City Meet.

Spent yesterday at the Horsetooth Summer Swim League City Meet. All of Noah's other meets this summer have been just two team meets. This one had 18 teams. They split it up into two days by age, though, which meant we were only there yesterday for 6.5 hours. ;) Fortunately, we were able to snag a decent spot and had a nice little set up:

Yes, that sportsbrella has been a fabulous investment. ;) Both Asher and Micah ended up reading a few books while we were there, Nathan and I got some reading done as well, games were played, and thanks in part to the spray bottles I bought Friday, we managed not to melt. (Honestly, the time passed better than we'd been anticipating...which was a welcome surprise.)

Noah swam in four events and had personal bests in pretty much all of them. First, he did the breast stroke leg of the 200 yard medley relay (his team took second in their heat)...then 50 yard individual back stroke (where he took second in his heat)...then (2-3 hours later, lol) the 50 yard individual breast stroke (he finished first in his heat and improved on his personal best by 6 seconds)...and finally (another hour or two later) the 200 yard freestyle relay (his team finished fourth in their heat (and you could tell they were tired by this point in the meet, as it was almost the last event)). Whew.

Here's his start for the individual breast stroke:

Noah's in the black and red trunks (no swim cap...just beyond the boy in the green swim cap). 

And thus ends our summer swim team experience...this year... :) 

The past week...

One week ago today...the same day as the swim meet I mentioned...we had this:

Pretty much a repeat of the hail storm we had about a month before that, though the first storm was at night and lasted longer:

Yes, that's hail forming a river in the street in front of our house. Lovely. :) Very glad to have a garage after seeing the hail damage on cars around town. (And, yes, we had some roof damage. We're still sorting that out.)

Anyhow, back to this past week...last Saturday, then, the boys ran their third fun run in the Healthy Kids series:

As it turns out, the run was a bit less than a full mile (roughly 0.7 miles by our estimates when we drove the course later since our guys wanted to know)...but Micah was still darn proud of his time; they all were. ;) We then went home to tackle dreaded yard work, watch some World Cup soccer and play a new board game.

Sunday, I got to hang out with a friend and play (eat, shop, chat...woohoo!) while Nathan and the boys spent some boy time together. Later that night, we watched the Women's World Cup final that we'd recorded earlier...awesome game! 

Yesterday, the boys and I finished our grammar curriculum for the school year. Yay! (We still try to stick to the three weeks on, one week off...we're in the middle of the second week of this session and then should have three more weeks in August. But. We recently decided to try to finish out what we have left all by the end of this three week session so that we can take August completely off. We've been going through just one subject at a time to try to accomplish this. So far, so good!)

And, then, this morning, Noah had another swim meet:

He has just one more this coming Saturday and then the summer swim team will be over. We're probably going to sign up for the school year swim team...that'll start in September. :)

And that was our past week. ;)

Cool!!

So. Ormolu's having a GIVEAWAY and it's awesome! Definitely check that out, okay? You need to leave your comment on the Ormolu blog by Wednesday at 7 pm (MST) so get over there!

Also, forgive me, I'm a bit behind this month. ;) Creative team projects have been up here and here so be sure to join me in appreciating the fabulous creativity going on!

Quote #29.

Still Monday... ;) Here's this week's quote:

The person attempting to travel two roads at once will get nowhere. – Xun Zi

Yup. Multi-tasking is all good and well. And I happen to be pretty darn decent at it most of the time. Of late, though, I’m reminded that sometimes it works best to just tackle one thing at a time. It’s less overwhelming. ;) 

I suppose another way to look at this quote would be to recognize that you can't have it both ways. As someone with a legal background, though, I find that I often look at and can relate to both sides of a story/issue. So. We'll just go with my first thought for now and hope that this week is a productive one, eh?

Our morning...

Here's how we spent this fine Wednesday morning:

Okay. Technically, this is how *Noah* spent this fine Wednesday morning. Asher, Micah and I spent it sitting and watching the swim meet. :) We were at the pool a little over 4 hours. Thankfully, the first third or so of the meet was overcast. Thankfully, too, there was a large umbrella available during the rest of the meet. Still, though, we were hot (we'd dressed for the overcast, in lieu of the thunderstorms of last night). And the boys can only take so many games of Countdown and playing on the iPhone. Regardless, I'm so happy with this swim team experience. Noah's really enjoying it and gaining independence and a willingness to try new things (for instance, today he competed in the freestyle relay, even though he doesn't really like freestyle). I think, too, that he appreciates having something that's "his." 

If, though, by chance, you have any ideas on ways to pass the time during a swim meet...I'd dearly love to hear 'em. :)