Swim meets are in full swing! The kids usually have sub sandwiches, gatorade, chips and fruit that I pack them to avoid paying an arm and a leg for stuff at the snack bar, but one crazy week I got them pizza and Jake was in heaven. I think a favorite part of the meet for the kids is digging into all of the food I pack for them.
Jake ready to dive in! Keep in mind that Jacob started this year not knowing how to swim. In fact, for the first three meets he still could not go more than half a length of the pool in freestyle. Backstroke looked like a drowning exercise. So for meets, they have helpers that are by the kids side as they swim. If Jake wasn't comfortable, he would give a grin to the girl waiting at the finish rope (6 yr olds only swim half length of pool) and motion to her to come forward. Jim was sure that Jake could swim a little better but enjoyed having the girl helping him out. And now, finally, Jake has learned to swim and earned his swim necklace so he can dive and swim all over the deep end.
Nicole getting ready to dive at the meet. I love how she totally knew where Jim was and gave him a big grin.
She is figuring out how to go faster in her stroke and works really hard not to peek at how the competition is doing :)
Michael starting his backstroke. He is a pretty powerful guy! He has won several times and you can tell he is giving it everything he has.
Jacob excited to be alive!
The crazy thing is Diana (of course right!). When Jim takes the kids swimming he takes D with him into the deep end and she kicks around a lot. This last time he let her go off the diving board first thing while he waited in the water. For over an hour at the pool all she did was wildly fling herself from the diving board and once in the water told Jim she wanted to go to the side by herself! She can prettymuch swim, it's crazy to see how fast she has picked up on swimming and we're guessing she'll do swim team next year.
We started summer school and so far it has gone pretty well. I'm amazed at how the kids can focus on work! We start off with an art warmup and the first day we had them draw the Scooby van in the middle of the table from the perspective of where they were sitting.
Diana had her fourth birthday! Her picture should be in the dictionary under JOY! Her energy and laughter are endless. Her ideas might not always be the best (understatement), but as she gets older she doesn't break/destroy/endanger nearly as often. I love her voice and the sound of her laugh. She is the most vibrant girl I know and I am blessed to be her mom. The world is a better, wilder, awesomer, crazier place for having Diana in it. And of course, she had to have a Scooby Doo cake.
Another art warmup- this time a self portrait while looking at our hall mirror I carried into the family room.
The whole swim team. The team is made up of residents from our neighborhood, so it is a great time to meet neighbors and makes for great playdates.
Nicole and her first win of the season!
I had an ob appointment and left Nicole in charge for two minutes until Jim got there. Our text exchange when he got home was a good peek into life with a Diana.
The kids decided to all wear their BYU gear the other day, it was cute to see them running upstairs to change and match their siblings.
Michael has begun playing electric guitar with Jim. For now it's mostly fooling around and learning little things here and there. He absolutely loves it. And by that I mean both Michael and Jim :)
Jim put on the 4th Run For Liberty this Saturday. We had some great sponsors and over a hundred more runners this year (over 300).
Jim and Nicole went to setup super early. I joined later around 6:30. The weather alternated clouds, sun, humidity you could swim in, and even some light rain.
I love the double rainbow we had to start the morning!
Nicole was in heaven setting up with the adults. The volunteers were so kind and Nicole had a wonderful time helping out.
The area soccer team gave us tickets to give the winners and also set up a stand giving out freebies. My kids kept going back hoping to earn a free shirt- Jake was lucky and got one and then that's all anyone else wanted :)
The kids with all of their swag.
A local fitness place did several warmups and it was fun to see everyone join in and be shouting out in response to the instructors.
Mike and Jake were just eating up the attention from the trainers and were eager to show their skills and try the obstacles out.
Jake showing his strength :)
The boy scouts did a little presentation that really set the tone to be patriotic. We also had a friend sing the national anthem.
Then the fun run was off! The one mile takes them far down the field and onto a gravel path surrounded by trees before they double back to the finish line. I was blown away when first back to the finish line, at 10 minutes even, comes Jacob! The other kids had blown off all their energy in the start or something, I don't know, but there was Jake, all sweaty. Then he just kept running past the finish line straight to the Railhawks booth hoping to earn more prizes haha. At this point, the guy was like "I think you look familiar". Of course the neon safety orange shirts I'd bought the kids to keep track of them did not help Jake's case. :)
Start of the 5k! Having 300 people run is a lot of people! We were able to raise over two thousand dollars this year for the Amputee Coalition of America.
A friend watched Diana and Katy for me so that way I could be the photographer and not have to chase them around. It was such a blessing, because even with that help by the time I got home I had to sit down for hours to calm down the contractions.
Once the 5k began, Jake played soccer for a long time with the Railhawks guys.
Part of the awards ceremony this year was a Trader Joe's gift bag of goodies for whoever dressed the most patriotic. This year's selection was the best by far- I think it helped that the race was on the 4th of July weekend instead of a few weeks ahead like we've done before- and it was a close call between Captain America and Lady Liberty, but Lady Liberty won. The winner was decided by the cheering of the crowd, and I think everyone really enjoyed cheering for their favorite.
The fastest runner about to cross the finish line. 16:40 at a pace of 5:22. He finished before many people even reached the water stop!
We tried something new this year that didn't really work out but was fine. We invited a YouTube star "The Amputee OT" that several of Jim's patients follow- she posts a lot of positive and information stuff for amputees. We were hoping to draw more amputees from local support groups (or anywhere) but that didn't really happen so it was an expense that didn't pay off that way, but she gave a great inspirational message so that part was perfect!
The overall winners! I was so impressed with the fastest guy. After he finished he stayed near the finish and cheered people on with more kindness and enthusiasm than the people who'd just been standing by the sidelines waiting to cheer on someone they knew. I could tell it helped inspire runners as well as increase the cheering everyone else was doing.
We had two amputees run this year, it's always amazing to see the strength of character and perseverance in amputees that are active and living life. On a side note, I took pictures of each of the age groups of winners, and as I reviewed the pictures, I noticed that my safety orange kids were in almost every single picture either blatantly photobombing or just off to the side with their flags and fireman hats. Mike assured me they were just trying to be a patriotic background. Never know what will happen with kids :)
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