One Fish, Two Fish

These two fish have finished another great season of swimming.

This is our third year being part of the team and each year we make more friends and the kids get a little faster.

Bean moved up an age group to the 9-10's, along with several friends from last year.  They actually had a really solid group--I think a dozen kids total, which has been good for the team, but did mean that Bean had to get used to more competition.  She's been a little disappointed in the lack of ribbons for some of her individual events, but she knew coming in that this was her "off" year.

 

Bug also moved up a group, to the 7-8's this year and made a new friend this year.  He has surprised us by having a way better year than we'd expected.  There just aren't as many boys this age, so the numbers are in his favor, and it turns out, this kid is a butterflier!  We've been so impressed with how he's progressed in all his strokes.  And he's totally cool about it all--I don't even know that he is aware of how he's doing, and the pressure doesn't seem to phase him.

Both the kids have really worked on their starts this year and they have improved so much.

Bean, especially, has come so far from that first season when she just couldn't quite make herself go in headfirst.

 

Sometimes Mickey comes to chill with us at the pool.  Peanut and I have gotten a lot of pool time in while we wait for the kids to practice.  

 

Half the fun is playing around at the pool with everyone after practice.

 

 

These two love the diving board, which we don't have at our pool.  Bug even got brave and did some almost flips this year.

And today was the championship meet, where it all comes together--4 teams, most of them much larger than ours, but our swimmers have a lot of fun anyway.

Neither of the kids had any personal bests today (the final regular meet on Thursday was their best--2 PRs for Bean, and 3 for Bug), but overall, they still swam well.  Bug ended up with a 3rd place finish in both freestyle and back, and 5th in butterfly.  Bean pulled off a 13th for breaststroke, out of 34, and it will mean a ribbon (she was kind of freaking out the other night about possibly getting no ribbons for the championship.) 

It was good finish to the season.  Love watching these swimmers!

Bean at 10

I was just looking back at our first month in Charlotte and found the questions I asked my 4 year old Bean on her birthday.  I thought I'd ask the same ones now, 6 years later:

Favorite color: Light Purple!
Favorite food: Mac and Cheese and Ravioli
Favorite thing to do: "Write and play outside."
Favorite book: "Oh, this is really hard!   Hasty Pudding (a colonial cookbook) and Top Secret (book about spies)."
Favorite song: "I can't decide!"  (A few that she likes--Beautiful Day (U2), Bring the World His Truth (church song), Everything is Awesome (Lego Movie), Let It Go (Frozen)


And a few new ones:

Favorite Desserts: Pie, and anything with chocolate or cinnamon.  (Although it's tough for her to narrow it down to even that.)
Favorite TV show:  Curious George.  She says she knows that's weird for her age, but she just loves it.  (I do, too.  He's a funny monkey.  And the man with the yellow hat has got to be one of the most patient parent examples ever.)
Favorite Animals:  Wolves, dogs, and horses
Favorite Movies: Polar Express
Favorite Sport : Swim Team

Fewer exclamations in her answers these days.  Guess that's part of growing up.

Double Digits

Someone just had a birthday!  It's hard to believe that our little Bean has entered her second decade of life.  And that we've been parents for 10 years now.  She has taught us so much (and hopefully, we really are better people now than we were 10 years ago.) and made life so much bigger than it was before she joined us.

 

 

This year, we did Secret Agent Training with a few friends for her party Friday evening.  Her birthday cake was super easy--I just wrote Happy Birthday in Pig Pen cypher.

 

 

When the guests first arrived, everyone had to be checked in and finger printed for the ID cards.  Then, they got to work on decoding a message that told them what they would be doing during the next couple hours.

Then, it was on to the missions.  They had to retrieve stolen jewels while avoiding the laser security system and obtain important documents on the other side of water balloon "landmines".

They got to take a break for nourishment--mac and cheese and fruit.  It's hard work being a spy.

Then, it was time to learn to be a master of disguise.

I wonder if this crowd could blend in anywhere? 

 

They finished one final mission--spying on enemy territory to find code words which unscrambled to tell them where the secret to happiness, AKA "The Cake", could be found.

 

After cake and ice cream, they had a little more time for just hanging around.

They did a little more spying, pulled out some of the new birthday toys, and just ran around outside.

