Swimming Videos

So, we aren't sure if she will continue on with swim or not. She turns 13 soon and will age up, meaning her time standards are faster again. And between having basketball and track at the school she is quite busy. She is sad to think she might be done with competitive swimming as it has been a huge part of her life for 6 years. Who knows, she might still fit it in. She loves to swim.






This top video is at a home swim meet at the Frbo pool. The rest are from Regionals the first weekend in March.

More, more, and more videos (Discus Throw_

After sharing all the videos I had uploaded to YouTube, I realize there are more on my phone I didn't upload and share....more work to do....



This is her first meet trying out a spinning throw. This was the junior high conference championships and she ended up getting 7th in discus and 6th in shot in the conference. I think that was out of 24 throwers. The following meet she got 2nd place in shot and 3rd place in discus. That meet gave out ribbons if you placed 1st-3rd, so she was pretty pumped about that.

Shot Throw - Varsity Meet, 7th Grade

This was at a home varsity meet. She has actually throw further since this video, but now you can check it out. She really likes throwing. Junior High track & field is done, but she still has at least one more varsity meet to throw in, maybe 2 other additional ones.

K-2 Track and Field Day

This is the last year of the "fun" track and field day for Isabel. Next year it becomes more competitive.

Here are some pictures and a little video of the event at school yesterday.

And the video....

First Swim Meet

This was taken while she was watching other teams warming up. She had not found me yet, but I was sitting just 4 rows up from her. This was her first swim meet and some of it was overwhelming, but we have some stuff figured out now and will approach things differently next times. She had a good time is excited to do another meet. She got a ribbon for "Personal Best" for each of her races (100yd Freestyle and 50yd Back).

Now she found me! She is wearing her new swim cap which is a team swim cap. They get one when they swim their first team meet.

She is in the water there somewhere. This is the 8 lane pool that the meet was at. This is warm-up time for the second half of teams. They all get in the water and do their laps and drills. She had to do a meet practice on Friday night before the meet and she looked so little out there with all the other team members swimming. When I read the program for the meet and saw all our swimmers, it is no wonder she looked so small. She was the youngest girl on our team swimming, the next youngest girls were age 9. There were a couple 7 year old boys swimming too, but they were standing in groups of boys & girls so I didn't really notice how little the boys were. Both of her events she swam were for 8 & under (& they separate by gender too.)

This is her on the starting blocks getting ready to dive in for her 100yd Freestyle. I am unsure why there are swimmers in the water holding on to the bars for backstroke. She told me that made her nervous having to jump over someone.

She really wanted to swim 2 events and really wanted to swim Back. And I only wanted her to swim one day (it was 2 days of events) for her first meet, so this was the compromise we came up with that she was happy with. I would rather have seen her swim two 50 races, but that wasn't in the cards for this race. She knows she can do faster in the back but she said she was pretty tired by that race and when I watched the video of it you can really see her slow down the last half a length. Next time she'll get the C time. :)

Here she in the Freestyle race. You can't really see her, just barely a splash of her. She is the swimmer in the lane second from the top. Her time for the 100yd Freestyle was 2:41.02. She needs it to be under 2:04:39 to have a C time for Regionals. I was impressed with good she has gotten at her flip turns. She is strong off the wall on her flip turns. She just needs to work more on swimming technique for this as she turns her body too much and that uses too much energy and takes time. So, she definitely has a time to improve from.

I watched a 9 year old girl swim before her in this same race and she took almost 3 minutes and was over a pool length behind the 2nd to last swimmer. She swam the same way Isabel does (with too much upper body movements) and I was so nervous for her. I didn't want her to be in the pool so long after everyone else, but she wasn't. She was only about 5 seconds behind the person in front of her. Next time I think she will try 50yd Freestyle. We didn't do that this time because it was day 2 and we just wanted to simplify things and do just one day.

This is Isabel in the 50yd backstroke. This is the race she was most excited to do. Her time was 1:07.03. She needed it to be under 1:04.99 to qualify for C Regionals. Only 2.04 seconds off!!! She's get it next time! Even her coach thought it was really good for a first meet time to be so close to C Regionals qualifying time. Next time we will plan out her races differently so that hopefully she isn't tired for this one.

