YPAC Dual Meet 11/12/2011

Nate had his best swim meet yet on Saturday.  He finished in 1st place in every race and had personal best times in every one of them!

One of the things we've been waiting for Nate to "get" is that you have to finish a race really strong, giving it all you have at the end.  Last week, half way through the meet this concept seemed to click with Nate and he finished his last two races with personal best times and won his heat.  On Saturday Nate finished all of his races really hard and it showed!

The best race of the day was the 50 yard Butterfly.  Nate is not a big fan of the Butterfly.  It is the hardest stroke and he struggles with it.  In fact on Friday night when I told him he'd been assigned to swim the  50 Fly he said "no way. I'm not doing it."   I reminded him that being on a team means that you do what the coaches ask.  They have their reasons for assigning certain kids certain events.  You just have to do your best.

I had to give him another little pep talk on Saturday before the race but once the race started I could see he was on his game.  His butterfly looked as good as I've ever seen it. He and another boy from our team were neck and neck the whole race.  Nate really swam hard the last 15 yards and ended up finishing first with a 45.10.  The other boy finished in 45.19.  

The win was a huge victory for Nate's confidence. He swam hard, finished first, and took 13 seconds off his previous best time.  Plus he's never beaten this other swimmer before so it really gave Nate a huge boost of confidence.

He still didn't qualify for the State Meet but he's about 3 seconds from it on the 50 Back and now he's about 5 seconds from it in the 50 Fly.  It's also getting close in the 100 Free.  His next meet is December 10 so hopefully that will be the day!

NOW Dual Meet

The first dual meet of the season was exciting.  The Macomb Marlins Boys just edged out the North Oakland Waves, but the NOW girls beat the Marlin Girls by enough to claim the victory.  It was a very close meet with a lot of great races.  Nate swam two relays and two individual events.

In the 200 Medley Relay, Nate swam the first leg- a 50 back.  In spite of a slow start due to some problems with the starting gun (4 misfires before they switched to a whistle start), he swam a personal best of 45.11. Unfortunately the swimmer on the second leg was disqualified due to a one hand touch at the wall so the whole relay team was DQ'd.

In the 100 Free, Nate came in second place with a personal best time of 1:26.54.

In the 200 Free, Nate came in third with a personal best time of 3:01.28.  His buddy Alec and one of the other team's guys had a super race to the wall.  Both boys got State cuts and Alec came it first.  It was a great race.

In the 200 Free Relay, Nate swam the second leg.  Everybody looked great and they came in first.  There was problem with the timing system.  It stopped timing them before they touched the wall, so the computer thinks they got a Zone (even better than State) cut but we know they didn't.  We are still waiting on the results but anticipating a time of around 2:31. That's not a State cut yet but it is an improvement over their seed time and we are hoping to see a State cut by the end of the season.

So Red, White & Blue ribbons and personal best times for Nate.  It was another great meet!

Marlin Meet 2011

Nate's Swimming Season Officially Kicked off yesterday with the Annual Marlin Meet. (Although if you ask Nate it really began 3 weeks ago when practices started.) The Marlin Meet is always our first meet of the season. Its an intra-squad meet that gives novice swimmers a chance to experience a meet without the pressure of another team present. Times don't count towards state cuts but the coaches like to get a base time for the swimmers to work on improving and the swimmers still get ribbons. Plus sometimes beating your practice buddy is more fun than beating another team.

Nate had a great meet. He swam 4 events and improved his time from last season on all 4 events.

200 FreeStyle- 2nd place 3:05.87 (15 second improvement from last years best)

100 IM- 2nd place 1:46.88 (9 second improvement)

100 FreeStyle- 2nd place 1:32.27 (4 second improvement)

50 FreeStyle- 1st place 40.22- (.13 improvement)

The 50 Free was an awesome experience for Nate. He was seeded in Lane 4 in the last heat. For you non-competitive swimmers, what that means is that going into the race he had the best previous time so he got the best lane. Lane 4 is the "kid to beat." There were 11 boys in the race and his heat was competitive but Nate took the lead with his start and maintained a small lead going into the wall, then did an awesome flip turn and sprinted home for a very solid win. I wished I'd could have had a camera to get a picture of the huge grin on his face when he looked at the scoreboard and saw the 1. next to his name. (But I was standing on the diving board officiating so at least I got to see his face.)



I think we are going to have another great season!

Boston Bound

I haven't forgot that I have a blog, I've just been too busy living life to write about it. LOL!

We've got the first Dance Competition under our belt. Like a Prayer (Group Open) received High Gold, Everyone Needs a Little (Lyrical Solo)took a disappointing Gold but was only 2 points from High Gold.

