Swim Team

Collin will be on the swim team for the neighborhood this summer.  Yesterday, he had to swim a lap across the pool....and he did it.  He actually used his arms most of the way and swam better than I thought he would.  After he finished, he waited at the end of the pool for his friends, Saige, Linden and Clayton to swim their lap.  Even if he did not want to swim, he was having fun because his buddies where there. 

Collin after swimming his lap

Collin, Saige and Linden waiting for Clayton

There's Clayton!  He made it

Collin started swim team swim camp today which lasts for two weeks.  We were not sure what camp would entail.  Today, he swam a lap, twice, while the instructor gave him feedback while swimming.  So, during the 30 minutes, he swam in the freezing water twice and talked with his friends.  He had a good time, got a High 5 twice from the instructor and hung out with his friends.

Here he is swimming his second lap steadily to the end of the pool.  That's his buddy, Brody, waiting for Collin at the end of the pool.  Great job Collin!

Baseball Team Pictures

It's usually chaos when it's time for team pictures.  This afternoon, it was a lot more organized.  Also, the boys must have been tired from practice a few hours earlier because they were not pushing and picking on each other like they usually do.  They lined up like the photographer asked and followed the rules.  She asked each boy to walk up and hold the bat like they were standing at home plate ready to hit the ball.  Collin did what she asked when it was his turn.  She asked him to smile and I could tell he was confused by this because he does not smile when he is at home plate ready to hit.  Why does he have to smile?  He figured out that she wanted to take his picture and this is what we got:

Here are the boys lined up waiting their turn.  It did not take that long to go through all of the boys.

Collin is third in line...not counting Tyler that is sitting on the ground

Next, we went outside to take the team picture.  The shorter boys were in front and the taller ones were in back.  It took a few tries for the boys to figure out that they needed to have one knee down and hold their hand on that knee.  I like how you can see the wrist bands on Collin's hand placed on his knee.  These were from Sky High and the animal farm we went to yesterday.  I wonder how long these will last?

Collin is on the front row, second from the end

Here is his serious look

Walking back to the car, Collin and William played and pushed each other around.  What 6 year old can just walk to the car without touching anything, being quiet and walk quickly?  Yep, not these boys.  They found out when they fell to the ground, they got cockle burs all over them....and this started the "fake" falling so that more stuck to their clothes.....and it took forever to get to the car.  Glad we were not in a hurry.

Baseball and a birthday party

Collin had his second to last early Saturday baseball game....yeah!!!  Although, the early morning has not been tough on him the past few days because he is getting up earlier than usual because "I'm not tired anymore".  I hope this is just a phase because I did look forward to the weekends when he would sleep in past 8:30am.  He's waking up around 6:30am which is not too bad....it could be worse.

We arrived early for the 9am game to warm up with the rest of the team.  He was exited about going which does help him get ready and moving in the morning.  After a quick stop for some caffeine for Mommy and Daddy, we headed to the baseball fields.  Collin was excited about hitting and even did not fuss about fielding the ball.  During the game, he got a hit each time he was at bat and at lease one RBI.  He did great in the field, too, backing up 2nd baseman and stopping a ball from going to the fence.  Great, action-packed game, but they did end up losing by 1 point.  Their fielding was not as good as it can be so they gave up a few runs in the very last inning.  I am sure they were getting tired and ready for a snack.  I did not get any pictures from this game because I was score keeper.

One of the three times he was on 1st base

Very important part of the game....or post-game....snacks!!!

After the game, we headed to a birthday party on the other side of town for a co-worker's little girl.  She was turning 4.  Even though Collin is interested in "older women", we went because there were going to be lots of animals.  Seeing how much fun he had at the rodeo, I thought he might enjoy this part.  When we arrived, he immediately saw the animals and was more excited about the party than he was when we left the baseball fields.

What was great about this party was he could walk into the animal cages and pet the animals.  He really liked the goats because they were active, friendly, soft...and started to eat his shorts.  He thought that was really funny.  He thought the noises the large pigs made was really funny and started to copy them.  He got to ride a pony and thought that was fun.

