Marlins Swimming

We had our second swim meet today 

against Lake Charles Country Club and University Dolphins.

 Ethan waiting on the ready bench with the other 9-10 year old boys for the 25 meter Freestyle.

~ John Robert, Marshall, James, Dawson, and Ethan ~

Ethan swam the 25 Free for a personal best time of 20.87 and placed sixth,

a huge .02 seconds faster than last time!!

Ethan swam the 25 Fly in personal best time of 26.12, 

over four seconds faster than his last time two weeks ago.

He placed fourth overall out of  six swimmers.  

(I think this picture is actually from his Medley Relay, when he swam the Butterfly.)

This child never stops fidgeting or pulling at his goggles, jammers, or swim cap before a race.

I have tons of pictures of him adjusting something!  

Starting the backstroke.

He swam it in 24.75, almost a second off his time from two weeks ago, 

and placed fourth out of twelve swimmers.  Another personal best.

Ethan and Dawson starting the 25 Fly.

He swam so fast because he changed into his flaming cap.

This kid is burning up the pool waters!

Ethan on the Ready Bench with his Freestyle Relay.

~ Ethan, Ali-Mae, Emma, and Erin ~

Proud to be a Marlin!!  

Ethan and his friend, Dallen, waiting for their turn to swim in the Freestyle Relay.

Ethan and Dallen have been in French Immersion together since Kindergarten.

They both were the anchor for their team.

Erin into the wall and Emma off!  Go Emma!!  

Ethan waiting for Ali-Mae.  Ali-Mae was on Ethan's undefeated Medley Relay team from last year.  

Ethan swam Backstroke and Ali-Mae swam Freestyle.

It was a very close race between their team and another for first place.

Ethan ready and excited to keep it that way.

Go Ethan and Ali-Mae!!

Dallen waiting for his swimmer to get to the wall.

Ethan in Lane 1 trying hard to keep up with the swimmer in Lane 4.  (Lane three is headed toward me.)

It was very close, but Ethan was just behind the other team, placing second.

It was a fun meet.  I got to swim in a Master's Relay and again, did not die.  I did lose my goggles in the pool and had to jump back in and get them.  My relay team swam the 100 Freestyle in just over 1:07.

I thought that sounded good and figured I worked hard to do my part, then realized maybe I swam my 

25 meters in 50 seconds and the rest of my team consisted of speed demons.  Who knows!

Marlins Swimming

Today was our first swim meet of the season.

It was at University Pool and we swam against Lake Charles Country Club 

and Lake Charles Racquet Club.

These boys were pumped and ready to go!

Tristan swam the 50 Free in a personal best time ever of  27.26, 

and placed second overall in the Boys 15 and Over category.

He looked awesome and was tied for first with the best swimmer on his high school and summer league teams, Mason, at the flip turn, but was unable to stay with him after that.  I was so happy and surprised to see Tristan keeping up with him.  I've never seen Tristan swim with Mason like that, so I've never noticed that is as good as Mason!

I noticed though, that Tristan needs lots of work on his flip turn, because this is where Mason pulled away from Tristan and ended up beating him back to the wall by not quite two seconds.  Tristan could really be competitive in a way I don't think he has ever thought that he would be if he could fix his flip turn.  

Like placing at high school state competition good.

Tristan did beat one boy that I was secretly very happy to see.  A boy that Tristan was beating last year in high school swim, but who was chosen over Tristan to swim on the state relay teams due to swim politics, which I absolutely HATE!  The coaches were supposed to keep Tristan in the relays, where he should have been all along, but took him out.  They promised to have Tristan challenge Nick to prove Tristan was the better swimmer, and then put him back in, but it never happened.  It's really a long story, but for me, this was the long awaited challenge swim-off and Tristan came out on top.  It was extremely satisfying!

Tristan also swam the 50 Breaststroke in 40.44, another personal best, placing third.

Tristan has a beautiful breaststroke and I love to watch him swim it.

Ethan is the bomb-diggity!  He is swimming in a new age group this year, the Boys 9-10 year olds, and he is hanging in there.  He is one of the youngest kids on the team in his age group and he is beating the older boys.  He swam the 25 Free for a personal best of 20.89, placing 7th, just shy of receiving a ribbon.

He also swam the 25 Fly for the first time and was awesome!  How that child is so good at the butterfly in such a short amount of time is simply amazing to me.  He placed 2nd with a time of 30.15.

Ethan is the second best butterflier in his age group and was chosen to be on the B-Medley Relay as the Flier!  He did so great and his relay team placed second with a time of 1:45.47, right behind the Marlins A-Relay Team.  I'm sure that next year, or maybe even before the summer is over, 

he's going to be on that A-Team!   

Ethan's third individual event was one of his favorites, the backstroke!

He placed 4th with a time of  25.50, taking off 1.59 from last year.  

He had a super start and only went crooked for a little bit before correcting himself.

He also swam in a 10 and Under Freestyle Relay.

He was not scheduled for it, but a child left early leaving an open spot and the coaches put Ethan in.

He helped them earn a 3rd place ribbon with a time of 1:54.17.

Ethan on the ready bench with his friends, Maddison, Ethan Vest, Abel, John Robert, James, Holly, Candace, Katie, and Lucy, all waiting to be called up for the relays.

In case you can not tell, Ethan is the goof with the purple cap over his eyes!

Tristan taking off for the Fly!

He has really worked hard on getting this stroke right and it has paid off tremendously!
He placed 2nd with a time of 33.49, taking off fifteen seconds from his 50 Fly last summer.

Coach Stephanie is so excited that SHHS will now have a Fly swimmer to replace the one that graduated last year.  He did so awesome!!

Tristan also swam on the A-Medley Relay in the Breaststroke, 

helping his team make an amazing comeback for 1st Place with a time of  2:18.13.  

He also swam on the A-Freestyle Team for 1st place with a time of 1:49.50.  

It was a great first meet and I was so happy for my boys.

Watching them swim is so much fun and seeing them be successful is just wonderful!

Cub Scout Day Camp

Ethan spent the week at Cub Scout Day Camp.

I was scheduled to work as a leader for Ethan's Cypress Knee District Day Camp,

but they ended up cancelling it because very few boys registered,
so we registered Ethan with the Pioneer District at Tuten Park.

Ethan did lots of "scout stuff," like:

~ learning about weather and clouds
~ earning the volleyball belt loop
~ tracking and making paper casts of animal prints
~ making musical instruments
~ artwork
~ leather working
~ games

On the last day of camp, the Coushatta Tribe came out in their ceremonial clothing
and performed dances for the Scouts.  Ethan thought is was super cool!

It was a fun week for Ethan.  A family from our branch is in a local Boy Scout Troop and their Troop ended up helping out all week at camp.  One of the boys, Garrett, helped out with Ethan's group a lot and their mom, Emily, gave me these awesome pictures of Ethan at camp.