Swimming - A New World

We got to go to our first swim meet at Oak Hill Schools featuring 7th grade swimmer, Miss Lena Pederson!!!

Since this was our very first swim meet ever, I thought I would take a few photos and blog about the whole experience.

Here's the pool at Oak Hill.  Love that US flag!

Our mascot is the Golden Eagles.  This Eagle on the wall is a new addition to the pool.  Pretty great artwork, huh!

Believe it or not, but the floor of this pool can be raised and lowered.  I have never seen anything like this before!  Apparently, they built the pool this way so that they can teach swimming to all grade levels at the school. 

We have heard fabulous things about the swim program at Oak Hill.  The walls of the pool have loads of records.  It is obvious that they are serious about swim - and that they are good, too!

This is the guy who started the program at Oak Hill Schools in the late 80's (the one in the dark blue shirt).  His name is Mark Yordy and it is no exaggeration to say that everybody loves him.  We have the pleasure of going to the same church as the fabulous Mr. Yordy!  He really is a super great guy. 

Here's the line-up of swimmers and divers for Oak Hill Junior High.  If you look closely, you'll see Lena on the 7th grade list!

And here she is!  This was a relay, and Lena was the 3rd leg out of 4, so she is waiting for her teammate to arrive so that she can begin swimming. (She has a dark blue swimsuit and a light blue cap.)

And, there she goes!

Here's how the swim meet works:  they have about 6 swimming races, and then they take a break for the divers to compete.  (Lena is the one with her light blue swim cap on still in the next photo. She looks so very serious here!)

Anyway, the swimmers watch the diving competition.  It is hard to see, but there is a girl doing a dive and she is in mid-air just below the eagle on the wall.   It was really fun to watch the diving.

Then, the swimmers had about 6 more races before the meet was finished.

Lena swam in 4 different races in total.  Three were relay races, and one was an individual race.

They keep track of the overall score for each team on the scoreboard.  You can see from the photo below, that the home team (yes, that's us!) won!!!!  The final score was 118 to 65.

Every swim meet ends with the teams gathering in a huddle on opposite sides of the pool.  Then, they take turns yelling a chant which basically says something like 'it was a good meet, thanks for coming, good job Eastern (or whatever the name of the school it was that they were competing against.'

Lena really likes that part. 

Then, they are done.  The whole meet lasted about one hour.  It was very fun to watch!  And, we are all looking forward to the next Oak Hill swim meet.

Oh, and when the meet was over, both Ryan and Todd announced that they want to be in swim, too. I guess we get to look forward to years of sitting on the bleachers at the pool...as well as on the basketball court, volleyball court, baseball field and who knows where else.

I'd say it is time to invest in some bleacher seats!!!

We have another STAR!

It's your turn, Ryan!

Just in case you've been wondering, "is Ryan doing anything?"  Well, yes.  It would be basketball!

Interestingly, basketball is coached very differently between France and America.  Ryan was thinking of walking away from the sport altogether .....


..... until....



..... he started to play basketball in America.

To sum up the biggest difference, I'll share Ryan's exact words:  "Mom, this is actually fun!"

But, it really hasn't been all fun and games.  Ryan has really grown in his ability this year.  And, he loves playing with the guys on his team.  They are going to be a very fun bunch of boys to watch in the next 7 years.

The team got to play during the half time of one of the Boys Varsity Basketball games.  That was fun!

Here they are at the Cage in Tipton.  The Cage is this huge barn out in the middle of a cornfield with 2 basketball courts inside of it - a very cool place to play ball.

We've been to Tipton about every weekend since the first of the year for basketball games.  This past week was the tournament.

Here's Ryan's team playing in the championship game...

...which they won!!!!  Yeah!  Way to go Oak Hill Little Eagles!

Ryan has warned me that he is going to need a shelf in his room for all of the trophies he is going to win.  I guess maybe I should listen to him. :-)

Way to go, Ryan!!!!

Is Spring REALLY coming?

Just a few days ago, I drove up to our home and saw this...

Do you see them?  There are robins in our tree.  LOTS of robins in our tree!

Being in a new place can be very confusing.  Is this weather normal for this area of the country?  Is it warm in February because it is always warm in February, or is this a strange winter?  We need 5 more winters to be able to answer those sorts of questions. 

In any case, seeing a crowd of robins in our tree in early February was certainly a surprise to me!  But, I love it!  

The temps that are hovering in the upper 30's and lower 40's is also a huge surprise.   I'll gladly take this kind of weather.  There's no question, it feels like spring is in the air here.  The next month should let us know if we are right or not.  In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy watching the big plump robins that are camped out front in the tree.

Happy Late Winter or Early Spring - whichever it is right now!!!