Deer walking around freely

"That's a fat pig Mommy"

Because the other kids with the party wanted to ride the train going around the park, he wanted to also but he wanted to me ride with him.  I was really tired and did not want to smell the gas from the train so I talked him into riding with one of the girls from the party.  He was not happy but I thought he would forget about this once the train started.  When I saw his face when they were coming back to the train depot, I could tell that he did NOT forget....that pouty face was WAY too cute.

Not smiling....

...still not smiling...

....and now he looks bored!

After playing on one of the several playgrounds, he found the large dirt pile and played on this until we had to leave.  The pile was massive and it really did look like a lot of fun.  Even though we did not have a change of clothes and I knew he was going to get really dirty, I let him play because I knew he wanted to and knew he would have a lot of fun.....which he did.  When it was time to go, I cleaned him up as much as I could but there were still plenty of dirt on him based on the dirt left on the car seat and the car.  Plus, when we took his shoes off when he got home, there was enough dirt in his shoes to fill up at least one shoe.

I thought for sure he would be exhausted from the baseball game and playing at the party for over 2 hours.  He was not interested in a nap and lasted until 9:30pm that night.  Mommy, on the other hand was really tired and was really hoping he would take a nap.  Oh well....I am used to my energetic little boy.

Happy Easter!

What a great day spent with family and friends.  Brody spent the night with Collin last night.  They boys got up this morning quietly and went into the other room to ply Wii for almost an hour before asking for breakfast.  We knew that we were having brunch with Grandma H in a little over an hour so I did not feed Collin much wanting him to eat when we went out.  At 10:15am, Grandma H met us at the house and we left to have brunch at a local, new restaurant.  We sat outside to enjoy the nice weather and good food.

We came home to clean the house and get ready for the Harrises, Mimi and Pappy to come over to swim and have dinner.  We had a great time swimming for 2 hours before having dinner.  At first, Leah did not want to get in the water very far.  She held tightly onto Paul even though she had floaties on.  She got in the water the last time she was over so we were surprised that she was fearful this time.  Eventually, she swam further and further out until she was even jumping off the rocks into Paul's arms because the big kids were jumping.  Burke did not know what to do with all of the people in the pool.  He ran around and around the pool a few times.  The boys thought it would be fun to shoot Burke with the water guns.  Burke tried eating the water and seemed to have fun so we did not stop the boys from doing this. 

Brave Leah hanging off the side of the first big step

Throwing the sinkers to the big kids for them to find at the bottom of the pool

The boys having fun on the float

The parents enjoying the afternoon especially because they do not have to get into the pool

Burke getting shoot with the water guns

Burke escaping the boys

Eating the water from the water guns

Leah playing with Mimi

Cannonball!

Yeah Leah!  She jumped to Daddy!

Does he think he can soot me from that far?

Daddy grilled burgers, hot dogs (and salmon for me) while Aunt Lisa got the sides, queso and other food ready for the family.  We had a fantastic meal sitting at the dinning room table talking and listening to the kids.

While cleaning up the food and packing up to go home, the kids went outside and found the rest of the eggs left from the hunt yesterday that were not found.  They found another 23 eggs.  Lisa was so proud of the four she found, Timmy counted the seven he had and Collin found the remainder.



Mimi and her family

Annual Easter Egg Hunt

Like we have done in prior years, we had an Easter egg hunt on the block.  The bunnies hid the eggs while Daddy had a lot of the kids in the house watching a movie or playing.  Instead of stuffing every egg and wondering if the kid that found the egg was allowed to eat what was inside or allergic to it, plus, it's quicker not to stuff them, the eggs were empty and each kid got a bag stuffed with treats at the end.  The REALLY liked this.

After giving instructions to the kids about which yard had the eggs and the big kids letting the little ones find the obvious ones on the ground, the 14 kids took off looking for eggs. 

And their off....to grab the eggs they were all looking at when they really tried hard to listen to the instructions

Soccer buddies Brody and Collin

Collin with his eye on another egg

After the hunt, we had BBQ and sat in the street while the kids played for over 2 1/2 hours.  I LOVED this time with my neighbors.