Such a great group of kids.  I'm glad that Bean has made such nice friends over the years.

Bean didn't actually turn 10 until Saturday.  She had already gotten the biggest part of celebrating out of the way, so we had a mostly mellow day at home.  They played, we had more cake and ice cream at lunch, and watched the Muppet Movie during nap time.  Then we headed to a swim party for Bug's baseball team.  Bean had agreed to going to that on her birthday, and when we got to the pool, I think she was more than happy that she had.

 

 The pool was huge--one of the only 50 m pools in our area.

And it had 3 waterslides--the kids were in heaven!

Daddy-o and I even tried them out.

Plus, the deep end allowed diving, which is always a plus.  Our pool doesn't have a deep end, so once swim team ends and we don't have access to a pool with deep water, the dives have to be shelved until next year.

There was also a fun kiddie pool area. 

At least, bean and Bug thought all the spraying water was fun.  Peanut was not a fan and refused to go down the slide.  He's getting better in the pool this year and has more confidence in himself and the fact that he won't melt if his face gets wet, but this was asking a little too much of him. 

So we let these two have fun instead.

All in all, I think Bean would say it was a good birthday.

 

In the Great Outdoors

Our last day of 4-H.  Our fantastic leaders put together a scavenger hunt using some of the skills the kids have learned this year.  They got to use a compass, GPS for a geocache, finger knitting, and followed robotic programming type instructions.

They were off and running to find the next clue!

Peanut and I walked behind most of the time.  The property where this was held is beautiful and Peanut is going to do one day of preschool there each week starting in the fall, so we had fun exploring the area.  We got to see a lily pond, butterflies and dragonflies, spiders, pinecones and wildflowers.

At the end of the hunt, they found a cache of 4-H pins, and also a great play area.  There was a rope bridge that the kids played on for half an hour.

And the more adventurous kids tried out this bridge.  Check out that determination!

Some of the big kids just can't get enough of Peanut.  This friend finally won Peanut over and Peanut was willing to climb on his back for a piggyback ride.  That's highly unusual for my shy little guy.

There were also a few hammocks hung in that spot.

Peanut wanted to try it out, but was a little wary, especially anytime another kid came too close.  I'm not sure if he was worried about losing his turn, or being toppled out.

Finally, we ended the afternoon by the fishing pond.  A couple of the kids caught some small fish (which is what my kids are looking at here.)

We stayed a lot longer than I'd planned because it was so peaceful and the kids (at least my 3) were all being so mellow that I lost track of time.  I'm sure a lot of it was just that we are all so exhausted (swim meet last night meant a very late bedtime and poor Peanut didn't wake up until 9:35 this morning because he was/is so wiped out!)  But I also like to think that the setting was so relaxing that it inspired the kids.

Guess Who Moved to the Neighborhood

A couple weeks ago, our neighbor noticed a nest with 5 eggs in it tucked behind some plants between our yards.  They looked just like chicken eggs and she thought maybe my kids had set it up for some game they were playing.  She even cracked one of the eggs to see what might be inside, but it just looked like a regular chicken egg.

 

After talking it over with Daddy-o, we decided that they must be duck eggs and wondered if we'd seen the mama again.  Well, the next day, there were 2 more eggs, and then a couple days later, we noticed a couple more.  And for the last 2 weeks, mama duck has been hanging out on the nest most of the time.  I see her off early in the morning when I head out to run, but otherwise, she's been sitting in the same spot every day, waiting for her babies.

 

We're pretty excited to have some ducklings in the yard.  Although from the research we've done, it sounds like they probably won't stick around for long, so we'll have to start watching carefully when the time gets closer.  With the lack of permanent water, and a street so close by, it's a less than ideal home for ducks.  I wonder why she chose this spot in the first place?  

 

I'm curious to know if she'll come back in future years (they often do return to the same nesting site), or if she's going to realize she made a mistake, what with the kids, lawnmowers, and cars driving by all the time.  Either way, for now, we're loving our new neighbor!

And while I was out this morning getting a picture of mama duck, I noticed our lawn is full of these tiny mushrooms.  They looked so cute tucked in the grass.

Not sure if this is the same thing in a different stage or an entirely different thing growing in the grass, but it was pretty, too.

