Swim Meet at MSU

Here she is with a couple of her swim friends, all 3 go to different schools. It was a good meet but I think she was hoping she would do even better. She had significant time improvements in her 200 Free and 500 Free, but I think she was hoping for more. And then her other 2 swims she was about the same as her PR, but not getting faster so she was a little frustrated with that. She was seeded in the top 2 heats for 3 of her events (with there 11-15 heats in those events) so that was good for her to be in those top heats, but she was one of the slowest in her heat, so she wasn't winning her heat to win a duck (they gave out rubber ducks to heat winners) so she was bummed about that too. She was pretty hard on herself even though she did have good time improvements and the coach was even harder on her after each of her events. It is quite frustrating for me, mom, to watch him be so negative to her. He only has his one way of coaching and it is to tell them what they are doing wrong and what they need to fix without telling them what they did right. I know how my daughter learns and responds best and there has to be some positive encouragement in there, too much negativity and she is going to shut down and block you out - doesn't matter if it is a sport, academics or about something socially. I am sure that is how many people are.

She is a good swimmer, but not a great one. She will never be competitive enough to get a scholarship for swimming and will not go to Zones or Nationals. And unfortunately, at practices most of the head coach's attention goes to those handful on the team that are the great swimmers. That is just how it is. We can't all be great at everything, but that doesn't mean we aren't good enough. That is just how it is for many of us in many things. We are good at things, but not great. We have to celebrate the small victories we have because that is what we have or we will get down on ourselves that we are not great and start believing we are not good enough for others. It is crummy when other people make you feel like you are not good enough, but it is awesome when people are willing to help lift you up.

Recently, her main teacher at school told me he was recommending her for this nationally recognized science camp. (He is also her advisor for the High Potential Program, which is an after school program for gifted & talented kids that she has been in since 3rd grade.) I looked at the cost and immediately laughed because if we had that much money sitting around to send her to one science camp (which is more than my budget for all 3 months of activities, camps, & classes for BOTH kids) we would be putting that in her 529 Plan to save even more money for college. Plus, it's out of state, so we have transportation costs on top of the camp fee. I let him know she will be honored to know he is even recommending her, but that the cost is way out of our budget and if there was something in our state & at a much more reasonable cost we are happy to send her to camp. She is good at science, she may even be on her way to being great at science. Maybe some day that will be was she really excels at, but what I want for my kids is for them to be happy, to feel loved, to have some friends and to be good people.

I celebrate all the small victories that my kids have because I love them and am proud of them. If we only look at the negative of everything, than what is there to be positive about. Sure, my daughter's basketball team hasn't won a game yet this year but that doesn't mean we haven't seen improvements in all of them and her coach for that has really been a really good coach for 6th graders. She had a HUGE learning curve when doing this sport and still has much to learn, but she is getting better. He understands they are all still learning and trying to get them out there playing as equally as possible so that they are all learning the skills and working with them to work as a team. Of course he needs to ride them and perhaps yell at them from time to time, but his encouragement and direction given in a positive manner far outweighs those times.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how basketball was going to go for her this year since she has never played (other than gym class and HORSE in the driveway), but about a month in to the season when she stopped being so sore from using muscles in ways she doesn't in swim and using different muscle groups, she started saying practice was good. We started talking about the summer and she wants to do the basketball camp the Varsity girls coach offers during the summer so she can get better and play in 7th grade.

I am not sure where her path in life is leading her. She is trying everything and she tries her best at most everything she does. And I am here to love her and encourage her and guide her. I am here to lift them up (while still being realistic, let's not leave that out) and if I am all emotional right now it is just because I love my kids so much and just want then to be happy, to feel loved, to have some friends and to be good people.

6th Grade Band Holiday (School-Day) Concert

Technically, there wasn't a holiday concert for 6th grade band on the schedule. They had a fall concert and then will have a spring concert in May. I am not sure if 6th grade usually plays for the December (monthly) elementary school Celebration, but I am glad they did do one and that I could run up to school and watch/record it. 

After their concert was done they continued on with the School monthly celebration and she was the principal's assistant and got to hand out the awards to all the kids who were announced.

