had a busy week last week, so I'm going to try to play catchup on the blog this coming week. Of course, this week has its share of activities as well. First I'm going to go over Natalie's swim meet this weekend. I was on call for 24 hours on Saturday, so this is the first swim meet I've missed, and unfortunately, I'm sure this won't be the last meet I miss. I was able to go on Sunday, though, and that made me feel a little better.

This is a picture of Natalie with her friend Ally. You can't tell very well in this photo, but Ally is about a head taller than Natalie. I think she's actually even taller than me, but I never did stand right next to her. Ally is younger than Natalie, about three months younger. Ally used to swim for a different branch of AAAA, the swim club that Natalie swims for. She transferred in a month or two ago and the two of them were on the same team (that works out together and has the same coach) until Natalie just moved up on Friday. Ally's mom was talking about how much better Ally is doing on this team and how they like this team so much better. Apparently, they didn't worry as much about technique on their old team and were pretty nasty when Ally left. She's had to really work at changing her technique for the better. Patrick and I have to agree that we love this Northside ISD AAAA. We have to pay an out of district fee to be on this team (since we're in the Northeast ISD), but it's been worth it. Our own home district team seems disorganized and the practice times are different each day. Natalie is in no hurry to switch over, although she will have to switch when she gets into high school so she'll be able to work out with her high school team.

Along the lines of doing things over, we had an unusual event occur yesterday. Natalie swam in the 50 meter Freestyle. There was a problem during the start of the race, where they didn't give the kids much time between when they got into position to start and when the starting horn sounded. Natalie's time during that race was 40.16 sec. Her seed time was 40.38 sec, so she wasn't that happy that she had knocked off so little time. The meet officials decided to run that heat again, after all the girls had gone and after all the boys had gone--to give them time to rest and recover. I don't know that much about swimming technique, but it seemed to me that she wasn't moving her arms fast enough. Apparently Natalie's coach agreed and told her that she was moving her arms one at a time when she was supposed to be moving them continuously. When we found out she had to swim again, she was still in a funk from not being happy with her time, but I told her that she had a second chance.

When they ran the heat again, they had a delay this time between when they told the girls to get into their starting position and when the horn blew for them to actually start. Natalie got first place in her heat this time, with a time of 39.32 sec. Her arms were noticeably moving faster. Wow, imagine that--moving your arms and legs faster leads to a faster time! She had to grin at that, and so did one of the head coaches. Well, there was yet one more glitch. Apparently, the reason why there seemed to be a delay in the start was that they pushed the button once and no sound came out (that the girls could hear), but the timer started. They blew the horn again and then the girls started swimming, about a second and a half after the timer started. All the girls' times were actually about 1.5 seconds faster. Because they didn't know exactly how much time had elapsed, they couldn't adjust the times. Natalie's coach said that he wanted the second faster time to be recorded. Swimming the heat a third time was not going to be good for the swimmers. Now at least we know that she can swim a faster time than 39.32 sec.

By the way, these last two photos were not from Sunday. Patrick took them on Saturday. Didn't he do a great job? I confess that I've stopped taking photos of Natalie swimming. Maybe once every few months I'll take photos. After all, how many swimming photos do I need? Besides, she looks the same in all of them, just different strokes.

I'm going to do the usual list below (for my own records). The first time will be the time she achieved during this swim meet. The second time (in parentheses) is her seed time or her best time. The last number will be her placement amongst how many total girls under the age of 10 that swam that same race. She did not swim in all the races she could have been in. Her previous coach must have wanted her to focus just on these seven events. The problem with Natalie is that she gets anxious to race and waiting does not do great things for her times. Her new coach says that he'll have her swimming five events a day in the next meet.

50m free-- 39.32 (40.38) 15 out of 51
100m free-- 1:25.66 (1:25.36) 15/51
50m back-- 40.34 (40.61) 1/49
100m back-- 1:26.51 (1:27.64) 1/45
50m breast-- 66.01 (54.33) 21/50
50m butterfly-- 39.09 (41.24) 3/38
200m IM-- 3:27.57 (3:28.36) 11/27

Natalie's friend Maddie swam in this swim meet too. Maddie hasn't been in a swim meet since probably January. In the meantime she had pneumonia and wasn't able to swim for a few weeks. This was her first long course meet and she knocked off as much as 20 seconds off her seed times. Yay, Maddie!

Natalie is also doing better in coping with her expectations. She still gets disappointed and pouts, but she doesn't cry anymore and her sullen time has decreased. She's still a work in progress. She'll have six meets (five neighborhood swim meets and one AAAA swim meet) to deal with in June to continue working on that.

Party Party

Natalie was invited to her friend's Bat Mitzvah. I confess that I'm pretty ignorant about other religions, so it's great that Natalie gets exposed to traditions from other religions. Since Patrick and I had tickets to see a show at the Majestic Theatre and Anthony had his prom, there were no drivers in our house that could take her. On top of that, the ceremony didn't even start until 8:45pm. Luckily, her best friend Margot was invited and also going, and her Mom offered to take Natalie and even let her sleep over there, so that became the plan.

I was pleasantly surprised at how Natalie herself mentioned to me a week and a half ago about how she needed a dressier dress than what she currently owns. I'm not such a great mom when it comes to thinking of such things. The challenge was finding the time to go shopping. This past week, I came home from work briefly, then we went out again to shop before her swim practice. We were on a tight schedule because we like for her to eat by about 5pm so she can digest her food a bit before her 6pm swim practice. Thankfully, we were easily able to find something she liked and that fit. We even had time to sit down at Fuddrucker's (her choice) for dinner. On Friday, we went out to get her a little sweater to wear over her dressy dress. She tends to wear the same casual hoodies all the time, whether she is dressed up or not, so it was nice to get her something dressier.

On Saturday, Margot invited her over early so they could get their nails done. I quickly put her hair into a French braid and dropped her off, but this meant that I couldn't get a picture of her all dressed and ready to go. The second picture is of her other Mother's Day gift that I mentioned yesterday. I wanted her to hold up the present so she could show off her nails. She got them done in turquoise and black to match her outfit. Margot's mom thought she needed a little extra something to go with her dress, so she loaned Natalie a necklace. Again, I'm not such a great mom when it comes to thinking of such things. I have trouble accessorizing my own outfits. Margot's mom took the first picture above of (left to right) Margot, another friend named Ava, and Natalie. They all look beautiful (and so grown up), don't they?

We didn't see Natalie until just before church yesterday morning. She talked about how they had gotten home at 12:30am and been in bed by 1am. They danced a lot and had a lot of fun. Several of people from the fifth grade at her school were there, including some from her class. She said that she got uncomfortable wearing flats (she borrowed my black patent flats) and took them off to dance. I told her that she shouldn't be so uncomfortable in flats. I think she just wanted to go barefoot like everyone else.

Here is one picture from before the prom that Anthony forwarded to me. One of his friends house-sits at this house where the five couples (Anthony and his friends) got their pictures taken. They aren't professional photos, but I'll take what I can get. I told the boys that they were responsible for paying for all of their formal dance attire if they don't get me photos from their respective nights. Alex still owes me some pictures. Anthony threw down the gauntlet in front of him and basically said, "I gave Mama pictures, now it's your turn."

Natalie and Anthony were pretty tired yesterday from all of their partying on Saturday night. It was nice to let them have fun, but it was also nice to have them home again for Mother's Day. I keep thinking about how we won't all be together next year because Anthony will be in college. I've got to enjoy this while it lasts.