Week One of Summer Fun

We survived the first week of summer break!  It shouldn't feel like such a feat, but this has been one busy week.  On top of the baseball game Monday night, swim practices, and two swim meets, kid(s) went to 2 birthday parties, one end of school party, and a BBQ for the new families at church.

What all of the activity has meant is that our responsibility charts have been a lot to squeeze in.  The kids have still been pretty good about checking the charts and trying to do things on their own.  Not always without distraction, and since we've been gone a lot, (and I may have been overly thorough in covering all aspects of life on the Responsibility Chart), it's been hard to get everything done and we've had some creative bargaining the last couple days about what can count for the requirements.  But more has gotten done than normal, so I'm going to call it a success. 

Second swim meet was also a success.  The first one ended up being delayed because of a crazy thunder, lightening, and hail storm that rolled through just after 6:00, and then cancelled completely when the lightening came back 1/3 of the way through the races.  So we only got to watch freestyle that night, but in spite of the dark clouds and some early thunder, Thursday night's meet happened.  Both the kids swam hard in several events, got some new personal bests, and Bug even won for his backstroke, which was a surprise to all of us.  He didn't do much besides freestyle last year.

 And even more impressive was that he did butterfly in a medley relay and individual.  He was so nervous, considering he just barely learned how to do fly and especially since he thought he was swimming backstroke in the medley up until the minute before the race, but he not only made it across the pool, he looked pretty good doing it!  We were so proud of him for doing something scary and hard.  Bean also had a last minute change to her age group's medley team and ended up swimming a different stroke than what she had wanted to, but did a great job and worked hard to make up some lost time against some very fast teams.   We'll get their official results on Monday, but it was a great meet all around.

Sports, Field Trips, and More Sports

Well, we came home with the little trophies last night.  But these kids played so hard and really rallied--they were down for 3 innings, then tied it up at 8-8 in the 4th.  Bug was the tying run, and when he got up to bat, we already had 2 outs, which luckily he didn't realize, so it was only his parents who were having heart palpitations.  But Bug came through with a solid hit, and then ran his hardest to make it around those bases with the next hit.  But they just couldn't make it happen in the 5th inning, and ended up coming in a respectable 2nd place for the 7-8's age group.

Bug has come a long way this season--from being scared of the ball and striking out at every at-bat, to being able to catch the ball and having one of the best batting averages on his team.  I think he may want to play another season after this.  But I can't say that I'm sad to see this one end.  We're ready to put some other events on the calendar.

 

This morning, taking advantage of the last day of school for most of Charlotte, we headed to Uptown with our friends.  First stop--Imaginon, where they have a new fairytale exhibit.  The kids had fun dressing up, writing their own fairytales, and playing around with the various props.

Peanut was a little subdued, but he did try out being an elephant for a bit.

And this is how we know when it's time to move on to the next place.  When Bug gets that mischievous look, who knows what he'll do next.  Actually, when they began a game of chase in the middle of a bunch of preschoolers, we knew they'd worn out their welcome.

A walk through Uptown is never complete without stopping at all the fountains.  The first set led to two conversations with a security guard, so we moved on quickly(but honestly, the guards are overly stringent around all these bank buildings.)  At the next stop, they didn't actually touch the water, but were trying to raise the water with their magic

 

Finally, we made it to the Wells Fargo museum.  This place was really fun with hands on exhibits about stage coaches, printing money, morse code, and banking.  The kids had a lot of fun here (and may have even learned something.)

 

And tonight, we went to yet another sporting event, but different venue this time.  First swim meet of the season.  In typical NC fashion, thunder rolled in right before Bug was going to go in for his first race, and then a massive thunder and hailstorm followed that kept us out of the pool for over an hour. 

At 7:30, we were back at the pool and we got to watch both kids' freestyle relays win, and then they both did well in their individual freestyle, too, before another storm rolled in and once again, right before Bug was getting in the water (for backstroke this time), they called the meet.  It was almost 9 by this point and the logical parent side of me was glad so Peanut could go to bed, but the rest of me just really wanted to see how much their other times had gone down since last year.  They both shaved some time off their freestyle and their strokes are looking really good this year.  Bug no longer wiggles back and forth while he swims :)  We'll get the official times tomorrow at practice.