Fredonia, Arizona Swim Meet

First off, Fredonia, AZ is small.  And it's swimming pool is even smaller!  It had 5 lanes, which is fine, but the lanes were only half as long as we are used to.  So instead of one length being 25 meters it was only about 15 meters (or something like that).  But they treated it like it was the real length.  So Courtney still only had to swim one length and Ethan had to swim only one lap for his events.

We got them checked in and had their events written on their arms:

 Ethan ended up with a couple more events because he wasn't signed up for the relays but they needed him so they put him in last minute.

 We had a lot of down time so the kids hung out and talked together.  It was cute to watch them just sit and gab and watch the other swimmers.  They had a great time.

 Here is Courtney getting ready to swim.  We had to go and get them both racing swim suits so they would look like the other members of their team.

 Bryan volunteered to be a timer so he could have something to do and not sit around being bored.  He was able to time Ethan a couple of times, I think.  We couldn't believe they didn't have shade for the timers but they gave them free water, hamburgers and hotdogs, so I guess that made up for it.

Here are the videos of the kids races.  I am REALLY working on not yelling because Ethan keeps lecturing me that they can't hear me yelling at them while they are swimming so I might as well not do it.  I know but I get so excited.  They have both improved and did a great job at the meet.  Ethan was on the 15-18 year old relay team and they lost but they held their own with the older boys.  I was impressed with the way both kids did at the meet.

Courtney's leg of the freestyle relay:

Ethan's leg of the freestyle relay:

Courtney's back stroke:

Ethan's back stroke:

Courtney's breast stroke:

Ethan's breast stroke:

Ethan got the free style leg of the medley relay:

Courtney's freestyle:

Ethan's freestyle:

The smaller pool threw all the swimmers off so there were some struggles but they had a great time and did well.  At the end of the day they were sunburned but happy.  And we are getting better at knowing what we need to bring to swim meets.

Courtney has 2 more meets and Ethan only has 1, because of our vacation schedule.  But they are both wanting to do it again next year and Ethan wants to keep swimming during the school year so he can keep up his times and trying to get his "guns and 6 pack" bigger.

Ethan's Mating Call

There were a ton of birds in the RV park in Kanab.  We were sitting around eating smores and Ethan was burning marshmallows.  Suddenly Ethan decided to do his mating call.  It was hilarious!

He's only 12 so he hasn't had a chance to use it on a girl yet but he is getting it perfected.  We had a good laugh.

Here are photos of Ethan burning a marshmallow.  He didn't eat it, just burned it to see what would happen.

Kanab

The kids had a Saturday swim meet in Fredonia, Arizona.  We didn't want to drive the 90 minutes early on Saturday morning so we decided to camp in Kanab (7 miles from Fredonia).  My parents were going to the meet also so they found an RV park and went up earlier on Friday to set things up.  When we got there I was really surprised at how nice the campground was with its flush toilets, showers and pool.  The kids couldn't wait to go swimming so we ate KFC (our camping tradition) and then they went swimming.  They had a blast!

Here is Courtney's cannonball:

 Ethan tried to do a back flip into th epool but didn't make it.

 The swim kids had the pool to themselves for quite a while then another brother and sister showed up.

Here are some videos from their time in the pool in Kanab:

Goggle Marks

A lot of the swim team's goggles have been coming off when they dive into the pool.  The coaches went over this for a long time and told them to make sure their goggles were on tight enough that they wouldn't get pushed off when they dive in.  They also taught them to tuck their chins to their chests and then their goggles will stay on when they dive.

When Courtney came over after practice and took off her goggles I just had to laugh.  She definitely had them on tight enough!

Story Time

Last week Courtney and I went to the library while Ethan was doing yard work at my parent's house.  When we walked in we could hear hammering.  After walking into the kids section we realized that Home Depot was having a You Build at the library for Story Time.  It was crazy loud and I couldn't believe how many kids were there but Courtney jumped right in and began building a flower pot.  She read the instructions and did a great job.  It was really simple, so that helped.

