Last Home Meet & Sr. Recognition

Today we had our last home swim meet!  YAY!  I will never attend another high school swim meet as long as I live.  We are so entirely sick of Dani Caldwell and her control games and bullying that I refuse to let me two younger boys swim for Pine View High School as long as she is coaching for them.   Now that I got that off of my chest...

It was Sr.recognition night at the meet and they put posters up of all the seniors.  BUT, the Sr. got to choose which one.  I wish they would have asked the parents.

Yep, everyone else had these cute Sr. picture's and Josh put this one.  But really I don't mind.  It pretty much sums up how we all feel about this year of swimming.  We will celebrate, LIKE NO OTHER, when it is over.  The best part has been and always will be the friends that are made in swimming.  Swim team members that have to put up with the same crap that you have all season long make you bond so tight that you never loose that friendship.  We are eternally grateful for our challenges that make us stronger people and bring us around better and stronger people.

 Best group of kids ever.  But I also said that about Sophie's group and Shayne's.  Trevor Larsen, standing in the middle next to Josh, and I had a good talk about him going on a mission.  He is ready and excited.  His birthday is in June so he is putting his date of availability in July.  He has had some struggles but has grown up and he is doing it for himself and for the Lord.  He has come a long way and will be a great missionary. 

 These two...#thuglife

 We are so proud of Josh and the incredible leader that he is to his team!  He has shown class, poise, confidence, encouragement, friendship and love to everyone.  He wishes he could have done but Dani would have kicked him off the team.  We love you Josh!

After that the swim meet started and we were off.  Josh and Riley were in the 200 Free Relay and did a great job.  Riley didn't compete much this year but DID keep his grade up and was eligible the entire time!

 I was trying to take a picture of my kids and Kary Wawrzyniak got in the way.  We love that family.  That's one family that Josh has been working on.  They are a part member family and the 2 boys that swim are not members of our church.  So, Josh has been talking to them about it.  Their sister Maddie just got engaged!  To some kid that I don't know.  He looks nice though.

Here is Josh's IM.  I didn't get many good picture's because the lighting in the pool stinks.

 He wasn't happy about his 2:30 time.  He's been stuck for awhile now at getting any PR's.

 Next was the 200 Free Relay

 Luckily Mataya was there to kiss some caps!

 Then he did his backstroke.

 He did not PR but wanted to see where he would be since he had not swam it since the very beginning of the season.  He is still trying to figure out where he will fit into state.  Lastly, this is their 400 Free relay.

 I finally got a good dive picture!  Better late than never.

 Region in in two weeks.  We will see what happens.  It is all up in the air. So much drama that should never be there and that is never caused by the kids.  Just beyond belief.  If we can get through the next two weeks, we can get through anything!

ThunderCat Invite

This was our first swim meet that both Josh and Emily competed at!  It was so awesome!  She counted for him on his 500 and I teared up because that is usually Sophie's job and now it has been passed down to Em.  It was a special moment.  

 Here is Josh's cheering section!  I love these girls!!!  Darby left the next morning to go back to Hawaii to go to school.  We were so glad we got to spend some time with her.  She is loving BYU Hawaii.  Who wouldn't?

 They stayed on this end and cheered and on the other end with Emily was Hunter Esplin.  I love that kid too!  He is awesome. 

Em was a little nervous to count but she did a great job!  Just like Sophie.

 The pool has new lighting that SUCKS!  You can hardly see the hand in front of your face.  It's supposed to be cost efficient.  Yeah, because it's pitch black in there so they don't have to pay the utility bill.  Sounds good but trying to take a picture sucks.  The lights inside of the water are always on now too.  Tell me how that's going to save money.  ANYWAY.  These next picture's are crappy, but they'll have to do.

 I love how Hunter jumps out of the way to avoid being splashed in this picture.  Like he's not already wet.  hahaha.

 Josh was trying to get under 6:00 and did!  He has been trying for some time now and hasn't gotten any help from his coaches.  So he asked Ben Raye to watch him and see what he thought.  So he did and Dani threw a big hissey fit.  Ben was able to tell Josh what he was doing wrong that is hurting his shoulder and what will help him knocked more time off in these last 2 meets and hopefully get to state.  Thank you Ben.  You did in 1 race what we've been asking Dani to to for the last 4 years.

Trinity Schimbeck got to ring the bell on the last lap!

 Emily had her 50 Free and did pretty good.  She was scared to death.  Josh went behind her block and cheered her on.  She was glad to have him.  

Josh's 2 freestyle relays.

 Darby kissed caps.  It's a tradition that will unfortunately die after this year.  So sad.  That picture right there is actually the last time you will ever see it happen.  I'm lucky that I was able to get it.  Darby is now back in Hawaii and none of the other girls even do it.

 This was Emily's 100 free.  Once again, nervous.  She jumped in and this time her goggles fell of so she just sprinted as fast as she could to get it over with and she came in 1st place in that heat by almost 5 seconds!  She killed it!  She said that she thought that she was in last place because she didn't see anyone around her. Afterwards, she went over to her coach and asked if she was in any relays and she said, "No, I didn't know you were that fast!"  Too bad for that coach.  She just missed out on some points on her relays.  Luckily she was in lane 8 so Shayne took these picture's of her.

 Notice there is no one around her.  That is a great picture, by the way Shayne!

 Over to talk to the coach after.

The last relay of the day is always so loud.  It is usually between Skyline and Wasatch and then maybe Desert Hills.  But this year DHHS won!  Here's a video I took.  I started out taking it because of Josh's whistle.  But it ended up being a win for our awesome Desert Hills boys.  You'll notice Trevor Larson sitting on the ground at the end.  He started the relay and has had shoulder problems for over a year.  Well, I talked to him after that and he could hardly move it.  I hope he will make it through the rest of the year.  It would be sad to not see him finish his Sr. year.

 

New Year's Eve 2017

New Year's, luckily, is always over at the Wells'.  Evan got a new game for Christmas called, Rolick.  It's like reverse Charades. It was really fun.  Here are some videos on how bad we are were on it.  But we had a ton of fun!

After that we did some fireworks and by fireworks I mean, I brought some leftover Pop-Its that I had from the 4th of July, JoEllen had bought some sparklers and for spending $50 at Lin's on groceries I got a big square firework that you lit off and we all assumed that it would shoot off a bunch of fancy fountains and maybe have some noise makers in it. So, that's what we did.  I handed the Pop-It's to David and told him to hand them out and gave Konnor the big firework and told him to find the wick and not to blow himself up.  He found the lighter and took it out to the road and lit it and this is what ensued...

It was AWESOME!  We laughed so hard.  I wish I would have known how great it was.  I would have had everyone buy groceries there.  After that Brad and Ashley took their kids home to go to sleep.  By that time it was around 10:30pm.  We went back inside and played SCUM until midnight.  It was a lot of fun.  Ben couldn't hold all of his cards so JoEllen went and got Matty's card holder for him so he could see all of his cards at once.  oh man it was funny.  But, he used it and it really helped.  Thanks, Princess Sophia the 1st!

If you look close you can see Ben holding his cards with the pink holder.  He was trying to hide it so I couldn't get a picture of it. So much fun!!! I love making memories with my family!