Swim Team

Ella and Jack had another awesome swim team season over the month of June.  Jack was still of shrimper age (6 and under), but swam in at least one 8-and-under relay at each meet so, within a week of the start of practice, Jack joined the 8-and-unders for all practices (shrimpers only practice freestyle, so this gave Jack the opportunity to practice all four strokes).  Ella was an 8-and-under workhorse, ribboning in at least one individual event at each meet and swimming on the A relay teams. 

I may not have an accurate count, but just know that each kid came home with quite a few ribbons this season.  Ella earned two 2nd-place ribbons, four 3rd-place ribbons, and one 4th-place ribbon in individual events and two 1st-place ribbons and eight 2nd-place ribbons in relay events.  Jack earned one 1st place ribbon and one 3rd place ribbon in individual events and four 2nd-place ribbons in relay events.  Jack won an award at the end of the season for being the only boy shrimper to win points for the team during the season (ribbons in shrimper events do not count toward the meet score—Jack won 3rd place in an 8-and-under backstroke event and so won points toward a meet score).  Beyond all of that, the swim season is just so much fun—we all get to hang out with friends, spend lots of time at the pool, and the kids build their confidence, make new friends in the neighborhood, and love being a part of the team.  It’s a fun, rewarding time each summer—one that we hopefully, although Jack recently mentioned being unsure about swimming next year, get to enjoy year after year.  Here’s just a sampling of photos from the entire season.


{the waves 2012 team—ella is in the middle of the second row and jack is six over from the left in the front row.}






{jack did awesome at the time trials and then in the first meet he got 1st place in the shrimper freestyle race.  after that they swam him in the 8-and-under freestyle race where he was usually out of the ribbon race by two or three spots.  watch out next year!}


{the bright green and bright pink goggles on the kids are quite deliberate—that’s the only way we can spot them from across the pool!}


{one of the best parts of swim team is the camaraderie the kids enjoy with their teammates.  see ella in this crowd, cheering some wave swimmers on?}


{ella’s favorite stroke this season was butterfly, which is really hard to get a picture of, quite honestly…}


{not a great shot, but love the action here.  that’s our good friend kathy—she runs our meets as a volunteer, and happens to go to our church—telling jack ‘go!’ here during an 8-and-under relay.  and coach eli lives on our street and is well-loved by the kids.}



The biggest race for Ella this year was swimming her first 100M Individual Medley.  She swam four straight laps (for her age, each race is always one lap) in the 9-and-10 Girls 100M IM.  For the day leading up to the race Ella kept chanting “Butter, Back, Breast, Free. Who’s bubbles do you see?”—it helped her remember the order of the strokes because an IM is not something that is practiced during the 8-and-under practice.  When race day came, she did awesome—she looked up with about 12M left in her last lap, a little exhausted at that point, but she pressed on and finished the race.  The best part was that not only was Jonathan there to cheer her on (he actually made it to all of the meets this season) but Nonni and Papa were visiting and got to watch, too.  We were all very, very proud of her.



{jonathan and some of her teammates cheering her on as she finishes up breaststroke.}

{ella’s friend grace (the aforementioned kathy’s 10-year-old daughter) congratulated ella at the end of her race.  grace swam this event at most meets—and won it at most meets—and had swam this race in the heat before ella.  i’m sure it meant a lot to ella to get grace’s encouragement.  grace also happens to be the really nice girl who jack had a little crush on last year…well, maybe this year, too.}


{an after-race congratulatory hug…and a few dollars for a congratulatory popsicle.}


{papa!}



{kid burrito.  it was actually a pretty cool season, and by cool i mean we weren’t sweating on the sidelines much this year.}