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.  

Snow play

Eric's favorite snow activity has always been having snowball fights.  So yesterday morning, he and I went outside to have a fight.

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  

The start of his snowball stash.  

My stash.

He decided Pie in the Face would be his snowball of choice.  

RUN!!!!!

My one snow

I love having one good snow a year.  One snow.  Powdery, fun to play in, beautiful.  We got snow yesterday, and it was wonderful!  They were the biggest flakes I had ever seen.

I saw it starting in the afternoon while we were doing school.  We immediately ran downstairs and went outside.  

Eric immediately began catching snowflakes on his tongue.  These were easy to catch.  So huge!

Eric said my hair looked just like Elsa's, so he took a picture to show me.  

About three hours later, here was our winter wonderland.  Sigh.  I love it!!!!