 Here is her finished product:

Swim Practice

The kids had a really hard swim practice one day last week.  They did a "serpentine" the entire time.  I hadn't ever seen it before but it was brutal.  They had to swim a length of the pool then do 2 minutes of wall squats.  Then swim another length of the pool and do push ups.  Swim another length of the pool and do 2 minutes of wall squats while passing a medicine ball back and forth.  Swim another length of the pool and do planks for 2 minutes.  Swim another length of the pool and do squat thrusts.  Swim another length of the pool and do push ups.  Swim another length of the pool and do jumping jacks.  Swim another length of the pool and have 3 minutes to rest.  Then they did it all again except instead of push ups they did sit ups and instead of passing the medicine ball they just had to hold it out from their body with straight arms.  It was tough but the kids did a great job and they will be in shape when this is all done!

Here is Ethan's dive off the block to start the serpentine.

 Here is Courtney doing her first set of wall squats.

This is Courtney's version of push ups.  She giggles about these videos because she knows she is totally cheating!  She is in the pink swim suit.

Courtney's version of squat thrusts:

Courtney has been struggling with diving.  Bryan took her to the pool and she had it all figured out but the blocks make her nervous so she doesn't do so well.  Her coach pulled her aside and helped her figure out how to do it.  This is how she looked after he talked with her and helped her a bit.  She is improving!

They really enjoy swim team and I am so glad we are doing it.  I was nervous that they would hate it or have a bad experience.  But they have really enjoyed the work and have loved being in the pool every day.

Jazzy Girl

Courtney had a really fun jazzy song to practice on the piano and when I looked over at her, this is what I saw:

Life is all about the accessories!

Camping in Kanab

We drove to Kanab Friday afternoon to camp. The kids have a swim meet on Saturday in Fredonia, AZ so we decided it would be easier to camp in Kanab and drive 7-10 minutes than to drive 1 1/2 hours from Ivins on Saturday morning. 

The campground has a pool and they couldn't wait to get in!! They are fish!!

Here is a "Courtney cannon ball."

Courtney jumping in:

Ethan's somersault dive:

They are having so much fun.

Goggles

The swim coaches told the kids to make sure their goggles were on tight. I think Courtney obeyed.  Check out the goggle marks.

Home Depot in the library

The library has a fun program this summer where they sponsor different activities each week that kids can participate in. One week it was a magician and last week it was a Home Depot build. It was crazy loud and odd to hear hammering in the library but Courtney had a blast. She got to build a flower pot. It was really easy.

 It turned out cute!

Jazzy Girl

It's all about the accessories.

When playing a jazz song, you have to wear the shades!

This is what Courtney looked like practicing the piano this morning.  Hilarious!!!

Heat Stroker Swim Meet

We had a 2 day swim meet last weekend in Mesquite, NV.  We are new at this swim meet thing and didn't know what to expect from a 2 day meet.

Friday evening we drove to Mesquite in time for the 6:00 p.m. warm up.  It was crowded!  They had 7 teams at the meet and there were a lot of people there with their lawn chairs, pop up shade structures and coolers.  We had forgotten our chairs and sun screen (ugh!) so Bryan dropped us off, we found my parents and then we tried to put our stuff somewhere while we waited for Bryan to come back with chairs and sunscreen from Walmart.

The kids checked in with their coaches, got their event numbers on their arms and began warming up.  Then we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.  The organizers of the meet weren't organized at all.  The race numbers ended up being all wrong, the meet started 45 minutes late and there were way too many people!  By about 9:30 our kids had had enough!  I talked to one of the coaches who told me it wasn't any big deal if we wanted to leave and just come back on Saturday.  We debated it because the kids would miss 2 of their 3 events, but in the end they were just miserable and we decided to go home.

 This is how they looked when we got close to home:

We woke up early the next morning and drove to Mesquite in time for the 7 a.m. warm up.  It turns out that the organizers decided to stop the events early on Friday night because it was so late and the kids only ended up missing one event.  They were pretty happy because they didn't want to miss out on anything.  Our head coach asked Bryan to be one of the timers and he was so happy to have something to do!

There was a really helpful app that the organizers used that we were able to keep track on things with.  It wasn't updated as quickly as we would have liked but it was easier to keep up with what was going on.  The kids were signed up for events that weren't in their age brackets so we knew to just ignore those events.  And our coaches were great at helping us understand what was going on with the really disorganized event.  But the second day was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast!!

Here are videos of the kids swimming.

