Camping withOUT kids!

Steve and I celebrated our 14th Anniversary a little late.

But it was worth the wait.

We paid our neighbor to watch the kids and we went camping!

It was perfect and beautiful!

Scouts

We live in a beautiful neighborhood.

There is a amplitheater just down the street in the trails.

The Scouts Court of Honor was held there last week.

Luke got 2 rank advancements.

The families loved playing and relaxing on the grass area.

Love the temple in the background.

The leaders made dutch oven chocolate cake.

Conference Swim Meet

I am so proud of my children.  They qualified for the Conference swim meet.  With a team as big as ours, that is quite an accomplishment.  Both kids dropped so much time in their events.                      

I cried when Maggie got on the blocks for the first time, and I cried when Luke dropped 15 sec in his Butterfly.

When Luke swam for the Tennis Club, there was no sense of team.  Here at Lifetime everyone is so friendly and it is like a big family.  We had family dinners after the swim meets and both my kids met lots of new friends.

Peter is 6!

Peter turned 6 yesterday!
Maggie wanted to pick out and buy him a present all on her own.
Turns out it was Peters favorite gift.
Batman mask and cape with batarangs.
Peter can be seen running around the neighborhood and allyways dressed in his gear.  At all hours.

Peter choose to eat McDonalds at the lake, with an Angry Birds cake.

water logged

I have spent 23 hours in the pool the last three days.  I had to teach my normal classes on top of some intense swim training classes.  I am exhausted.  After I pulled myself out of the pool last night, Steve and I had plans for a fancy dinner for our 14th Anniversary.   I was so tired, I could not wait, I needed a  hamburger.   And fast.  So our Market Street dinner tuned into a Red Robin dinner.   Steve was shocked, but loving the cheaper bill.

My boss flew in the regional aquatics director for training.  I had heard all sorts of rumors about how he made people cry.  I had mentally prepared for weeks.  I would not cry.  I would not be intimidated.  I could play his game.  

Turns out that even someone who has been teaching swimming for 15 plus years can still learn A LOT!    

We broke down the science of each stoke, the exact movements,  and proper technique.  Our answers had to be precise, and descriptive.  He taught us different techniques of progressing a stroke and or flip turns.  We had then had to practice on each other.  We role played all different scenarios of behavior children, and had to teach each other to swim.  We learned how to be creative with teaching, and he stretched us in our teaching style.

Of course I did not want to take a 21 hour course.  But I came out of this week finding that:

- there is always more to learn, 

-that I can be a strong person and stick up for myself when someone/teacher is being intimidating and condescending,
-When you are confident you earn respect a lot faster,

-by mentally preparing yourself for a hard task, makes the task a lot easier,
-I could take myself to a different place mentally in order to do a task at hand.
For example we all had to be a teacher in a very difficult class.  The other students (taking the class with me) and the two instructors were in my class.  They each came up with a difficult personality trait for me to deal with.  The "non-stop talker", "the crier", "the kid that runs away", "the kid that touches and splashes everyone", and you get the picture.  
The other students, granted they were a lot younger than me, laughed through this whole process when it was their turn.  I however had to take myself mentally to a different place, which was my class.  I pretended they were all kids and did not let the age fluster me.

We seriously looked like a special ed class when people walked by and watched us with this particular task.

I came out grateful for an opportunity to better my skills, and learn for a VERY knowledgeable teacher.