A few more still pictures I tried to get in between songs when he was announcing what was next. The elementary kids were all very excited when Mr. G announced they would be playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas. On Sunday, she will be playing Jingle Bells & Jolly Old St. Nicholas at a Senior Care Center. There are a handful of kids performing for the Sr. citizens there and then the club will be playing bingo and doing cookie decorating with the residents.

1st Basketball Ball Game Ever

Well, what can I say. There is room for improvement. :) She pretty much went from knowing vvery little about basketball (& I mean very little) to going to a handful of open gyms and about 10 practices to playing in her first tournament. They have 11 on the team, but only 10 were there (one girl was grounded I guess). So, the coach pretty much split them in 2 teams of 5 and gave them equal playing time. He said he doesn't care if they win at all, just wants to see where they are all at and figure out what they need to learn so they can be better. I think they have 7 tournaments on the calendar this winter.

She goes between playing forward and guard. Mom was only able to watch the first game as Henry couldn't really handle being there for nearly 5 hours and dad was traveling all last week so he wanted to be able to be there for her (mom gets swim!). After her first game she said she was so confused and has no idea what is all going on.

I think she has the potential to do well. She certainly has the ability and determination, but she has so much to learn about the game itself so everything starts to make more sense and then the self confidence will follow, but I guess she did take 3 shots in the final game.

Oh, they lost all their games. But I guess they lost them all last year at this same tournament and then by the final tournament they won. So, we'll see what happens this year.

There are 2 good things happening here -- she is learning how to play basketball and work as a team and be in a position where she is out of her element, but also and even more importantly, she is becoming better friends with some of the girls on the team and finding "her tribe" at school.




Here is a clip when she was playing in the 1st game. She asked me to take a couple videos to send her teacher , so the 1st clip wasn't when she was playing. So, no need to show it here.

Promoted to Yellow Stripe

These are all pictures from class when she was promoted. They don't get their new belts until they go to their next class. She is now really busy with basketball as you will read about very soon and also has swim so Taekwondo is going to go on the back burner for a while and her brother may belt test one ahead of her and she knows that and is okay with that.

TKD White Belt Testing -- Now a Yellow Stripe!

Both Kids are doing their Chonji form for White Belt, this is the 1st belt. The testing was WAYYYYYY more intensive than just this. We had no idea what they were going to have to all do, but they were prepared and both passed and earned their yellow stripe. They were promoted at the next class.

Fall Band Concert

Monday was the fall band concert for 6 through 12 grades. Now that she is in 6th grade, things are arranged a little differently. In sixth grade they have to choose a music, either band or choir that they have every other day. Band is always Monday Wednesday Friday then on the opposite days they can choose the other music class, art class, or study hall. Isabel chose band and art.

So grades 6 through 12 have their own fall concert which K through five do not. They separate the concert with having choir doing their own concert then band doing their own concert.

Although on the video they have both concerts together. You can forward ahead to the 30-minute mark. They will perform three songs.

Tomorrow, she will be going to a master's class 4 middle schoolers. Her band instructor picked her to go along with two other girls that are in 7th or 8th grade. She is the only sixth grader who was picked to go to this master's class. She will get to study and practice with a professional musician on the French horn.

Basketball ?!?!?!

She is really doing it........she said she wanted to do basketball this year and we signed her up. This is her very first practice. I dropped her off at basketball open gym the last 3 Sundays, but practice starts now. First tournament is on Nov. 18th.

Oh, she is still swimming but only 2 times a week. Then basketball is two or three practices a week. Basketball will be wrapped up before the championship swim meet season starts which is a good thing and none of her swim meets interfere with basketball tournaments which is another good thing. Taekwondo on the other hand will be taking a backseat after she does next weekend's belt testing. She wants to get her first belt before she takes a break from it and then we'll start up again when basketball is done.

1st Swim Meet of '17-'18 Season

Isabel had a great first meet of the season. The first meet of the season is always hard when you haven't been swimming for a while and getting back into things but she finished first in her heat in three of her events in all three of those events she also got personal records. Her fourth event she had added time, you can't always be stellar and everything. In the picture of the swimmers in the pool they are doing butterfly stroke and she is the one that is higher out of the water. She is a machine at butterfly.