This is Courtney's breast stroke:

This is Ethan's breast stroke:

Courtney was asked to be part of a relay team (a benefit of setting up our chairs next to the coaches).  Here is her butterfly part of the relay.  They ended up taking first!

Ethan was also asked to be part of a relay team but they had enough for the 11-12 year old relay team so they put him on the 13-14 year old relay team.  They also had him swim butterfly which he learned on Wednesday.  He thought it was fun to swim it!

Here is Courtney's free style stroke:

I would have a video of Ethan's awesome freestyle stroke but I accidentally had it on camera instead of video.  He was fast too and isn't happy that I missed it.  But here are photos of the beginning and the ending:

Here are some more random photos from the swim meet:

Piano Lessons

The kids had piano lessons this past week after a break of a few weeks.  Courtney started with Ethan's teacher.  She has struggled for a while and wanted a change, so after her last recital we changed piano teachers for her.  It was close enough that she wanted to bike.

Ethan's lesson was first and he wanted me to drive him.  But Courtney wanted to be independent.  I had to go pick up Ethan so she told me I had to stay at least 2 blocks behind her so I wouldn't bother her.  It was too slow for me so I passed her and waited at the teacher's house.  It's only about 1/2 mile away so it wasn't a big deal.  After the lesson she was able to bike home on her own.  It's great!

Courtney loved her new teacher and her teacher was very impressed by how well she plays.  It think this will work out well for us.

Book Club

We read the book "Mustache Baby" for book club and it was hilarious!  It was about a baby that was born with a mustache and his family was nervous that his "good guy" mustache would change into a "bad guy" mustache.  It was a cute book and the girls loved reading it.

Then they made their own mustaches.  They were able to decide if they were going to be a good guy or a bad guy.

Here is Courtney's bad guy mustache:

And her good guy mustache:

Father's Day

Bryan had a good Father's Day, I think.  We made him breakfast and then he got to open presents.  Courtney bought him a trophy for the "Best Dad" and Ethan bought him a mess kit.

For dinner we made grilled chicken, wild rice and corn.

My parents and Uncle Don came over for cake, pie and ice cream after dinner.  Then we all sat around gabbing for a while until it was time for bed.

Bryan is a great dad!!!  We are so blessed to have him in our family!

Photos and Video

I downloaded some photos from Ethan's scout leaders and from Bryan's phone from when he was with them on Thursday through Saturday.  So here are the photos and videos.  Enjoy!

This is from day 1 and day 2 at Pine Valley:

This is when they were still happy on their long hike the first day.  I love the view!  Ethan is the one in front drinking from his camelback.

 A good group of boys:

 The second day they worked on merit badges and played games with their troop:

I already put on the photo of Ethan jumping off at Gunlock Reservoir.  That was day 3.

Day 4 was their Orderville hike that went through the narrows.  Bryan was able to go on this one and both Bryan and Ethan thought it was really cool.  Ethan was freezing most of the time though.  You will soon see why.

Here is the group that was still at camp after the first few days.  Some boys had to leave for vacations/etc.

 Here is Ethan sliding down a log on the hike.  He is giving the thumbs up!

There was a waterfall and Ethan just couldn't resist.  But it was really cold and he was freezing for the rest of the hike.  They walked in the water this deep for a lot of the Narrows part of the hike.

This is a video of the beginning of the Orderville hike:

They are getting near the water:

They were trying to stay dry, but no more:

Ethan repelling down to the waterfall:

Ethan getting wet in the waterfall:

Swimming along the trail:

The last full day of camp they went on a hike to the Overlook.  Here are some photos:

And no scout camp is complete without food.  They were working on their cooking merit badge (which is now required for an Eagle).

 

 You can't leave just a little bit of the oj in the bottom of the jug.  And you don't want to dirty another cup just to drink the last swallow.  This is only allowed at scout camp!

Ethan had a great time.  His only complaint was that they started so late each day.  Ethan and Bryan were up by 6:30 a.m., had their tent down, went on a hike, and the boys still weren't up.  But that's life.

Zion Hikes

Here are some photos Bryan sent me from the scout camp hikes on Thursday and Friday.

This is ethan getting his care package from home. He loved the Sprite.

Here he is during a break on a hike:

Here the boys are on observation point in Zion.

They are exhausted but had a great time on the hikes!!