Another Great Swim Meet

Nate had another great swim meet this weekend. This meet was a Dual Meet, which means just 2 teams. Its a smaller meet and goes much faster, so that part is nice. The coaches chose which events the kids swim and they can only swim in 4 events. This can be good and/or bad. The coaches chose the events based on what they think will get the team the most points, so the kids don't always get to swim their favorite event, and sometimes they don't even swim their best event, because someone else on the team might be good enough to get the same amount of points in that event and the coach might think you have a shot at getting some points in a different event.

Here's how Nate did:

100 yard Medley Relay- 1st Place: Nate really likes this event. He likes the team work of swimming with 3 other boys. Alec swam back stroke, JJ swam breast stroke, Ian swam butterfly and Nate swam freestyle. They took a couple seconds off last weekend's time. The other team didn't have a relay for this event so our team automatically got the blue ribbon, but that part doesn't matter to 8 year olds.

100 IM- 4th place; This event is still challenging for Nate. Its 1 length of each of the different strokes. Nate likes breast stroke but still struggles a bit with the kick. Last weekend he got his best time ever but got disqualified. Today we told him to focus on doing the strokes right. He was a little slower than last weekend but didn't get DQ'd so that's an improvement!

25 Butterfly- 2nd place: Nate likes the butterfly. Its a hard stroke but he seems to get the rhythm of it.

25 Backstroke- 1st place and a personal best time! Nate says he doesn't really like backstroke but he is really good at it. Last weekend one of his team mates edged him out in backstroke so today Nate wanted to win. He took off strong and led the whole way. You should have seen his face when he got out of the pool. Pure Joy!

28th Marlin Invitational Results a.k.a Nate's awesome weekend

This weekend was the biggest meet of Nate's season. It is the invitational hosted by our team so its the only meet where he swims on both Saturday & Sunday. Nate swam 9 events this weekend and he got his personal best time in EVERY event!! He took some signficant time off several events. I'm so excited for him and proud of him.

He has been working really hard in practice (most of the time) and its obviously paying off. He's still not the most focused 8 year old on the team. After every event he insisted on visiting the concession stand for a candy reward. I'm sure he'd swim even better if he didn't load up on sugar between each race but he still did amazing!

Here are his results:
Saturday:
Medley Relay- 2nd place 1:32.19
50 Free- 17th place 47.40
25 Fly- 10th place 23.17
100 IM- DQ 1:58.56
25 Back- 13th place 25.30

100 Free Relay- 2nd place 1.21.24
50 Back- 11th place 56.06
25 Breast- 11th place 28.23
25 Free- 10th place 19.88

At the beginning of the meet, Nate said he wanted a new sweatshirt. I told him if he swam good I'd buy him one. He definitely earned his sweatshirt this weekend!

2010 Marlin Invitational

Please consider yourself cordially invited to attend the 28th Annual Marlin Invitational.

When: January 16 & 17th

Time: 2pm (The meet starts at 8:30am but Nate's events start at 2pm)

Where: L'Anse Creuse North High School is located off 21 Mile Road (south side of 21) between Gratiot and North Ave. You can enter the parking lot either from 21 Mile Rd or from Fairchild (traffic light between Gratiot and North Ave).** Please note that due to the building construction at the high school, the pool lobby entrance will be closed. An alternate entrance will be available, located at the northeast corner of the building.

Cost: Persons over age 12: $3.00 per day Meet Program $3.00 per program

Nate's Saturday Events:
#36- Medley Relay
#40- 50 Free
#44- 25 Fly
#48- 100IM
#52- 25 Back

Nate's Sunday Events:
#90- 100 Free Relay
#94- 50 Back
#98- 25 Breast
#102- 25 Free

Snow Play is a No Play

I'm not much of a playing out in the cold kind of person. Playing out in the snow is so far off my radar that I often don't even remember to buy my kids snow boots. Nate sometimes wants to play out in the snow but usually gives up pretty quickly. (Maybe he'd last longer with snow boots instead of rain boots.) On New Years Eve, Nate and a bunch of kids played outside, but Max turned down the opportunity and chose to stay inside and play with cars. He seems to be taking after me.

Today, Nate decided to play outside and Max-the-copy-cat said he wanted to go too. I bundled them both up. I found some of Nate's old gear for Max, but we only had pink gloves for Nate and I still have not bought him new snow boots. Nate refused to wear the pink snow gloves and instead put on thin stretchy black mittens. Then he put on his camouflage rubber rain boots. He lasted 3 minutes. I didn't even get a picture because he was already back inside taking off the snow gear before I came down with camera.

Max lasted a little bit longer. I managed to find him a pair of Nate's old snow boots. So he stomped around in the snow for about 10 minutes. I'm torn. I guess I should buy them better snow gear but I hate to spend the money on it when they don't really seem to like the cold. Hopefully I can find some stuff on sale today. If anyone has any outgrown boys snow gear in Nate's size I know a boy who might put it to use.