 

Comparing prizes with each other

Collected the eggs for next year's hunt

Buddies

I would have thought Collin would not have made it another hour based on how tired he was in this picture

The boys acting crazy and like old men because they had pretend mustaches on

 When it was getting dark, Collin, Brody (who was spending the night with us), Saige and Linden came over for a night swim. This was perfect because the boys were really sweaty from running around so the pool would "clean"the sweat off of them. They swam for over an hour until one of the kids started getting tired.

Cheering Section

I competed in my first full triathlon this morning since being diagnosed with breast cancer.  Before a test swim last week, I had not been in the pool since December 2012.  I had no expectations about the race other than getting out there, racing with friends and having a good time.  It was a super sprint (200 meter swim, 8 mi bike and 2 mi run) so I knew I would be finished in less than an hour.  I had planned to ride with my race buddy, Bonnie, thinking the boys would want to sleep in.  Daddy surprised me when he said that he and Collin planned to watch me race.  I was really excited to hear this and was happy knowing they would be there to cheer me through the race.  Since it was a pool swim, I also knew they would be able to watch me swim the entire time and yell out to me if  I needed it.

Watching me race did mean that we had to get up at 4:30am to leave by 5am.  Collin was all for going to the race until the morning when we woke him up. NOT a happy little boy.  He did sleep on the way there.  I got a big kiss from him before I lined up at the pool.

Because it was 58 degrees outside, the pool was FREEZING when I jumped in.  It took my breath away and made me swallow some water.  Not off to a great start.  I knew that the swim would be over in less than 6 minutes so I just needed to get through it.  I did hear Daddy yell out to me a few times which did really help.  He and Collin were sitting at the end were the swimmers were getting out.  I could not wait to see my smiling family when I got out of the water.  Collin was there to tell me "Good job Mommy" as I got out and ran to get my bike.  The ride was cold because of the cold air and being wet from the pool.  Less that 28 minutes later, I was running.  The run was different than other triathlons because they periodically threw color powder on you which temporarily colored your skin and clothes. 

At the finish line, I could see Daddy and Collin waiting as the runners crossed.  I was handed a medal and immediately put it around Collin's head.  He really liked that and then noticed all of the color on me.  He gave me several hugs.  I thought he was happy to see me but found out that he was trying to get the color all over him which he succeeded in doing.  He got some all over his fast too.  He thought this was fun and wanted to take some pictures.

So happy about the green on his face

He knows what to do when he gets a medal

While we were waiting for the awards to be announced, he wanted to play with the dogs in the dog park.  He told me several times that he missed Burke and wished we had brought him to play.  I told him that would have been a great idea and that it was his job to remind us to do this next time.

I looked at the posted times for the race and did not noticed my name at all in my age group.  I saw Bonnie's and she placed second in the same age group.  I know I came in several minutes before her and wondered what happened to my name.  Fearing that they did not get my time at all, I let the race director know.  He said that he had me down as a male, umm....not close to a male at all....hahaha....and made the change.  He reprinted the times and I still did not see my name.  He showed me I was looking in the wrong place.  I did not place first in my age group.  I actually placed first out of all of the 40 and older women racers.  This meant that I was the Female Masters winner.  Oh my gosh!!!  I had never done this before and never thought to look at the top of the list for my name.  Wow!!!  I was not expecting to place during the race and was estatic to have this memory as for the first race back after cancer.  Love it!

Glad to be out of the freezing water

Finally finished.  Love quick races like this.

Still in shock being on the podium all by myself

The Club crew out this morning.  Loved having Collin in the picture with us.

A Boy and His Donut Holes

I know I have written before about Collin's love for donut holes.  This started several years ago and continues to this day.  At least once or twice a week, he asks about getting donuts which means getting two backs of donut holes (6 holes in each bag), one chocolate iced donut and either regular or chocolate milk.  Depending on where we go, the people at the donut place recognize his love of donut holes and give him a few extras.

We went yesterday morning before dropping my car off to get inspectd.  On the way to the car inspection place, he asked for my phone.  Later, I found these pictures:

He had shown me the donut hole in the first picture and was so excited about how big it was.  I guess he wanted to remember that yummy donut hole with a picture.  He has already looked at it several times since he took it.  I guess I will not be able to delete it from my phone anytime soon.  How can I anyway?  Just knowing the story behind it puts a smile on my face.