J-man is all smiles today.

Look at that smile. That is the "I got a 7!" smile. That is right, his front jump was so good, he got a 7. Pencil straight with lots of height and a nice hurdle.

Then there was this forward dive. Very nicely done. Had a nice hurdle, good height and went in nice and smooth.

Then there was this back dive. Nailed that one too. Actually jumped, good height, went in to the water smooth.

Look what that earned him? Woo Hoo, his very first - 1st place in diving. Look at how happy that kid is! And nobody was more happy for him than his buddy J-dude, who also got 1st place as an A diver.Good Times.

Tennis

So T-man started tennis lessons this summer. I can't play tennis (other than on the wii), but it looks fun and they wanted to do it, so what the heck. Mitch took him to get a racket and I was not the least bit surprised that it has Spongebob on it. (is Spongebob one name or two? Sponge Bob? Like his last name is Bob?) The first lesson that I watched was very painful, but I laughed a lot. Today, after 5 weeks of lessons and a lot of $, he can hit a tennis ball.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Amazing. He has one more week of tennis lessons later on in the summer. Pro tour - oh yeah, any day now.
J-man is also in Tennis this week. They play all kinds of games and he is in the class with a couple of his buddies, so lots of fun for everyone.
They play 21, so in addition to learning to hit the ball and keep it in the court, they are practicing math! His teachers would be proud.

Maybe Mitch and I need to sign up for some tennis lessons so our boys don't kick our butts at tennis. I'm pretty sure that my pro status on the wii won't fly out on an actual tennis court. Ya think??

Catching up....

Summer is just flying by! The weather has been just fabulous around here - 70 and sunny everyday. A few morning clouds just to keep things cool, I love it. My offspring don't feel the same about the morning clouds however. A J-man quote from this week:

"We can't walk to the pool, its only 56 degrees outside!"

First of all when did my 8 yo start checking the weather in the morning? Secondly - have you heard of a sweatshirt? Pants? Coat? It's called layering son, and if you are going to be a Washingtonian I think you need to learn this concept. And quick.

We ended up driving, but not because it was cold, but because I was running late and it was faster. Next week - back to walking!!

Yes, we are still spending everyday at the pool even though swim team and lessons are over. We still have dive team, tennis lessons and water polo starts next week, plenty of stuff to do for the rest of the summer.

Here are some pictures from B Champs last weekend. J-man was sort of disappointed about swimming B Champs after swimming on the A team all season long. Well at the meet he got 2 firsts (medals) and forth (still points for the team!) and at A Champs he would have been lucky to make it out of prelims, so I think it turned out pretty darn good for him!

T-man was there to cheer for his brother.

This is the chaos also known as lining up for relays. YOWSA. Glad I didn't have to organize that mess!

REACH FOR THE WALL!! J-man had a great swim season, had lots of fun with old friends, made a few new ones and got in great shape for water polo!

Dive Meet and more crazy hair.....

J-man had another dive meet today. This is actually the first one since the whole swimmers ear week. You will all be happy to know that the swimmers ear is gone. Yeah. This is J-man by the board with one of his coaches.

This was J-mans last dive, his back dive. I forgot to pick up the camera before that. Whoops.

Luckily once I picked the camera up nobody is shy......

Are we loving this hair or what?

Hey look at that - 2nd place. Way to go J-man. One more dive meet and then Dive Champs! Summer is still flying by........

A little swimmers ear doesn't stop us

This was kind of a rough week for the J-man. He had made some mentioned that his ear was sore over the holiday weekend, but in sort of a casual way, so I thought nothing of it. Then Tuesday he swam one lap and got out of the pool crying. He couldn't even let me touch it to look at it. So I dialed up the peds and got him an appointment. Diagnosis: Bad case of swimmers ear. Needs antibiotics and no pool for at least 2 days, or until its not painful. Bummer. So J-man missed practice for 3 days and missed a dive meet on Wednesday.
But today...I bought him some of those wax ear cover things. We shoved the wax over his ear opening, pulled his cap down over his ears and let him swim in the meet. Don't tell my Pediatrician!!!! I guess I am not up for Mom of the Year. Oh well. We had fun at the meet tonight.

No swimmers ear for this guy! While the T-man was playing in this pool.....

The J-man was in this pool. Here he is in the back stroke, trying to find the wall. I got a pretty good shot of this one because he was in the outside lane!

Now time for a little butterfly. Check out that wingspan. This was the first time J-man had to swim butterfly in a meet all season. Except time trials. Well it wasn't pretty, but it was legal and speedy. He took 4 seconds off of his time that he had at time trials. The coaches were shocked when they saw his time. We had a good laugh about that today. Now that is 2 events that he can't swim at B-champs.

We always end with the relays. They are fun to watch, this one was close at the end and got pretty exciting. J-man's crew (in the middle) got 3rd.

No complaints about the ear were heard. Except about the part where he couldn't hear. Imagine that with and ear full of wax. And now we are letting the ear heal up and dry out over the weekend. More fun to be had in the pool and more swim meets next week to get better for.

I love Smilebox! 4th of July!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Fireworks

We had a blast at the fireworks tonight. It was a nice walk to the park and we got to hang out and listen to a great band while we waited for it to get dark. The fireworks show was about 1/2 hour long and it didn't even rain. I think that makes it a perfect 4th!
Happy Birthday America!

Happy 4th of July!

Here we are at our neighborhood party in the park, celebrating the 4th of July. We got to play on the fire truck, get cool hats, get our faces painted, got to eat hamburgers, jump in the bounce house and visit with friends. The best thing of all was that T-man got to do all of this with Z-man - the bestest cousin a boy could have.

Celebrate Freedom.

Good News, Bad News

The good news is that J-Man took 2nd place in his dive meet today.

Go J-man!

The bad news is that it took several hours and the rest of the dive meet was cancelled. We had to start and stop a couple times because of thunder showers that moved through. Now we know a little rain won't stop Seattle kids from doing outdoor activities, but apparently lightning and thunder clears a pool for 1/2 hour. They kept having to reset the clock with every rumble and finally the lifegaurds said forget it. Bummer. So only the young kids got to dive and none of the older ones.

Now lets talk about the hair - should I make him get a hair cut? Or let him have crazy hair for the summer and chop it off when school starts? You should see some of the bed-head this kid wakes up with. As a matter of fact - I will be taking pictures of that too. Maybe I am just jealous of the white blonde that his hair is turning......