Below you can watch her swim the 50yd Backstroke. I was interrupted by a woman who wanted to walk in front of me and then I was trying to watch her in real life and not through a little screen, so I end up taking the camera off her a couple times. She was one of 5 swimmers in this heat. She was in 4th. The person who came in after her was in a closer lane (to me) that she was not in my camera and she was further behind Isabel so she never got in the view either.

1st Grade Volleyball

Just some pictures from 1st (& 2nd grade) volleyball. In the picture, Isabel is in between 2 taller 2nd graders. She is so much better at volleyball this year than she was last year. She was pretty proud of her skills and that she could hit farther than some of the 2nd graders.

Kindergarten Volleyball

 This is about half the kindergarteners that were in volleyball. Guess a lot couldn't make it for the lats practice. Isabel had a lot of fun and I could see so much improvement at this practice compared to when they started 5 weeks ago.

Little Tykes Sports Skills: Soccer

I enrolled Isabel in a 4-week, once a night class on different sports skills. It meets on Tuesday nights and this week it was soccer. Next week it will be T-Ball. I really hope she likes the T-Ball because she is signed up for 5 weeks of T-ball that meets twice a week and starts in 2 weeks.

Ice Skating & Kicksledding

We had an active weekend. We really needed to get out of the house & burn off some energy and it's so much easier to do that on the weekend when daddy is home to hang out with Henry since he wouldn't be able to take being in the cold as long, he'll get there, just not this year.

So, yesterday we first went swimming as a family (all four of us) at an area community center pool. Then it was home for supper and then I took Isabel ice skating at our snow park. Just as we arrived a youth group came to play broomball and they let us borrow some and I grabbed a ball out of our trunk and we played some ourselves. Although, I think Isabel's favorite thing to do it to play tag with me (although, she always wants to be it, which is fine because I can skate around more.)

Today we started out the afternoon with kicksledding (see the picture below) and it was quite the workout. Last year we did kicksledding on an icy path & this year we were in the snow, so there is a lot more drag which is a lot more work. We went to River Bend to do this.

Next up was swimming again as a family, home for supper, then off to Morehouse park to do some ice skating & ice hockey there with friends. We decided that we are going to plan a family event to come back on Saturday (weather permitting) as a family event when they have their bonfire and w can bring marshmallows and hot dogs to roast. How fun is that!

Hiking, Track & Field, Festivals, Music & Food

Tonight we went on a summer solstice hike at River Bend Nature Center with our friends Jessica, Sadie & Tristen. Isabel goes to preschool with Sadie. It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot and Isabel got to stay up two hours past her bedtime as it was about a 1.5 hour hike.

This was Isabel's 2nd sports class and tonight was track & field night. She had fun, but we have to teach that girl how to throw a ball and how to run with purpose. She runs like such a little princess; she has a spring in her step & sways her hips. It's cute but it's not going to win her any races.

We took the kids to Heritage Days. It was kind of a let-down, but we made do and still had some fun.

For Father's Day, Isabel had made daddy a few presents & a card (I made him a photo card) and we made hium waffles & sausage for breakast. He had a jam session with the kids, had a chance to clean his car inside & out (gave him some $$ to go get his car washed) then went swimming as a family and finally went out to eat as a family.

Isabel & Her Friend Aleah

Last night Isabel went to her friend Aleah's 5th birthday party and had a ton of fun. They got to swim in their hot tub (it was set to a much lower temp so it was a swimming temp), jump in a bounce house they rented (since the one they bought didn't arrive in time), play on her playet, have cake & ice cream & watch her open presents. I was very impressed that Isabel was genuinely interested in watching her open presents from everyone & wasn't concerned that she wasn't getting anything. She was very excited to give Aleah the presents he got her and for her to see the card she made her.

Isabel & Aleah are also in a Little Tykes Sports (Ball Skills) class together on Monday nights. They are two of three girls in the class (which is too bad, maybe other of the LTS classes have more girls in it). Isabel had a great time and is looking forward to the next session.