Tonight is Nate's Swim Team Banquet. Even though he's been done swimming for a few weeks, the older swimmers have a longer season. Our team did really well in the State Championships, Zone Championships and Nationals. It's fun to get back together and celebrate with the whole team.

Tomorrow Derek & I leave for Boston. I am so excited to watch him run this marathon. It's the culmination of several years of training and persistance. I am so proud of him for what he has already accomplished, this is just the icing on the cake.

Please pray for safe travels and injury free running.

I'll update the Blog with results when we get back and then there will be Easter pictures and more dance competition, and the rest of life stuff. (Maybe even a video of Max riding around the block with no training wheels if I can figure out how to get it from Derek's phone to my blog.)

District Championships

This morning Nate swam his last meet of the 2010-2011 Swim Season. The District Championships were held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Nate had a great meet.

200 Free 3rd Place with a personal best time of 3:18.76

50 Back 11th Place with a personal best time of 48.07

50 Free 12th Place with a personal best time of 40.33


Here is the awards ceremony for the 200 Free.

Way to go Nate! Congratulations on a great season!

Marlin Invitation 2011

The Marlin Invitational is always a good meet for Nate. This year was no exception. He got personal best times in all his events. He swam 3 new events and did very well in those. He earned ribbons by placing 10th in the 100 Backstroke, 11th in the 200 Free and 16th in the 50 Free & 50 Breast. He was also on the "A" Relay team both days. The 200 Medley Relay came in 5th and the 200 Free Relay came in 3rd so Nate got medals for both those events. He was very excited about the medals since they are his first medals in Swimming.

Nate isn't the best swimmer in his age group, but he has a lot of heart and a lot of dedication and he's out there trying his best. We are very proud of him.



Go Nate! Keep up the good work!
(Blake also had a very good meet. His relays came in 4th & 3rd in the 8&Under age group).

Sometimes ya just gotta TRY!

I don't think of myself as a "sporty" person. I did participate in a a few sporting activities growing up but I never really "stuck" with anything. My parents were of the "sure you can try out a new activity" ilk. So we did a lot of short term stuff: 6 weeks of Tennis lessons one summer, a couple sessions of Gymnastics in Elementary, Swim Team for 2 years in Junior High, a few years of Karate in High School. My parents didn't really get the concept of committing to a particular sport or a team and sticking with it when it was tough. In fact, I specifically remember skipping Gymnastics lessons once because I was having too much fun doing cartwheels in the front yard with my friends to bother going to the actual class!

Derek on the other hand, ran track & cross-country through-out Junior High, High School and College. (And you see where that has got him- Training for the Boston Marathon!)

So with our own kids we are in the category of: you signed up for this, you will see it through the end of the season and we can re-evaluate next year. As a result Kaylee is in her 12th year of Dance and Nate is in his 3rd year of Swimming. Of course we have had some moments where they don't want to do "it": go to a practice, or a meet and even times where they are sure they want to quit their activity all together. We've been known to allow an occassional (but very rare) mental health day where we let them have a break for no good reason at all, but mostly we insist that they go to practices and events, even when we as the parents, don't want to.

Last weekend was a good example. Nate had a Swim Meet in Waterford on Saturday morning. The weather had been bad on Friday and he's got several meets coming up. Neither he nor I really wanted to go. Plus it didn't seem like a meet where he would be likely to do well. It's been a rough year for Nate since he's one of the youngest in his age. But Derek reminded us of our committment, and he and Nate went to the meet. I will confess at this point that I did actually bribe Nate to go to the meet. I said I would reward him for doing his best no matter how he placed. He just had to TRY.



Well, Nate rose to the challenge. He got personal best times in 3 of 4 events. He also swam a new event. The 200 IM which is a 50 of each stroke. This is a tough event for 9 year olds. Only 6 boys entered it (compared to 40 boys in some of his other events). The coach said the goal for Nate was to swim it clean, and not get disqualified. Not only did he swim it clean, Nate finished really strong. He ended up 4th, earning a ribbon. So it turned out that the meet we were almost ready to give up on before it even started, ended up being a very good meet for Nate.

Sometimes ya just gotta TRY!

YPAC Dual Meet 2010

On Saturday, Nate had a dual meet.

His first event was the Medley Relay. He swam a really good 50 Fly. (It was his first time swimming a 50 Fly so it was a personal best) They placed 4th.

His next event was the 50 Free. He swam a personal best 50 Free and placed 3rd.

In the 100 Free, he swam a personal best with a really strong last 10 yards. Here is a video of the 100Free.


It looked like he won the race to the wall, but he must have just got out touched. (2nd place time was 1:42.66, Nate's time was 1:42.71.)

