March = Swimming, Swimming & MORE SWIMMING

The best part about Kate joining the swim team this past year is that we never get a chance to suffer the winter blues. Because....... we live at a nice warm, humid 80 degree pool ALL WINTER LONG :)  Plus, I quickly learned the ropes about setting up camp  (A.K.A. tailgating) for each meet.  Coolers and coolers of food and drinks, blankets, toys, video games, barbies , leggos......... You Name it, We bring it for the full day event each Saturday. 

Will thoroughly enjoyed grazing on all the yummy food, playing legos and hanging out with all his friends each week. 

 

Warm ups usually started around 8am for the swimmers.  Gotta break through all those butterflies in the tummy. 

The Walnut Creek Dolphins Cheering section.  Sometimes best friends and other times arguing over legos and video games.

Kate qualified for both State and Regionals this year.  The coaches worked really hard with all the qualifiers up to the big meets.  Adjusting all the details of their stroke technique to hopefully shave off a second or two from their time.

The week before state, our team was fortunate to have a private showing of the movie "Touch the Wall."  This is a documentary about Missy Franklin, an AWESOME U.S. Olympic Swimmer that is a great role model for these girls.  Kate now has her picture hanging in her room :)

Off To STATE!!   Kate swam great!  Dropping time in all her races.  Way to Go Katers!!!

Before the State Meet started they did a Parade of Athletes where each team walked together around the huge pool deck.  The team is announced and they all get to wave to the screaming fans.   I quickly realized that costumes are a big part of the parade.  Super fun for all the swimmers! 

Loving her Neon Glasses. 

With her first season under her belt, Kate was ready for little break.  But is now more than ready to jump back into the pool for Summer Season.  AND........ her little brother tried out for the team and MADE IT!!!  So he will now be joining her in all the fun!!!    I am loving the 1 stop shop for my kids.  I am not QUITE the taxi driver I was last year :)

February Happenings

Even though February was super cold this year, that didn't slow down our fun and craziness!  Clive Elementary has their annual Fun Night in February.  The week leading up to the big night is full of fun activities and daily themes.  One day was Dress up as your favorite book character.   Will was the mouse from "If you give a Mouse a Cookie."   And Kate was Charlotte from "Charlotte's Web."   They loved dressing up each day. 

Brett wasn't able to go to Fun Night with the rest of us as he had much bigger engagement to attend.  This year he and a few other architects in his office were invited to attend Bravo, which is a huge gala held each year at HyVee Hall.  It's a pretty prestigious event in Des Moines, and I was SUPER bummed when I found out spouses were not included on the invite.  I could have totally pulled out my prom dress from 1998 and stepped back in time again with my cute honey!  Just kidding!  But I would have loved to buy a NEW dress to go along with him!   I can keep my fingers crossed  for next year!

Random pics of the kids in their footy pajamas that they were just begging to have! Will only wore them to bed 1 night and soon realized he couldn't get them off quick enough when he REALLY had to go potty and created a problem for himself :) 

And Kate doesn't like feeling cold when she pretty much has to undress to go the bathroom when she wears her pair.  So we decided that these PJ's will be worn as lounge wear only and they will change out of them before going to bed. 

We had a late Xmas celebration with Clint and Grandma VZ again this year.  Always fun to have celebrations in the dead of winter to keep things exciting!

Photo Opp.

Will decided to put a gift together for Opa from him all by himself.  I had no idea what he collected from his room and wrapped up.  Turns out Will wrapped up a handful of marbles in a box for Opa.  So all night we teased Opa that Will must have thought "Opa lost his marbles!"

We got out of the house and visited the Botanical Center while Opa was visiting too.  Kate found a really neat craft table and we worked together to make this beautiful picture together. 

On Valentine's Day we decided to make our own chocolate covered strawberries this year.  YUMMY!

And the kids were real troopers bundling up each day to get on the bus for school.  We would bundle up and head outside in the cold, but as soon as the kids got on the bus they stripped off a few layers because the bus was toasty warm.  Amazingly we didn't lose any gloves or hats this year!  Way to go Kate and Will!

Finally,  some other random pics from our Februrary Fun.   Will got a new book "The Pirates who lost their Underpants" It seems like little boys just LOVE to joke about underpants!  Why is that??

Another theme day was Crazy Hair Day.  I think we did pretty well this year!