It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

CHRISTMAS!!!

TTFN~

Thanksgiving

Bean and I are so grateful that Hubby got to come home for a few days before leaving for the sandy place.

We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of days late, but at least the spirit was true!

Kitty is trying to figure out what all those good smells are!

It's official!

They combined the results from our Long Distance meet and the Long Distance meet for the other half of the league and Bean's results stayed the same! WOOHOO! So, officially, her results are:

1500 Free - Silver medal
800 Free - Gold medal
400 IM - Bronze medal

Also, we received the exciting news that our team is the Long Distance Champions for the whole league. Woohoo!

TTFN~

P**p in the Pool?!?!?!?

Ugh! Someone p**ped in the pool yesterday before the kids had practice! Yuck and DOUBLE YUCK!! So, now the pool is closed until next Wednesday! Yep, they are shutting down for a whole week because of this (instead of the standard 24 hours to shock the pool). Now the team is only having Dryland training until pool reopens. Boy, am I glad we didn't have a home meet scheduled for this weekend. That could have been awkward. LOL

TTFN~

First Snow

We woke up this morning to find a light dusting of snow on the ground! WOOHOO!! This is already more snow than we had all last winter, so we are hoping it's a sign of things to come.

Here is a picture of the horses that live behind our house:

TTFN~

Exhausted

Oh my! This weekend was a real marathon for both of us. Saturday was the Long Distance Championship meet. Bean did indeed swim all three events (and was one of only 4 kids on the team to do so). Here are her results:

1500 Free 22:06 (a drop of 28 seconds) for 2nd place
800 Free 11:16.69 (a drop of 43 seconds -- an "A" time would be 11:16.49) for 1st place
400 IM 6:39 (a drop of 12 seconds) for 3rd place

I learned a very important lesson: when you squat down 46 times (30 in the 1500 and 16 in the 800) to stick lap counters in the water, your legs will be *very* sore the next day!

Sunday was the Pentathlon meet. Bean had another spectacular day. The kids had the opportunity to swim all the events that make up the Pentathlon standings. For Bean's age group those were the 100 IM, 50 Free, 50 Back, 50 Breast and 50 Fly (although who decided to put the fly at the end of this thing, I don't know!).

She dropped 3.6 seconds in the 100 IM for a new "A" time, 0.75 seconds in the 50 Free to get a 30.84 (only 0.47 seconds behind Tiger now!), 0.31 seconds off the 50 Back (missing an "A" time by 0.08), and 1.68 seconds off the 50 Breast to get within 1.29 seconds of qualifying in the Breaststroke for the first time ever! By the time she stepped up to the blocks for the 50 Fly, you could stick a fork in her, because she was done! LOL

She fell asleep in the car on the way to the base to pick up dinner. I had a hard time getting my legs to work at all when I got out to get dinner. We went to bed at 7:15 and slept until 9:30 the next morning. We got up, had breakfast, and went back to bed to watch "Smallville" on DVD the rest of the day. School? Yeah, we don't normally take Federal Holidays when Hubby is gone, but we took this one!

Now, there's no meet for 3 weeks (woohoo!) and the coaches are going to start working the kids on speed, starts and turns. Our next meet is another Pentathlon meet (but without Long Distance the day before). It should be fun to watch!

TTFN~

Exam Day!!

By happy (or unhappy) chance, today happened to have two exams fall on the schedule: Chapter Two of PreAlgebra and Unit One of Tapestry Year One.

First came the Tapestry test. There were 15 multiple choice, a bunch of timeline dates and a map that covered all the information we have studied over the past nine weeks. Bean scored 100%!! This is her first year where she's had formal testing on history and I'm so pleased that she did this well.

She also got 100% on her PreAlgebra test! WOOHOO!! The other day she asked me to help her and she missed six problems. The next day she did it on her own and got them all correct. Hopefully, she's getting the idea that she *really* doesn't need my help in math any more!

TTFN~

Her first "AA" time!!

Hi everyone!

Bean did an absolutely amazing job at the meet! She dropped 1.41 seconds off her 100 IM, 1.24 seconds off her 100 Free, 6.42 seconds off her 200 Free and 1.13 seconds off her 50 Free to get her first ever "AA" time! WOOHOO!!! Her coaches were so pleased with her performance.

Tiger had a great meet also, dropping 4 seconds off her 200 Free and 9 seconds off her 400 Free! Way to go, Tiger!!

Clerking went pretty well once I got everybody on the same page. The coach wanted to run a slow meet so the kids would have time to rest and recharge between events. The officials wanted me to speed it up so we could get done faster. Needless to say, the coach won and I really had to drag my feet clerking some of the events. We still finished the meet an hour ahead of schedule and the most of the kids improved their times in every event, so it all worked out in the end.

TTFN~

Way to go, Bean!

Tonight the team finished up their time trials for the Long Distance Championship meet and Bean qualified for all three events!! Yay! So, she'll be swimming the 1500 Free, 800 Free and 400 IM all in one day. I know she's going to do great.

We have a regular meet this weekend, but it will be my first time flying solo as Clerk of Course. Wish me luck!!

TTFN~