Swim boys

The boys have been doing great in swimming. Connor has been swimming in first heats, so he's against the better swimmers in his age group but has been plugging right along. In both meets so far he's gotten second place as a part of the "A-team" relay and then 6th in the individual free-style. He is extremely frustrated because he wants a first-place ribbon. He said after the last meet "I've never been first in my WHOLE LIFE!!" My efforts to remind him that this consisted of a total of 4 meets to date were for nought. We've got the last meet of the season tomorrow, so fingers crossed.

Jamie meanwhile has been plugging along. He moved up an age group now so he is swimming against 10 yos but has soldiered on and done a great job. The amount they have those kids swim is incredible so I'm really proud of him for keeping it up. I swam two lengths (25m) as a part of the father/son relay races at our pool on the 4th and I can tell you I was sucking wind by the end. Granted I also nearly swam myself out of my swim trunks I was going so hard. We never had a chance in Connor's but Jamie got to me in good order and I hustled and we won the heat. Jamie was very pleased, I got a bottle of wine and some respect, but it didn't help with Connor's first-place envy a bit.

Jamie's best stroke is the breaststroke so here he is at the last meet. He got 5th here, but it was second heat of three so there were some tough kids in there. You can judge from the time of the video that it's not to bad a time for 25m.

Unfortunately, I can't get video of Connor because I have to volunteer during the first half of these endless meets so we can leave by 9:00.

Here's another of Jamie practicing at the pool in Tuscany. One thing you can note is that he has a good racing dive. He's actually better at it than a number of the older kids. You can also enjoy the scenery a bit here. This pool was very much the center of the boys' lives in Tuscany. The first week we were there, it was freezing cold but they were undeterred!