White Stripe Form

The kids decided not to test right away, but they certainly would have been ready and have their white stripe form down. Now they need to wait until NOvember to test and get their belt.

Bugsy Malone (Summer Musical) Clips

I got most of the songs that she is in, and a clip with some speaking lines for her. Her role was mostly singing dancing and she was in most of the musical.










THese are all in order. I think I just missed recording one of them, maybe 2. We did buy the DVD, so we will have that to show the family and Christmas.

The New 4-H Treasurer and Co- Recorder

 You are looking at the new treasure for the happy Hustlers 4-H club. This is a position that she was voted in for. There were four people running and the first vote there was a four-way tie and after the second vote she won. She is also one of four recorders. The recorder position is something that several of them can do and they don't have to be voted in for. She takes office next month. She is super excited to be voted in to an office.

TKD - first 2 classes

She wants to try some new stuff this year. We can do everything, so she had to make choices. TKD is something new and she might try basketball this winter too. She is no longer going to do competitive Cheer team. It really wasn't that enjoyable and there were some girls who were not always very nice. She will still do swim, but it might only be 2-3 nights a week instead of 4. 

Cheer Demonstration at the Fair

The cheer team from last year did a demonstration at the Fair this year. They didn't do any routine that they did last year, this was something they worked on for 90 minutes before performing because it included both groups of cheerleaders.

1st Yr 4H Cty Fair Projects

 This is Isabel's first year and for each as we just joined in March. Since she just completed 5th grade she is considered a junior 4-H member and next year when she is in 6th grade she will be a senior for each member and is eligible to win a state fair trip if she gets a grand champion reserve on any of her projects. What I have learned this year is that they are only allowed to take one project to the state fair for Grand Champion Reserve but oldest kids get first pick if there is more than one in an area so as she gets older she has a better chance of going to the state fair because she could pick if she wants to go for that item or not but the more grand champion ribbons she gets the more chances she would have. So we'll see what happens in the future.

She did seven projects for the fair this year. In the top picture there are two paintings one is titled Atomic jellyfish what she got a blue ribbon on and then the other is Mystic waterfall which she got a red ribbon on. They said there was a fingerprint in the painting and that was why they put it down to second place. Then she has her paper mache penguin and her miniature clay plate of food which she got blue ribbons on both of those. Her needle point project was the first time she has ever done needlepoint and she got a red ribbon on that because they didn't like how she had tied off in the back. I think she has learned a lot about what they expect at projects. After looking around at the projects it is obvious that things need to be near perfect and almost look like an adult did them. This is really going to test her patience for her to work at taking her time and getting things perfect.

 These are her clothing exhibits. They do clothing judging The week before and they can do a fashion review as well. This year we opted not to do the fashion review since I never did one growing up and had no idea what it really entailed and thought we would see what we could learn. She just did the judging. The jeans outfit is in the category of clothes you buy. That is definitely a new category since I was in 4H. When you look at the exhibits at the fair you can see there are lots of kids who do that exhibit. You can also do that exhibit in the fashion review. In the fashion review you only get a participation ribbon but they do award grand champion awards for how you do in the fashion review and how the clothes look on you. We know someone who is going to the state fair for fashion review for a dress they made. They got a grand champion on the fashion review even though they only got a red ribbon on their Construction. Then she also made pajama shorts. We made it through her making her first garment without either one of us crying. Although when I looked at the type of garments that sixth graders were making they seem to get much more complicated than making a skirt or shorts like they do as a junior 4h member.

 So here she is with her collection of ribbons. Five blues and two Reds.

She has already decided one of her projects for next year for the fair is going to be making a ribbon display board like the one I made her for all her Sports ribbons and medals.

Judging took a bit of time. She only had to be judged on five things that day since the clothing was done a week before and it took an hour and she didn't really have to wait anywhere.

Future Meteorologist?

Not sure if meteorology is in her future or not, but she sure had fun doing a weather segment for me to video tape.....

