City Swim Meet - Preliminaries 7/31/10

Today was the preliminaries at the City Swim Meet for the 8 & under division and the 9 & 10 year old division. Between yesterday and today, there were over 2,200 kids competing at the City Meet! That's a lot of swimmers!!! If you finish in the top 16 in your event, you get to come back and swim in the finals on Sunday. The top 8 from prelims compete for 1st-8th place, and the 2nd 8 from prelims compete for 9th-16th place. Rachel made the top 8 in all three of her individual events, and the top 16 in her relay event (which she was swimming up in the 9 & 10 year old division!)!!!!! She finished 2nd in backstroke, 4th in butterfly, 7th in freestyle, and 12th in the co-ed freestyle relay! So she gets to compete in the finals in all of her events!! So proud of her!

These are the kids on our team who competed today in the 8 & under age group, and the 9 & 10 year old age group. Go Tarpons!

Swim Team Pictures

Last night was the last night of a full team practice, so they gathered everyone together for a few team photos. This is most of our team - there are a few kids missing from the photo, but just about 5 kids.

This week-end is the big end of the season city swim meet. It's held at UT's Aquatic Center and has a couple thousand kids swimming! Today all the 11 & older kids swam, and tomorrow all the 10 & under kids swim. Then Sunday is the finals: everyone who finished in the top 16 of their event comes back to determine their final places. The top 8 swim to determine 1st thru 8th place, and the next 8 swim to determine 9th - 16th place. Rachel has a chance to finish in the top 16 in all four of her events, but it will be tough! She's seeded 1st in backstroke (out of 189), 5th in butterfly (out of 49), and 10th in freestyle (out of 245). Her co-ed freestyle relay team is seeded 14th (out of 41). She swims in the 8 & under division, but since our team doesn't have enough 8 & under kids to make a relay team, she's swimming up in the 9 & 10 year old division for the co-ed freestyle relay.

It should be a fun week-end! Please pray for safety and for Rachel's nervousness. She's been really nervous before swim meets this year and we're trying to find ways to calm her nerves. Hopefully she'll be just fine!

Celebrating Mamaw's Birthday

Mom's birthday was the 21st, so we celebrated last week-end. Here are a few pictures of the girls helping Mamaw open her gifts and read her cards.

Future Lady Vol at Practice

Katelyn has decided she really wants to work on her basketball skills. She said she wanted to practice at least one hour each day. The first two days she made it an hour a day. But then the temps got up to near 100 and we spent more & more time at the pool, so she hasn't made it an hour each day. But she has been working at it. She's gotten much stronger since basketball season finished!

Fun at Mamaw & Papaw's House

This summer we have spent a lot of time over at Mamaw & Papaw's house swimming and playing. For Papaw's birthday we got him a corn hole set, so we've been playing quite a bit of that. Robert & I found a pickleball set on clearance, so we played that one day in their driveway. I think everyone played, but I didn't get pictures of everyone. I think I was in the pool cooling off by the time that Lloyd & Wendy got there. I've posted several pictures of Rachel from her swim meets and triathlons, so I thought I'd get some pictures of Katelyn swimming too. I've put together a slideshow of some of the fun at Mamaw & Papaw's house. Here are some things to look for in the slideshow:

1. Katelyn's outfit for playing pickleball - she has on her bathing suit with socks & shoes and her googles on top of her head!!
2. Rachel's jumping, spread eagle pose when the ball is on the ground!
3. Katelyn's use of goggles - she has two pair in her HAND when jumping off the diving board instead of actually wearing a pair!!

Swim Meet: 7/20/10

Last Tuesday night Rachel had her last league swim meet of the season. Rachel did well and came home with 5 first place finishes! Rachel swam a personal best in the butterfly and was thrilled! Now we're just getting ready for the BIG City Meet held at UT this coming week-end.

Rachel after finishing one of her events

This is the smile I got when she finished her butterfly and heard her time!

Rachel and some of her teammates

Rachel and Elise

Katelyn and Zoe - they're the little sisters that hang out at the meets

Oak Ridge Triathlon

Rachel competed in a kids triathlon held in Oak Ridge this morning. It consisted of a 200m swim, 2 mile bike ride, and 1 mile run. It was a hot & humid morning, but Rachel did great! She finished 2nd in her division (7-8 year old girls)!!! A couple of her friends from swim team also competed. Madison won 3rd place in the 7-8 year old girls division, and Logan won 2nd place in the 9-10 year old girls division! Way to go girls!! It was a fun morning! Rachel's already looking forward to competing in more triathlons next year!!!

