School began in our area today, which means summer is over. Except the weather doesn’t know that. We’re at the beginning of a 90+ week, while we’ve had about three 90+ days in the last year or so. I’m not complaining about a lack of 90 degrees, because me and heat don’t really get along. But it is a bummer when the weather gets hot and kids want to swim and instead they have to sit in classrooms while the community pool closes for its annual maintenance.
We went out into the heat of the day today and finally took some official 10-year-old-pics of Ethan (2 weeks late). Ten. Years. Old. Double-digits. I just can’t think about it too much or…or I start feeling really old. And we can’t have that, can we?! I thought it might be fun to look back on some little Ethan…
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
I couldn’t procrastinate any longer on taking his photos because tomorrow he’s going to the dentist and getting a bottom tooth pulled. It’s wedged in there and causing things to shift too much, so out it comes. I’m hoping this experience does not cause too much trauma. We’re not officially starting school until next week, and swim practice doesn’t start up until the 19th, so we’ve got time to recover.
Speaking of school…we are joining a local group of Classical Conversations this year. CC is a nation-wide program that offers homeschoolers a structured, classical approach to homeschooling while meeting once a week with others who are using the same curriculum. It should be a challenging, full year!
Fall baseball is back in swing, school starts next week, swimming starts the week after that…maybe it will feel more like fall by then. As much as I like summer, fall is still my favorite!
The weekend brought us summer weather, a visit with friends, a swim meet. That’s the short story. The longer version includes fun, relaxation, hospitality, good food, outdoor time, encouragement, baby snuggles, laughter, sunshine, dining al fresco, boys-n-dirt, giant marshmallows, fast swimming, charcoal face paint, nerf dart-tag, conversation. Thank you, Scovel family, for giving so generously!
PS – The picture of Ethan in his hat and robe was taken by 7-yr-old Luke S. (with my camera) at the swim meet. I loved the expression he captured!
Over the weekend, we planted a couple new trees in our yard… Newport Flowering Plum and an Autumn Blaze Maple. They were $8 each from a local nursery (Amos Rich Nurseries) that sells their bare root trees at this price every April. They are probably nine feet tall, so I think it was a great deal! I’m excited to have a flowering tree to photograph (see upper right and middle photos). The other photos are just some colors and textures I found around the yard. Spring is here (despite my fall-ish blog header)!
My blog seems to have turned into a swimming report lately, but for family/friends who don’t live here, this is a way to share!
Last weekend, we attended the Northwest Age Group Regional Championships in Washington at this impressive facility.
This meet brings together the fastest kids from seven states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming. Ethan had qualified for three races in the 10&Under category: 50 fly, 200 medley relay, 200 free relay. His 50 fly didn’t go quite as well as he’d hoped, but he was only .5 second off his best time. His free relay team was ranked 4th going in, but they pulled out a very secure 2nd place finish and dropped 3 more seconds off their team record for a final time of 2:00.80! It was a very exciting race! Ethan had his best time ever for his 3rd leg of that relay. And he also had his best time ever for his 3rd leg of the medley relay which happens to be a 50 fly. His team was ranked 1st going in to this race, so there was some pressure to maintain that placement. But they made it look easy and dropped 3 more seconds off that team record, too, to end at 2:14.67! Wow! It was thrilling to see them get gold and silver medals in such stiff competition.
You can watch it, if you’d like. They are in lane 4 (see the lane numbers on the starting blocks). Each leg is 50 yards long and they go in this order: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, free. Ethan is the third swimmer.
Ethan participated in his first 3-day swim meet over the long weekend. A major highlight of the event was watching him and three teammates win both the 200 yd medley relay and the 200 yd free relay and set two new team records in the process.
This morning, when I went to pull Ethan out of bed, he said, “I feel like a loaf of bread and part of me needs to be cut off.” Hmm…what? I think that was his way of saying three days of swimming makes him t.i.r.e.d.
Anyone else tried these, especially mixed with Almond and/or Plain? Not exactly New Year resolution friendly, but…I likey.
Our 2011 started off with a bang. Actually it was more like a grinding halt…to our furnace anyway. No central heat for six days and I felt like a wimp. We were able to camp out at the in-laws’ for four nights, which was a huge blessing, because it was 43 in my bathroom. Brrr!!! Now we have a new, efficient, much quieter furnace, and AC for the summer! Woohoo!
A year ago, I had probably completed two or three books since Jan 1 and had begun writing my monthly reading round-up posts. I believe my last one of those was written for May. (Just checked…yup…May.) And now for a pathetic revelation…I finished 12 books (for myself, not including any I read to Ethan) from Jan-May of 2010, and just one book from June-Dec of 2010. In June, I read Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice. I had seen the movie a couple times and really enjoyed it, and now I can say I really enjoyed the book. The only consolation I can take from my very poor reading habits during the latter part of 2010 is that my monthly average for the year still turned out to be a teensy bit more than one!
The second half of 2010 was mostly consumed with travel and family. I tended to crawl in bed at night, check for news on my ipod and not be able to keep my eyes open any longer to read any books. The year seemed to speed up and we barely got our Christmas tree up in time for Christmas. A second year in a row went by without sending Christmas cards/letters/pictures. I had pretty much let go of that idea at the beginning of Dec and then I was able to proceed through the holidays without too much guilt. Amazing what a proactive “No” can do!
I have goals and dreams for this year, and some of them include just playing catch-up with last year! I still have pictures to process and albums to make and home projects to finish. And I hope I can get those things done. But I also hope I can connect with friends and family more, be more relaxed, have more fun, listen better, and really live.
