What Else We've Been Up To

This post is to show that we have been doing some things besides swim team this summer. Besides those things shown below, we've done a lot of reading and gone to quite a few movies.

Matthew and Megan enjoyed playing with Lincoln logs.

Matthew was excited to pass the porpoise class. He's now a dolphin twice over: once for swim class and once for swim team (their team is the Arrowhead Dolphins).

Matthew with his teacher Matt. He will continue being in Matt's class since it's a porpoise/dolphin class.

Fort in the loft. Megan and Matthew slept in it every night it was up.

Matthew in the fort.

Megan in the fort.

Megan and Matthew enjoyed learning a new game with U.

Sarah, Megan, Me and Matthew show off our mystery dinner.

Each person was given some money to buy something for dinner at the store. We then prepared and ate it together. Sarah chose Mexican food (burritos and such), Megan got a pepperoni pizza, Matthew got Star Wars mac and cheese, Me got unshelled edamame and U got a teriyaki green bean veggie mix. It was an interesting meal. The kids loved being able to pick out food themselves.

Megan and Matthew playing games on their own.

Matthew punching at martial arts class.

Megan kicking at martial arts class.

Sarah went with her church youth group to Feed My Starving Children.

Matthew had a half birthday. Here he is opening his gift, which was a coupon to be able to create and buy some Lego mini figures.

Sarah and her friend Allison enjoyed going to the movies.

Summer Swimming Part 2

Meet 3

Another week, another swim meet. This one was the one away meet of the season (since we're missing the last meet). The pool was interesting to swim in because it went from deep to shallow to deep. The kids are glad it's not their normal pool.

Megan (25 yard)

Freestyle: 33.65 s

Backstroke: 39.62 s

Breaststroke: 44.46 s

Butterfly: 46.34 s

Matthew (25 yard)

Freestyle: 1 min 0.15 s

Backstroke: 1 min 1.23 s

Breaststroke: 1 min 34.88s

Butterfly: 1 min 18.73 s

Sarah (50 yard)

Freestyle: 33.72 s

Backstroke: 41.79 s

Breaststroke: 46.65 s

Butterfly: 40.21 s

Megan waiting to start freestyle.

Jumping in.

Megan swimming freestyle.

Matthew waiting to start freestyle.

Matthew jumping in.

Matthew swimming freestyle.

Sarah waiting to start freestyle.

Diving in.

Sarah swimming freestyle.

Megan swimming backstroke.

Matthew swimming backstroke.

Sarah swimming backstroke.

Super Megan!
(We love this photo! This is her diving in to swim breaststroke.)

Matthew swimming breaststroke.

Sarah swimming breaststroke.

Megan swimming butterfly.

Matthew diving in for butterfly.

Sarah swimming butterfly.

The kids with their ribbons at the end of the meet.

Between the three kids, they got every place except 4th at this meet. We kindly requested that one of the girls get 4th on butterfly but instead they both got 3rd. (Matthew got 6th, which was another ribbon we were missing before butterfly.)

Megan would like to add that between the three meets, she's gotten every place but 6th.

Fun Day at Swim

Friday, the kids had a fun day at swim. The older kids (Sarah) swam 100m and then played water games like water polo, water basketball and sharks and minnows. We don't have any pictures of this since Sarah was the only member of the family at the pool at the time. The younger kids (Megan and Matthew) swam 50m and then played on water inflatables their coach brought. Here are a few pictures of Megan and Matthew:

Matthew on a sea turtle with Coach Denise, the head coach, behind him. We love Coach Denise--she's enthusiastic and supportive and so encouraging of the kids.

Matthew loved floating around the pool on the sea turtle.

Megan playing with a couple of the boys.

Megan on the big bird inflatable.

Matthew on big bird inflatable.

Meet 4

This was the last meet for the kids this year since we will be gone for the final meet. It was a beautiful day at the home pool. Megan was very happy to complete her collection of ribbons by winning 6th place in not one but two races! Matthew swam under a minute in two of his races. In one of the races, he didn't come in last place, which was super exciting! (We really don't make a big deal about places and focus on their time and how much it's improved. However, it's exciting to not come in last at least once.) Sarah did well. She had someone she didn't know come up to her after a race to tell her that she had very good form.

Megan (25 yard)

Freestyle: 35.78 s

Backstroke: 36.63 s

Breaststroke: 44.26 s

Butterfly: 39.38 s

Matthew (25 yard)

Freestyle: 58.64 s

Backstroke: 49.18 s

Breaststroke: 1 min 34.94 s

Butterfly: 1 min 13.39 s

Sarah (50 yard)

Freestyle: 32.58 s

Backstroke: 40.82 s

Breaststroke: 47.90 s

Butterfly: 39.15 s

Megan ready to dive in for her first race of the day.

Megan swimming freestyle.

Matthew ready to dive in for his first race.

Matthew swimming freestyle.

Sarah diving in for her first race.

Sarah swimming freestyle.

Megan swimming backstroke.

Matthew ready to swim backstroke.

Matthew swimming backstroke. He swam 27 seconds faster than his first backstroke race!

Sarah getting into the water for backstroke.

Sarah swimming backstroke.

Megan diving in for breaststroke.

Megan swimming breaststroke. She was getting a good glide out of each stroke.

Matthew diving in for breaststroke.

Matthew swimming breaststroke.

Sarah diving in for breaststroke.

Sarah swimming breaststroke.

Megan swimming butterfly.

Matthew swimming butterfly.

Sarah swimming butterfly. I love watching her swim butterfly! She dominated the race.