Swim season is over :( I love swim season and I always am a little sad when it is over. Brett and I (well, especially me) are able to actually pay attention to the meets because Anna stays home and watches Porter. She begged me to not make her do swim team this year and this was right after she did spring soccer at my request. She swims really well, but she said she would rather focus on volleyball and basketball and I think at this point, she should be making her own choices. Plus, she says she loves being home with just Porter and Luke because it is quiet and she can sleep in:) I love that Brett and I can actually watch the meets. It worked out great :)

 I get really excited about the meets, but Brett likes to remind me that this is small town Livermore, not an Olympic Training Team  :) The kids did really well (well, most of them) which always surprises me because we basically just throw them in the pool when swim team starts. But they love it and they work so hard and it is so good for them (and me!)

They all got invited to the Championship Meet which was the Saturday after Claire and Eliza's birthday.  I was going to make their cakes, but then they asked me if I could make them after Champions because they wanted to break some records (they were really close to breaking some of them) and not eat sugar all week. I was thinking it would be fine to have a treat on their birthday at least, but they convinced me that was what they really wanted to do. I was really surprised (and also glad I didn't have to do their cakes that week before girl's camp and several other things). So we had a cake free birthday and nobody really missed the cake too much.  However,  they still will get their cakes and I'm sure they will LOVE eating them :)

I'm going to go into a lot of detail now because this is really for our family scrapbook, so proceed with that in mind. You might just want to skim through the pictures!

Luke was so funny/frustrating because he was so against doing swim team and did not want to do the pre-swim team swim lessons, let alone even learn to swim without his floaties and life jacket on.  It was torture each lesson just watching. I told the teacher he had permission to toss Luke into the middle of the pool if that is what it took. He would sit and talk to the teacher about why he couldn't jump in or why he needed to swim from a different wall etc etc.

Eventually, due to lots of patience by the teachers, he somehow got over his fear and liked to go to the lessons.

This is typical Luke. He did the same thing with soccer(refused to go after the 1st practice even though he had fun so I told him he had two choices: soccer practice or naps every day and no movies. He chose the latter for a week, then after taking naps every day, he said he was ready to go back to practice and then he loved it and thinks he is awesome at it now. The same with learning how to ride a bike. I had to literally hold him onto the bike seat and tell him he could not get off until he could ride it on his own. Ten or fifteen minutes later he was riding his bike and never looked back. Mind you, he was 5 years old and it was time to let Porter have the bike trailer! :) He never graduated to swim team this year because you have to be able to swim the width of the pool and he didn't get there until the end of the season. I'm just glad he is swimming.  

This is Luke at his only swim meet (not sure why he was even signed up!)  He did one race and then ran and
hid on the golf course when it was time for his next race. Okay.....we are done with the meets for this kid!




Let's move on to more exciting swim stories :)

Josh had the fastest times in every stroke in his age group except for backstroke. However, even in back stroke he was 2nd fastest, 2nd to his friend Giorgio. He was selected to go to the Championship Meet (Livermore, Pleasanton, San Ramon and Dublin cities compete) to race in:

1)the freestyle relay (position 4 - the one that brings it in!),
2) the medley relay (position 3 doing the butterfly) and then
3)the individual freestyle
4) the butterfly race.



 

At Champions: Josh got 5th place in the individual freestyle race with 33.50 (his fastest time ever). His Freestyle Relay team came in 2nd place which was surprising because Josh and Giorgio are the two fastest freestylers on the team and the other two boys are 3 seconds and 6 seconds slower than Josh and Giorgio, so that was really unexpected for them to get 2nd place. They all just swam really well when it counted!
The winning team beat them by 5 seconds which is a long time in the pool!
His medley relay team  got 6th place and in the butterfly he got 10th place.


This is Josh with one of the coaches, Jonathan.
 

Claire was the very fastest on her team in back stroke and that just happened toward the end of the season. She didn't swim last season but wanted to swim this year, but she was definitely slower than a lot of the girls in the beginning, but she worked and worked to increase her speed.. You should have seen Eliza's face when she realized Claire was faster in the backstroke than she was. Interestingly, Eliza dropped her back stroke time after that, but never enough to beat Claire :)




 We figured out that the reason she does well in backstroke is that she doesn't have to dive! Her dive is definitely something that needs to be worked on :) See below :)  This was a weird kickboard relay, but her dive still looks exactly like this sans the kickboard.







Scooby scooby do!