Fun at the Pool with Friends

I took the girls and Lily & Holly to Mom & Dad's this afternoon to swim. Mom & Dad's neighbor/friend (Nancy) also came over with her daughter (Melanie) & 3 kids (Anna Grace, Clay, and Kenlee Hope) and daughter-in-law (April) and kid (Kyndal). We all had lots of fun in the pool!

Here's a picture of all the kids. From left to right starting on the top are: Holly, Lily, Anna Grace, Clay, Katelyn, Rachel, Kyndal, and Kenlee Hope.


We had to get some silly faces too!

Katelyn & Kyndal showing off their matching swimsuits. It's hard to tell that Katelyn is 7 and Kyndal is 3!

Lily, Holly, Katelyn, & Rachel

Awards Ceremony for SMI Swim Meet

Tonight at swim practice they had a little awards ceremony to recognize those swimmers who had placed in the top 12 in their events. If you finished in the top 12, you earned points for your team. Our team earned 166 points and finished first in our league!!! Rachel finished in the top 12 in all of her events! She finished 1st in backstroke, 4th in butterfly, 6th in freestyle, and 6th in the individual medley. She earned 45 points for her team! And she is the only girl to ever win 1st place in an event at SMI for our team! If you finish in the top three places, you get a medal. If you finish in 4th - 12th place, you get a ribbon. So tonight Rachel was awarded a medal and 3 ribbons. One of Rachel's teammates, Dylan, also finished in the top 12 in all of his events. Rachel & Dylan were the top point earners for our team!


This is Dylan & Rachel showing off their medals!




This is the team manager announcing that Rachel and Dylan were the top point earners for the team!

Swim Meet: 7/13/10

Tuesday night we had another swim meet. This time it was against Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge. Our team did awesome and finished with another win!!! Rachel did awesome as well! She finished first in all five of her events!!! Way to go Rachel!!! We have one more league meet and then we'll finish the season with the GKAISA City Meet which is held at UT's aquatic center!!!

Smoky Mountain Swim Meet

Today was a HUGE swim meet! I think it is the largest outdoor swim meet in the south. Regardless, it's big! Each swimmer is allowed to compete in up to 4 events. The top 12 swimmers from each event earn points for their team. Rachel's four events were the 100 yard individual medley (IM), the 25 yard freestyle, the 25 yard backstroke, and the 25 yard butterfly. Rachel competes in the 8 & under girls division. She rocked today!!! She started out with the 100 yard IM. She had some major nervous issues, but fought through and finished and ended up in 6th place earning 9 points for her team! She then swam in the 25 freestyle. There were over 160 girls swimming in her division, and Rachel ended up in 6th place, earning another 9 points for her team!!! Next up was the 25 backstroke. Rachel has been working on her start and finish for this stroke. All that work paid off because she finished in 1st place out of over 140 girls and earned 16 points for her team!!! Last up was the 25 butterfly. She had a bad start off the blocks, but she still managed to end up winning 4th place and earning another 11 points for her team!! She swam personal best times in the freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly! Altogether, she earned 45 points for her team!!! To put that number into perspective, last year her entire team (all boys & girls from ages 6 to 18) only scored 57.5 points for the entire meet! This year Rachel herself scored 45 points for her team! There were some others on her team who really swam hard yesterday and today and earned points for the team!! I'm not sure of the exact total team score yet, but I think we ended up with over 150 points this year! Way to go team!!! So proud of Rachel and all the other swimmers!!!

Fall Creek Falls 2010

Last week we were able to spend a few days at Fall Creek Falls with some of Robert's family. The girls always love going there and being with everyone. This year we went up for a few days, came home for a couple of days, and then went back for another 2 days/1 night. When we asked the girls what they wanted to do when we went back the second time, they said they just wanted to spend time with their family! We had lots of fun! We hiked, biked, swam, and played tennis. We also had lots of fun playing Minute to Win It and Just Dance! Thanks to Beth for coming up with the Minute to Win It games and to Steve, Connie, Brittany, & Kayla for bringing their Wii.

Sunflower

Towards the end of school, Rachel & her classmates planted sunflowers. It was just a seed in a cup. When she brought it home it had sprouted, but it was just tiny. We kept it in the kitchen window for a couple of weeks, but it quickly got too big for that, so we bought a bigger pot and put it outside on the patio. Now look at it! It's taller than Rachel and it has bloomed!!! It bloomed for the first time yesterday morning, and as you can see, it has a second bloom ready to open up!

Tooth #14 for Rachel

Rachel has had a tooth loose for a little while, but I didn't realize it was ready to come out! Thursday evening she was finishing supper and I was upstairs getting her stuff ready for swim practice when she came running upstairs holding a kleenex up to her mouth and she was grinning! She had bitten into something and it made her tooth super loose and then she just pulled it! So that makes the 14th tooth she had lost.