County Championship Swim Meet

Rylan and Carter competed in the Williamson County Championship Swim Meet this weekend.

Rylan's meet was on Friday afternoon and Carter's was on Saturday morning at the Indoor Sports Complex (which is part of Williamson County Parks & Rec).  Both boys did great!  They both improved their times and we couldn't be prouder of how they did this season.  Rylan is now a true swimmer.  It's amazing how far he's come in a couple of months. These boys went to practice every single day and were excited to go.  They never once complained.  

Rylan swam the individual freestyle and backstroke events as well as the freestyle relay.  Our team is still pretty small (it's only the second summer this pool has been open - I think we had around 150 swimmers).  We were lucky to find four 6 & under boys to make a relay!  One kid had refused to swim the individual events before the relay (luckily he swam the relay) and another is super, super slow.  But they did it!

Here are Rylan's times for the meet:

Freestyle: 34.90 seconds, 32nd place (best time by 2.27 seconds)
Backstroke: 34.48 seconds, 15th place (best time by 1.57 seconds)
Freestyle Relay: 03:18:46, 4th place

As far as awards go for this meet, for individual events, the kids get medals for 1st - 8th place and ribbons for 9th - 16th place.  For relay events, they get medals for 1st - 8th place.  Trophies are given to the top eight high point winners.  Also, all 6 & under swimmers get a participation medal.

Rylan was very excited to get two medals and a ribbon!

I still can't believe Rylan got 15th in backstroke for the whole county!!!  I'm so proud :)

Carter also got his best times of the season.  Unfortunately (as expected), the stroke and turn judges were strict and Carter DQ'd in breast and fly.  His medley relay team also DQ'd (not sure for what though).  Hopefully Carter will get those two strokes down at the beginning of next season.  I don't 100% understand the breaststroke kick and I think that is Carter's issue still.  I believe he may have gotten DQ'd in fly for non-simultaneous arms.  But he's trying and I'm super proud of him for that!  I know he gets frustrated though and I wish I could help him more!

Here are Carter's times for the meet:

Freestyle: 26.47 seconds, 60th place (best time by 1.61 seconds)
Backstroke: 27.92 seconds, 38th place (best time by 0.49 seconds)
Breaststroke: DQ

Butterfly: DQ

Freestyle Relay: 01:43:82, 7th place
Medley Relay: DQ

Carter's freestyle relay team also received a medal!

Rylan still has one more year in 6 & under and Carter still has one more year in the 7-8 age group.  So they should technically both have better seasons next year since they will be older in these same age groups.

On Sunday our team had their end-of-season pool party.  It was fun for the kids to have a couple of hours of free time to swim with their buddies!

We loved this team and will definitely be swimming with them again next summer.  Coach Jim is extremely positive and encouraging to these kids.  He includes everyone, no matter how good they are (we still had some at the end of the season that couldn't swim the length of the pool because they were too scared to try).  He hires a ton of coaches and has just as many volunteer coaches who work with the youngest kids one-on-one.  

We are already really missing our morning swim time!!!  Even Gray and me!!!

String City

The Nashville Public Library has puppet and marionette shows on Fridays and Saturdays.  We've seen a lot of the shows they do (they run each one for a month or two and then repeat the shows every year or so).  They library also occasionally does a show at the County Music Hall of Fame that we had never seen.  It's called String City and is about the history of country music.  The performance consists of about 30 songs "performed" by string puppets, shadow puppets, and more.

In the month of July, for two weeks there were two performances a day.  And they were free.  So on Thursday I took the boys to the Country Music Hall of Fame to see String City.

It was really, really good.  Carter sat still and just took it in.  I wasn't sure he was enjoying it but he talked about it a lot after the performance.  Rylan was really into it.  He was clamping to the beat and bopping around.  Sometimes he started everyone clapping after a performance :)  Gray loved the music until the first puppet appeared and then he was scared to death.  I'd forgotten how much he hates the puppet shows at the library.  He clung to me with a death grip.  Whenever I looked at him, he'd start whimpering and pointing to the exit.  But, about midway through, he'd let go of me after each song and give it three clamps.  He still sat on my lap facing me but he tried to watch the show out of the corner of his eye.  He really wanted to like it :)

Carter with Johnny Cash ...

St. Louis - Day 4

Another post I started months ago and never finished ...

Before we went to St. Louis, I did lots of research on all the fun things to do there.  We didn't plan to do anything on a specific day beforehand because a lot of activities were outside and we needed to see what the weather would be like.  One thing I stumbled on a day or two before we left was that Six Flags St. Louis was opening for the season on the last day of our trip.  And tickets were only $20 each that day.

We checked the weather when we got up on Friday and even though it was going to be a little cool, the sun was shining and we decided to do Six Flags!

We were at the park early and as we expected there were delays as they worked out the kinks of opening with a lot of new employees for the first time this year.  Though it was frustrating at times, it wasn't overly crowded and the kids were able to ride a lot of rides.

Brian took the big boys on Battle for Metropolis (which Gray was too short for), so I took Gray on the Elmer Fudd Weather Balloons in the kiddie section.  He put up with it but was not a big fan.