Rock Wall Video

She is becoming an experienced Rock Wall climber. She has climbed the rock wall at camp at Eagle Bluff the last couple summers, she did an outdoor rockwall on her 5th grade field trip and was the only one in her grade to do the toughest wall & she did it 5 times. This was on a Sunday, then the next day she went to a rock climbing camp through River Bend Nature Center. They did indoor rock climbing at ROCA on Monday and she said she did 21 climbs that day (& was exhausted afterwards) and then on Tuesday they went to Barn Bluff and did outdoor climbing on an actual cliff (not a rock wall man-made like at Quarry Hill Nature Center - her 5th rade field trip location). They had a lot more waiting to do and the climbs too longer at the outdoor place (BB) and I think she said she did about 6 climbs there over the 7 hour camp (plus they had to drive an hour each way.)

Videos from Swim Camp

They had a relay swim meet at the end of swim camp. So, here are her 3 swims. She is so well for being exhausted after 5 days of constant exercise!

Minnesota Achievement Championship

Last weekend, she participated in the Minnesota Achievement Championship. We went to the Farmington location. Because she aged up from 9-10 time standards to 11-12 time standards she had some work to do to get those faster times.

At this event she placed in 5 of 7 swims. They place up to 8th place in each event. At this event there was about 40 swimmers in each of the 50y swims. She also got 4 PRs for time and one of those PRs was in her 50 Free, which she qualified her to swim in the Minnesota Regional Championship this weekend. However, because she just has one swim for it and it is quite expensive to swim in these championship meets I wasn't going to let her unless she had at least 2 events on one day, which she doesn't have yet. The MRC is a 3 day meet and even one day is a considerable time commitment as well. But don't worry, I am not a bad mom making her miss this. She just got in to the 11-12 time standards, so she will still have 2 winter MRCs and 1 more summer MRC that she could swim in with that time. So, the MRC is already on my calendar for March and hopefully she will pick up a few more swims for that meet in the meantime. She is really close on her 50 Fly.

Of her ribbons, she got one 2nd place, two 6th place, and two 8th place. The other 2 events she didn't place in, she just missed it by a few places. So, NEXT TIME!

Saturday she had 3 swims and got a PR in each of them and placed in 2 of them. Sunday, she only got one PR but 3 ribbons. She wasn't feeling as well on Sunday. Her brother had a stomach bug on Saturday and puked 5 times, so who knows if she had a bit of it or what.

That was her last meet of the summer. There is only 1 more week of swim practice left for the summer and then she has the month of August off. The whole team doesn't swim in August.

Not sure if she will swim next week at all, maybe 1 or 2 days or maybe we'll call it good for the summer. She is off to 3 days of camp at Eagle Bluff on Sunday. This year she is doing the Firearms Safety Certification Camp and will get to shoot a shot gun and a rifle and take her test for Firearms Safety and once she turns 12 she can submit her test results and her classroom time and field experience hours and get her certification. Then she will be able to be on the Trap Team at School once she in 8th grade. Not sure if she will do that, but she is open to considering it and it's just a good idea to teach kids about gun safety.

As for the rest of August, she still goes to rehearsals for the summer play 4-5 nights a week. It is quite a big commitment! And she has to really get to work on her 4-H projects for the County Fair.

And she's off......to swim camp

 Doesn't she just look to growing up here. She is in a college dorm for the first time spending 5 days here while she goes to swim camp at Gustavus. She was appalled by how land and blank the walls were, I wouldn't be surprised if next year she brings along some posters for 5 days there that is if she is going next year we'll see how this year goes..

 Here she is in front of the building where the pool is in and is ready to go swim her time 100 to put her in her group.

 She is the one diving into the water off the blocks. This is the pool she will be training in a lot 4 the next five days. Actually when I am posting this I will have just picked her up I didn't want to post where she was at while she was there because you never know what creepos are looking at stuff on the internet.

 This is one of the group's schedules. It may be the group she is in but I won't know that for sure until later. But at least we have an idea of what the schedule looks like for the most part. And can look at it again next year.

 She gave me lots of hugs before I left period I took her out for supper after her time swim and before she goes to start her training. We went out for Mexican food, which is her favorite.

Memorial Weekend in WI