In his last event, he anchored the 200 Free Relay "B." Even though he didn't even get to start his leg of the relay until the other 2 teams had already finished, he swam a personal best split by several seconds. We are hoping he gets moved up to the "A" relay next time.

Final Score:
Macomb Y Marlins 860
South Oakland YMCA 561

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween is a tricky holiday for Christians. We don't want to embrace and celebrate evil, but we also don't want to seem judgmental and holier-than-thou. Our goal: to be in the world but not of it.

So at our house we take a moderate approach: We dress up and trick-or treat. We enjoy the tamer side of Halloween, avoiding haunted houses and evil costumes. Much to our chagrin, Halloween is Nate's favorite day of the year. Better than his birthday, better than Christmas. Two hours of running from house to house for FREE CANDY!! What could be better than that?

Well he may not fully realize it yet... but yesterday he did do something better than even free candy.

He's been talking about Baptism for a while. He asked Jesus into his heart when he was around 6, and he understands that Baptism is the next step. But he's a typical almost 9 year old boy. So it's hard for us as Mom & Dad to know exactly when the right moment is, when he's mature enough to take it as a serious life commitment. Karen, the children's ministry director at our church, gave Nate a really nice workbook and he finished it up this week. So on Friday I said to Nate, you can be baptized whenever you are ready. He said "o.k. how about Sunday?"

At first it seemed a little strange to choose Halloween, but as I thought about it for a moment, I realized that God's timing is perfect. Halloween was the perfect day for Nate to be baptized. October 31st will always be a day that holds pure joy for Nate, even after he outgrows trick-or-treating. Someday He'll look back and realize that there is something even better than free candy.

The Best Mummy

About 2 weeks ago Nate announced that he wanted to be a Mummy for Halloween. I'm not very domestic but I figure I should probably make each kid at least one costume once in their life and a Mummy seems pretty easy to make, right? Just wrap the kid in toilet paper?

Well, since it needed to last for a couple events, I decided to sew strips of gauze to a shirt & pants. I figured a couple of stitches per strip of gauze, shouldn't be too hard, right? Yeah, well, it was a lot more work than I expected. It took me about 6 hours (a couple hours each over the course of 3 nights). Good thing the strips don't have to be even, or really stay in place too long.

In the end I was pretty happy with the finished product. So as I was wrapping it up I said to Nate, "Just promise me that someday when you are old and have kids of your own you'll say "I remember when I was almost 9 and my Mom made me this awesome Mummy costume." His response was "Well, if I even remember about it."



Oh well, even if we aren't appreciated, I guess that's what Mummies are for.

Marlin Meet 2010

The Marlin Meet is the first meet of the swim season. This is Nate's 3rd year on the Marlins. He always enjoys this meet because its an intersquad practice meet so its much more relaxed but they still give ribbons.

In the Marlin Meet Nate swam 4 events:



100 IM (one length of each of the 4 strokes). He finished 2nd with a Personal Best time of 1:58.23



50 Free He finished 3rd in a time of 48.22




50 Back He finished 3rd with a Personal Best time of 55.24.




100 Free He finished 3rd with a Personal Best time of 1:50.59

Nate's is swimming in the 9-10 year old age group this year, they base it on your age as of Dec. 1. On Dec. 1 Nate will have been 9 for 1 week. So Nate is in for some tough competition this year. (He could end up swimming against boys that turn 11 on Dec. 2).

The great thing about swimming is that even when the competition is tough you can always strive to get your personal best times. Nate got PRs in 3 out of 4 events and we consider that a good meet!

The Danger Boys learn new tricks

Swimming is something that seems to come fairly naturally to our family. I don't know if its nature or nurture but either way it makes sense. Derek & I met over water (as lifeguards at summer camp) so we've passed a love of swimming to our kids either through our genes or through our attitudes. This week we've been blessed to be able to spend 2 days at the pool with friends. We have all really enjoyed beating the heat with one of our favorite activities.



On Monday, Max spent most of the day with the life jacket on but did take it off for a few practice strokes. On Friday, as long as he was swimming to an adult, he preferred to have it off. He can swim about a 1/2 length without it. Obviously, he's not ready to swim on his own yet but I bet with some swim lessons this winter, by next summer he'll be ready for the swim team!

On Monday, Max thought he wanted to try jumping from the diving board. He would walk out at far as the hand rails then change his mind and go back. On Friday, Max decided he really wanted to jump from the diving board. His first few trips were quite funny. He was really nervous about that walk. He'd crouch way down and sort of scoot to the end then sit on the end and jump from a sitting position. After a couple times like that he realized he wasn't having as much fun as his brother, and he learned to walk the whole way. It wasn't long before his brother was encouraging him to try twists and cannon balls.




