Selfies

I was looking back through my phone for a picture and found these selfies.  E has never done this before, but aren't they too cute!

What's really funny  is he set the camera to take a ton of pictures, so when I look through them quickly, I can see Gizmo's head slowly pop up and then slowly go back down.  Too cute!  He loves his dog buddies.  

First game rocked!

The Cobras played their first game today.  (They voted on the name last night.  Cobras was Eric's suggestion.  They chose it.)  They did awesome!  I got ZERO pictures.  Too busy being Team Mom and cheering for my boy.  Eric played the whole game.  Final score was 4-0.  For a team that has never played together, I thought they did excellent!

E made the newsletter

There is a newsletter for our swim team of 800 kids.  Eric made the newsletter.  Twice.

He is listed as one who made it into the top three.  He is also listed at the bottom as a Swimmer of the Meet.  

Uniform cuteness

Eric got a new uniform shirt.  He has worn the maroon long sleeve one every week.  Sure looks different in the navy.  He is such a cutie pie!

Here's Eric getting some loving from Gizmo last week in his old uniform.  Guess we will put that shirt away for next year.  

Another Lego library day

Yesterday was also Lego day at the Library.  This year they were to do something egg or spring related.  Eric made an Easter egg hunt.

The stack next to him is his latest library check out stack.  He has several robotics books in there.  Ever since Dexter came, he has been reading lots of books on robots.  

Back at soccer

Soccer was supposed to start 2 weeks ago.  Unfortunately due to snow, ice, and rain, every practice and game so far has been cancelled.  We have a whole new team with a new coach.  I was really hoping to have the same coach and several of the same kids.  But, that is not what happened.  Eric's first practice is supposed to be this Wednesday (assuming it doesn't get cancelled again), but he will not be going to the Wednesday practices.  We wanted to get him on the field for some practice time, and yesterday was absolutely gorgeous here, so we took a family trip to the fields.

Is he not the cutest soccer player ever!?!?!  Love this fella.  These are his new soccer goggles.  His prescription has changed twice since we bought the old pair, so it was time for a change.  We splurged and went for the transition lenses.  This will help him a lot out there on the fields.  

I played some, but Robert and Eric played the most.  That way I could get some pictures.  All fall when we did this, I never got pictures.  I was too busy trying to beat this kid at soccer!  We went every weekday, so Robert never got to see us play.  We showed him all our drills.  Then they played the game we play.  

After we had been there an hour and a half, Eric's coach showed up to practice with his son.  Eric practiced with them for another half hour.  Then we thought 2 hours was long enough and called it a day.  The coach told us he is going to work on putting them all in as goalie.  Goalie is absolutely not the place for Eric.  He is a thinker, not a reactor.  But, he can try it.  We are looking forward to the season finally starting.  It is crazy to think Eric will only have one practice before his first game.  

Super Reader

There is a program through Six Flags where you report what you read and can earn a free ticket.  I was figuring up what Eric has read this school year.  Since mid-September he has read 20,122 pages. He records books that he reads for pleasure,  None of his school books, Bible readings, or magazines get recorded.   He is going to have to slow down.  I can't keep up with him.

Meet Awards

Today at swim we had a fun surprise.  Coach Penny gathered all the kids together and then gave out the awards from the weekend meet.

Eric was clueless.  He is the one in the green cap near the back of the group.  

She pointed out which kids had participated in the meet.  And talked about how they had each performed.  Then she handed out their ribbons.  

He was shocked when she singled him out to hand him his trophy for getting 3rd in backstroke.  She was very excited about his award.  He was the only one that participated from this group to place in the top 3.  I love that in the above picture you can see the other kids cheering for him.  It is a very supportive group.  

One excited boy!  He got a trophy for the 3rd place finish and a ribbon for the 6th in breaststroke. 

Swim Meet

Eric had his first swim meet in GA this weekend.  He rocked it!  Here we don't get to choose what we enter.  His coach chooses.  She entered him in the 200 yard Freestyle, 50 yard Freestyle, 100 yard Backstroke, 100 yard Breaststroke, and 50 yard Butterfly.  I was pretty nervous about the 200.  That is a long swim.  I knew he was capable, but knew it would be super hard.  Boy was I right.  I thought he was going to collapse after that 200.  But he was super proud of himself when he realized he came in 9th.  He got a snack and a drink, and then was pumped to finish the meet.  He was so happy with how he did on the rest of the swims.  I think he thought he had not done well in the 200 because his time was 3:00.88.  He felt like that was too long.  It was great!  He just isn't used to racing for that long.

E can really no longer see without his prescription goggles.  Problem is, they are just not as good at staying on when you dive in.  Typically we have worn regular goggles to meets and just dealt with it.  However, we tried something new today, and it seemed to work great.  He wore two caps.  One under his goggles to hold them in place, and then one above his goggles and slightly over the front of the lenses.  He didn't have any trouble with them, and he could see.  Those caps are tight, so he had a lot of pressure on his head, but he liked this better.  (Isn't he a cutie?)

His second race was the 100 backstroke.  He of course did great in that.  It has always been his best stroke.  He came in 3rd and got a state qualifying time of 1:29.23.  Unfortunately, the state competition was last month, so he can no longer qualify for it.  But it felt good to know he got a state time.  

His third race was the 50 fly.  He came in 10th in fly with 46.62.  His fly looked great!  It has always been his hardest stroke, but he is getting much stronger and better at it.  

Fourth race was the 100 yard breast.  He came in 6th with a time of 1:47.87.  

Last race was 50 free.  He got 12th place with a time of 38.52.  

So, so proud of this kiddo.  He had a great meet.  

We took him to his new favorite restaurant, Panda Express, to celebrate.  At this meet your coach gave you beads for each race that you got your best time.  Since Eric had no previous times here, all of his times were best times.  So, he got 5 necklaces.  

Dryland

Several people have asked me what dryland is.  Dryland is a big part of Eric's swim training now.  It is the strength, endurance, and stretching exercises that they do after practice.  Most days they swim for an hour and fifteen minutes, and then have thirty minutes of dryland.   On Wednesdays, they do only dryland.  His dryland coach is amazing!  We love her!  She makes it fun and is encouraging.

Wednesday was beautiful here this week.  74 degrees, nice breeze, gorgeous!  So they had a wonderful outdoor dryland.


They usually do circuits.  This particularly day they ran around the field and up and around the park, then back down.  Then they did 50 jump ropes.  Then 5 push ups, 5 sit ups, and 5 burpees.  Then a shuttle run.  They did that 5 times.

Afterward they played a game of crab soccer, which the kids loved!  If your number was called, you had to crab walk out and try to score a point for your team by kicking the ball out another team's side.  The rest of your teammates, quickly go to their knees and try to defend the side.  

Eric scored with the above kick.  :) 

I love the picture above and below.  Wednesday was a hard day with the death of his fish.   I had offered to keep him home Wednesday since I knew he was feeling down, but he wanted to go.  So glad we did.   I loved seeing him laugh and smile.

Sad

Molly died.  Eric is heartbroken.  Molly was our favorite fish.  She was active and social and fun to watch.  He feels very responsible for her death.  It is sad.

Water Cycle

Eric has been studying the water cycle for Earth Science, so today, we made a water cycle in a bottle. 

 

Purim

Yesterday we went to a Jewish celebration of Purim.  There was a two hour play about Esther, a parade of costumes, and some snacks.  We loved booing every time Haman's name was said.

For the offering for the poor, we took canned goods and a monetary donation.  

We got to try some Hamentashen as well.  Not bad.