The swim season that never was...yet.

There's one thing you should know about swim meets in the South.  Either they are going to be blazing hot and humid or there's going to be a thunderstorm right in the middle of it that will cause a delay.  And usually it's both. (Because if you didn't know it, hot humid air in the afternoon will usually bring about a thunderstorm.)

My kid's swim team has over 100 swimmers on it. Of the 8 teams in our league, we are by far the largest. So whenever we have a swim meet, it's a bit of a tent show.  We all come armed with our shade tents, or rain tents, whichever the case maybe.

And I'm always a little embarrased especially when we swim at another pool because 85% of the deck is consumed by the Arcadia Ducks and all of our tents and other necessary paraphernalia.  (Paraphernalia being coolers, snacks, chairs, snacks, towels, snacks, snacks, oh and did I mention, snacks.)

Last Thursday the first meet of the season was at our pool.  Everyone arrives early to claim the best deck space and to get everything set up.  But before we could even get one event in, a large, ominous, black cloud covered the sky, with a long bolt of lightening so bright that people literally went running for cover.  The tent city that took an hour to create was pulled down in under 5 minutes.  That swim meet never had a chance.

Yesterday was a little different.  The whole day had been cloudy because apparently we have relocated to Seattle or perhaps a tiny town in Ireland.  Sightings of the sun this spring have been rare and y'all, do not think that when I see a glimpse of it I don't say a pray of thanksgiving, because I do.  Something about not having something makes you really appreciate it more.  So, perhaps the withholding of the sun and all of the rain is God's way of reminding me to be more thankful?  Message received, Lord.  Message. Received.

Where was I?  Yes, cloudy.  Jennifer (who was able to take off work, yay!) and I got our tent set up and all the chairs set up and all the towels laid out and all the coolers arranged and all the sunscreen applied and all the duck tatoos drawn and whew!  We finally set down and the kids finally started to warm up.

After the warm-ups the kids were questioning why we even needed a shade tent on such a cloudy day.  Oh, silly kids!  We reminded them that it always rains and today would probably be no different.

The kids got their freestyle relays in.  Both Sarah's team and Peter's team came in first.  Yay!  We were off to a great start!  Sarah came in first in her heat in her 25 meter backstroke (will need to check the final scores but I think she might have gotten first overall).

As Peter dove in to swim his 50 meter freestyle, his googles got dislodged and came up.  My heart sank.  He got them adjusted and started to swim again and I kid you not, he swam into a corner of the pool wall.

I can't accurately describe it but because of the way this pool is shaped, the last lane starts out wide and then narrows.  They even had a pool chair with a life guard cushion rescuer thing strapped over it so if anyone swam into this corner of the pool they wouldn't be hurt. (I saw a lot of kids swim into this thing during warm-ups.)

Peter banged into this contraption on the corner of the pool, stopped, adjusted his goggles, kept swimming and still managed to come in second.  I was so proud of him until he came into our tent, threw down his goggles and yelled, "Stupid goggles!". And then, "Stupid corner of the pool!".

We had a little discussion about how well he did recovering and still coming in second and then a little more discussion about not letting our anger get the best of us. And we discussed this again when we got home right before bed. 

And at dinner as we were discussing the whole swimming into the corner of the pool incident, Dan reminded him that even though the lane narrows, there is still a big black line in the center of the lane that he should be following.  He also told him the best way to hold his head when diving into the pool so his goggles won't come off.

Before Sarah could swim butterfly, it started to rain which was no problem because there was no thunder or lightening.  We just kept going.  Those kids were cold and shivering but we kept going.

And then there was thunder.  Which means we have to wait 30 minutes before we can get back in the pool.  So we waited, and there was more thunder, so we waited and there was more thunder (each thunder boom means the 30 minute clock gets restarted).

Then finally, after huddling under our tent with 13 people they called the meet and decided that we will go back next Thursday and pick up where we left off.

So, two meets into the swim season and we have completed exactly 1/3 of a swim meet.

And discovered that our shade tent leaks.  Looks like Dan has some tent repairing to do this weekend.

Our little duck family! 

Jennifer draws great Arcadia Ducks!

Photographic proof that she does roll over to far when getting her breaths.  She doesn't believe me.

A diving shot because all of the other pictures I took of Peter are just water and brown hair.