The ride Brian and the boys were on took forever to actually start running (but you are inside waiting and the employees kept saying it would be soon).  When they finally were done, I took the big boys on River King Mine Train.  It's a small roller coaster similar to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney.  They got to ride a couple of times and then wanted to ride with Brian (since there was no line, why not!).  Unfortunately they had to stop the ride for a little bit then for some sort of maintenance.

I decided to take Carter on his first real roller coaster then.  I wouldn't tell him while we were in line, but I was scared to death.  It's been a really long time since I've been on a roller coaster outside of the ones at Disney.

A description of Boomerang - The ride begins when the train is pulled backwards from the station and up a lift hill, before being released. After being released, the train passes through the station, enters a Cobra roll element (referred to as a boomerang by the designers), then travels through a vertical loop. Upon exiting the loop, the train runs up a second lift hill, which is angled so that the two lifts meet at the top in a "V"-like formation. Once out of momentum, the train is towed to the top of the lift hill, and is held for several seconds before being released; traveling through the roller coaster in reverse before returning to the station.

When I was looking up the ride just now, I saw that it stopped mid-ride back in May and caused some minor injuries.  It has not reopened.  Eeeekkkkkk!

Carter was scared but handled it like a champ!  He still wanted to go on other roller coasters but definitely not Boomerang again :)

Brian took Carter on his second real roller coaster, Ninja (I went with Carter again on it later because he liked it so much).

I asked Rylan what he wanted to do and he chose the train.

The train took so long that Carter and Brian were also able to ride American Thunder before we were done.

We took everyone on the antique cars next.  Carter drove a car for me and Gray while Rylan and Brian were in a second car.

Gray was not a big fan of Carter's driving!

I think that I then did the Ninja roller coaster with Carter and Brian did something with the other boys (it's been a few months and I've forgotten).  Before leaving though we took everyone on the Log Flume!

Brian, Carter, and Gray ...

Rylan and me ...

We survived!!!

We still had to drive back home and Brian and I were starving because we hadn't eaten (we had food packed for the kids but the food lines were at least an hour long in the park).  So we headed out at 3 pm for the 5+ hour drive home.  Though the boys would have loved to have stayed longer, they got in a lot and we didn't pay much for our tickets so we felt good about leaving.  It was so fun and we are excited that the boys are finally old enough to start enjoying amusement parks!!!

Tie Dye Party

I hosted a tie dye party for some of our friends a couple of weeks ago.  I did this last year too and it was a lot of fun again!  This year we had 17 kids!

Luckily the rain held off until late in the afternoon because there was no way we were moving this inside :)

Everyone brought whatever they wanted to dye (shirts, socks, underwear!) and I provided the dye.  It was super easy but just not something most of us would do with our kids normally.

Gray was nice enough to fall asleep on the way home from swim team practice and slept for the first half of the party so I could get everything going :)

Carter is my super sweetie with the little ones ...

It has been HOT this summer and our party was another day in the mid-90s.  We got our as many water toys as we could - the giant waterslide, a slip-n-slide, a baby pool, and the water table.

I also made brownies (per Rylan's request) and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Rylan, Evie, Lofton, and Riley who all have birthdays in June and July.

While Rylan didn't want a birthday party this year, he did want a piñata.  So we got a piñata for this party that everyone got a chance to hit once (these things don't last with the kids getting older now!).  I tried to get Gray to hit it (he loves hitting baseballs off the tee) but he refused.

Once everyone left and I was cleaning up, Gray FINALLY got brave and got into the water at the bottom of the waterslide.

He even let us put him at the top of the slide a few times and went down!

After a day or two everyone washed their shirts and other things.  Here are how the shirts turned out for some of us ...

Tri My Best

Carter did a really cool triathlon today.  The Tri My Best Triathlon pairs able-bodied kids with kids that have a disability so that they can complete a triathlon together as a team.  The race is not timed - the focus is on working together as a team and completing the race.

Carter was nervous about who he might be paired with.  He was unsure if he'd be able to help his buddy do everything (there were kids with physical disabilities and some with more mental challenges).  But I asked him to try it anyway because he would definitely be able to do it and he'd feel really good about it afterwards.  He agreed but was still hesitant.

Carter was paired with an awesome boy named Cohen.  Cohen is 6 years old and is going into first grade.  And though he still has some issues with nerves in his legs and has to wear braces, he's overcome so much and was able to do the race with very little assistance.  Carter really only had to give him some encouragement.

The swim was 50 yards.  Cohen wore a puddle jumper but was able to swim the entire length on his own!

Each team also had an adult buddy who helped the disabled child if they needed it (especially with their equipment - many of the kids had adaptive bikes and wheelchairs).

The bike was 0.75 miles.  Cohen had a regular bike with training wheels.  Cohen was all smiles whenever we saw the boys!

The last part of the race was a 0.4 mile run around the Vanderbilt indoor football field (it was a really cool place to finish the race!).

I'm super proud of both boys.  Cohen did an amazing job (when he was born, his parents were told he may not survive, and if he did, he'd never walk).  He ran so hard - it was unreal!  I'm so proud of Carter too.  He was still a little shy with Cohen, but I heard him giving Cohen encouragement and was so kind to him.  He even held up right at the finish line to make sure it was Cohen that ran through the tape being held up :)