Sunday evening I took the boys up to "Snake Hole" in Sugar Hollow....many of you have been there with us. It was too hot and humid for the boys to stay outside and they were getting a little stir crazy and so was I. I told them we weren't swimming, but of course getting wet up to their necks when they "accidentally" fell in apparently didn't count. For the record, Gavin did see a black water moccasin snake when we first got up there. But they had fun playing in the freezing cold mountain water and I think my favorite part was when Gavin who already prides himself on being a good fisherman, even though he has done it only a couple of times, found a "spear" and took a first shot at a tiny minnow and killed it. He was so shocked and I couldn't stop laughing at the amazement of the event and he couldn't stop acting like a barbaric animal screaming that he killed it. He never stop talking about it the entire night along the lines of, "Mom, can you believe I really killed it.....I totally killed it on the first try......I can't even believe I did that Mom, it was so awesome!"
All the boys were coaxing Jonah to slide down that rock into the ice cold water. It took a good long while for him to get the courage to go for it.
Fish killing incident!
Wednesday evening was the doozy of all swim meets because of an intense storm that came bursting through about 4:00, ten minutes before the boys were supposed to be at the pool for warm-ups. The meet was delayed in starting by 45 minutes and poor Gavin didn't get in the water for his last butterfly until 10:20pm. The boys all did well....Caleb and Liam got moved up into more competitive heats (swimmers compete in heats according to the times they received in the last meet) and didn't place as well and were a little disappointed in that, Liam moreso that Caleb. Jonah finally beat out the two kids from last weeks meet and got the heat winner, but then got DQ'd (disqualified) in his backstroke for reasons that were unclear.
Then Gavin hit the scene and he was going into this meet with the fastest times in freestyle and backstroke, yet despite the long evening, he was able to maintain his first place status. I don't think much of this, not because I don't think it's amazing, but because he's usually at the top. It wasn't until the next day when a friend of mine was relating a conversation she was having with other moms about him that I realized what a remarkable swimmer I have on my hands. I have watched as most swim meets are dominated by kids who swim year round, so for Gavin to come in and beat out all these year round swimmers after only swimming for about 6 weeks was shocking to this group of swim moms. I even learned the night of the meet that one is his old coaches who is not with our current team, has been watching his times (accessible on-line). He has encouraged me to get Gavin in year round swimming, but so far Gavin has been completely uninterested. I have suggested it again (it's a huge commitment actually), but he still is not taking the bait. Jonah on the other hand is interested, because he "just wants to get better". So we'll see if swimming takes on a life of it's own with ole T-bone come Fall. For now, he's content to swim 4-5 times a week and call it good.
There is a lot of down time at swim meets, so we fill up the time with games, coloring, reading or socializing with friends. My favorite thing about swimming is that we are all there as a family, unlike all the other sports that divide us up.
Saturday, after we dropped Gavin off to a friends to spend part of the weekend with them at a local resort ( a huge decision for us as we don't do "sleepovers"), we went back up to Sugar Hollow to play on the rope swing. Jared said he would make me do it, but when we go there a crowd of others were enjoying the cool water, so I knew I would be off the hook. Unfortunately, they left shortly after we arrived, and I realized that I would soon be swinging off that rope even if I didn't want to. It was great fun and I am happy to report that I never swore....I usually go on auto-pilot with rapid fire s-words when I'm doing something that scares me like that. I think I was so scared I would slip off the rope that I didn't make a peep!
Tomorrow morning at 5:45 Caleb leaves for a week of scout camp and is in the middle of prepping for it with Jared now. Jonah is playing Lego's after putting together a new ship he bought with his own money yesterday and excited to start tennis lessons tomorrow morning, and Liam and Gavin are off playing with the chinchillas. It's been a good Sunday and another good week of summer.
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