Claire broke the Sunset Cabana Club record at the Championship Meet! (3rd overall)
She got 20.34 and the record was 21.70.  Not bad for a scrawny little girl from Livermore :)  Now she gets her name on the plaque up on the wall at Sunset Cabana Club. She is so excited.  She also was invited to compete at Champions in the Medley Relay (doing backstroke of course!) with Eliza and two other girls. They broke another record in this Medley and got 2nd place overall in the Championship Meet.

Eliza was the fastest in her age group this year  in every stroke except for backstroke (but that was okay because she was only 2nd to Claire!)

She was invited to compete in 4 events:
1)Medley Relay (with Claire) - 2nd place and record  breaker time.  1:23.98 (record was 1:26.25)
2) Freestyle - she got 16.79 and the Sunset Record is 16:53!  (So close to breaking the record!)
3) Butterfly - she got 19.83 and 3rd place in Champions. The Sunset standing record was 20.34 so another Sunset Record for Eliza :)
4) Freestyle Relay - 4th place

Eliza had the fastest time in breaststroke as well, but you can only compete in 4 events at Champions. However, the winning time at Champions was 3 seconds faster than her best, so it wouldn't have really mattered for her.


 

It was nice to have some pictures of the races. Our friend Jim, in our ward, takes pictures at every meet.




Eliza with Coach Jonathan - he is super nice to the kids.



Boy, doesn't she have an expression of, "Yes coach, I am SO listening to you and hanging onto every word!" (kind of a familiar look to me haha)


Below I have copied the results for the last official swim meet (before Champions) that got Claire upgraded to be able to go to the Championship Meet to swim backstroke for her team. Before this she was slotted to compete in the "Invitational Meet" which is where all the swimmer get to go if they don't make it to Champions.

It was fun to see both Claire and Eliza at the top of the list!  Especially Claire, cause it was so surprising! As a mother of twins - it was especially nice that at the Championship Meet  that they BOTH  broke two records. For once, it was FAIR! :)

Now we can toss these ribbons :)  Josh and Eliza were Heat 1's, Claire was a combination of Heat 1-3 :)

Regular Meet during the swim season:
 #59 Girls 7-8 25 Yard Back SUNSET VS. RUBY HILL
Sunset Rec: 21.70 ! 2012 Louise Maloney
Name Age Team Finals Time
1 Bailey, Claire 8 SUNST 22.82 
2 Bailey, Eliza 8 SUNST 23.80
3 Keegan, Lily 8 RH 24.18
4 Strain, Lauren 8 RH 24.22
5 Bowman, Elle 8 SUNST 24.47
6 Hankins, Kate 8 SUNST x25.28
7 Dainas, Caitlin 7 SUNST x25.66
8 Chew, Ellie 7 SUNST x26.43
9 Richards, Samantha 7 RH 26.74
10 Ring, Jillian 8 SUNST x28.17
11 Bailiff, Teagan 7 SUNST x29.36
12 Woodward, Serena 8 SUNST x30.61
13 Lee, Amy 8 SUNST x30.68
13 Wiedenfeld, Carley 8 SUNST x30.68
15 Piazza, Ava 8 SUNST x30.85
16 Amplement, Sara 7 SUNST x30.98
17 Raab, Saskia 7 SUNST x32.09
18 Sotos, Lois Ann 7 RH x33.26
19 Memula, Meera 8 SUNST x33.71
20 Pletschette, Lexi 7 SUNST x34.26
21 Mello, Alexandra 8 SUNST x50.36
--- Lam, Isabella 7 RH DQ

 This is the Championship Meet results where Claire broke the Sunset Backstroke Record with her new best time and got 3rd place overall at the meet!
#59 Girls 7-8 25 Yard Back CHAMPIONSHIP MEET
Sunset Rec: 21.70 ! 2012 Louise Maloney
Name Age Team Finals Time 1
 Robinson, Maggie G 8 LVTC 19.49
2 Tolentino, Lily R 8 LVTC 20.49
3 Bailey, Claire 8 SUNST 20.96  New Record for Sunset
4 Bowman, Elle 8 SUNST 23.14
5 Strain, Lauren 8 RH 23.53
6 Mannwieler, Alysa 8 CWB-PC 23.76
7 Williams, Elizabeth 7 PVSC 24.48
8 Harrison, Rachel 8 LARPD 24.93
9 Vorndam, Amelia 7 SR-VS 25.21
10 Hawkins, Francesca 8 SR-VS 26.04
11 Dillon, Sydney 8 PVSC 26.20
12 Hunter, Amanda 8 CWB-PC 27.46
13 Blancett, Emma 8 LARPD 27.95
14 Fuller, Rachel 7 RW 32.15
15 Wyland, Summer 8 RH 39.23
16 Belmessieri, Audry 7 RW 40.41