Speaking of Nate, he learned a new trick too. One of the great things about Nate is that he will watch someone doing something, decide he wants to figure it out and he will just keep working at it until he gets it. On Friday there was girl doing all sorts of cool dives. Nate decided he wanted to learn how to do an inward. So he asked her a couple questions and started working on it. In under an hour, he was doing them.



So far this tenacity only applies to physical things- I hope someday it applies to school work!

Father's Day 2010

Father's Day is almost over. whew! It's been a mostly fun day. We attended Church, took a trip to the ER, grilled out with friends, spent the evening lots more friends at the park and ended it with Erma's frozen custard.

Kaylee gave Derek a neat photo frame.



Nate gave Derek a creme brulee set.



Max gave Derek a trip to the ER.



Just as church was ending, Max fell off a chair, and hit the back of his head on the corner of a cabinet. I was the teacher, thank goodness, so I was right there to pick him up to comfort him. But the I took one look at the back of his head and realized we'd be making a trip to the ER. St. John Macomb got us in immediately. 5 staples later we were on our way. Max was a trooper through the whole thing. The Dr. & Nurse couldn't believe how calm he was getting the staples (he did cry but he didn't struggle). We promised him blue gum and a blue slurpee for being so brave.

Next year I'm picking out Max's gift for Derek.

All I Want for Easter

is my two front teeth!



This week Nate, age 8, lost both front teeth.

What's in your food?

I love the conversations we have in the car. Here's tonight's:

After our discussion about what a Chai Tea Latte is made of,

Nate: Do you notice how some food, the name of it tells you what it is, like, Chai Tea Latte, but some food doesn't, like Chicken.

Me: Huh?!?

Nate: Yeah, cuz you don't really know what the chicken was eating. Like, maybe the farmer spilled his Chai Tea Latte.

I think Nate just liked saying Chai Tea Latte. Thanks to Biggby for the free drinks and the fun conversation. (If you are reading this tonight, don't forget to print your free drink coupon at Biggby and get over there for your own Chai Tea Latte.)

Hannah would be so proud

A recently overheard conversation between Nate & Gabby while playing Super Mario Bros.

Gabby: "Ugh!!! I keep dying!"

Nate: "Well, in this crazy mixed up world we just have to do our best, and that's all anyone can ask."

Nate: "Yeah, I just went all Hannah Montana on you, there."

2010 State Swim Championships

Nate's last meet of the season was yesterday. It was the YMCA 8 & Under State Championships. Nate was on 2 relay teams. The Medley Relay finished 4th place out of 15 teams and the freestyle relay finished 4th out of 8 teams. Both teams got their best times ever. Nate was so excited to get his first trophies.











Nate did o.k. in his other events but not well enough to get ribbons in those. He didn't swim poorly, but he would have needed personal best times to get ribbons and it just wasn't his day for those. I think he peaked at the big meet last month but that's o.k. It was a great season. I hope he'll keep swimming.

"A" Cluster Eastern Division Championships

We spend Valentine's Morning at the pool. Nate swam the "A" Cluster Eastern Division Championship. The meet was a little bit of a disappointment, no ribbons this time. He's been doing so great lately that I think we've come to expect PRs and ribbons all the time, but sometimes its just the little things that count. Like being committed to your team and showing up and doing your best at that moment in time. Of the six 8 year old boys on the team only 2 were available for this meet so they didn't get to swim a relay. Nate's 3 individual events were:

25 Freestyle- He placed 15th out of 41 and did shave a few tenths of a second off his personal best.

25 Butterfly- He placed 16th out of 24th. He just didn't find his rhythm.

25 Backstroke- He placed 24th out of 45. His kick was just not as strong as it normally is, and that messed up his stroke count so he was farther from the wall when he stopped stroking and 3 kids out touched him at the wall.

For this meet instead of ribbons they give metals for 9th-12th place and trophies for 1-8th so it sure would have been nice to place.

But Nate is happy. He likes to swim. He passed out valentines to his friends while he was there and he got to go out to eat after the race. Maybe its just us parents that need the reminder that its not all about winning.

But Sunday is the State Championships and boy, it would be nice to place.

Should I or Shouldn't I?

Yesterday was Kaylee's birthday. I was away on business. When I got home I asked her how her birthday was and she said it was great, Max gave me a sweet birthday hug & kiss and Nate gave me blackmail material. Then she showed me a video she had recorded. Nate doing a crazy ballet performance complete with tutu! It's hystrical!

So should I post it or should we save it for when he has his first girlfriend?

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.