Two Weekends-- Two State Swim Championships

 

Last weekend-- February 18th and 19th-- Faith competed in the Utah 6A High School Swim Championships down at BYU.  She kindly asked if I would get up early and make her pancakes.  And I kindly agreed to do so, because if your daughter gets up at 4:20 in the morning, 5 days a week for four months to train hard and meet all of her season goals, you better believe, you'll happily make some pancakes at 5:00 am.  

She qualified in multiple events, but each swimmer can only swim two individual events and up to two relays.  Her events were 100 butterfly, 100 backstroke, 200 medley relay, and 4x100 freestyle relay.

Faith is second from the bottom.  I thought this was a pretty cool picture.  At least it's the coolest picture my phone camera could catch:) 

This facility is so nice-- Faith is in lane 3 (third from the left)

All you really need to know is that she dropped time in all her events and she was pleased with the meets.  I would say she was really pleased, but it's hard to really please a swimmer because they always think they could have gone a little bit faster.   I say, if you dropped time, it's a big win.

Swim meets are LONG and the actual time spent racing is quite SHORT.  There is lots of time for socializing with friends in between.

Here are the kids on the Riverton State team that made it to the finals on Saturday.

Confession:  I loved Faith's yellow State hoodie so much that I bought one for myself as well.  Apparently, it's not always cool when your mom copies your fashion.  Thankfully, Faith was a good sport.  

I really like this picture.  The obvious reason is that we're here wearing our matching Riverton Swimming t-shirts cheering our daughter on at State.  That's pretty great.  But there is more to this picture than meets the eye.  If the truth is told, Abe and I were not getting along very well on this day.  No particularly big problems, just misunderstanding one another and not giving the benefit of the doubt.  Sometimes it's like that in marriage and relationships.  We just couldn't seem to get on the same page.  So what I like about this picture, in hindsight, is that we still went and spent the time together.  We hung on.  We stayed sitting together and cheering together.  We knew we were both feeling a little ornery and contrary, and we knew it would pass and we'd reconnect and try again to be better for each other.  And we did and we are.

...Not quite one week later...

Faith's biggest accomplishment this season was qualifying for Utah Swimming Senior State Championships.    To clarify, this is for USA club team swimmers.  Faith's high school team is Riverton, but her club team is Lehi Aquatics (not to be confused with Lehi High School.  Clear as mud?)  This is markedly harder to qualify for and more competitive than High School State. It's also down in St. George.  So the Foxy Ladies (minus Greta) packed up and headed down for the three-day meet and a girls' trip before Bethany leaves on her mission.  

It turned out that the swim meet overlapped with Abe's brothers' trip in Las Vegas.  So we did what any responsible parents would do...

...We pawned half our kids off with friends and neighbors for the weekend.  The kids spent Thursday and half of Friday at the Schramms, where they felt very much at home.  

Except that they served her spaghetti on a square plate and that was a problem.  Apparently, the spaghetti was okay, but not the plate.  I can't imagine what the Schramms were thinking--- serving food on a square plate???  It's madness!

Then on Friday and Saturday, they were with their very best neighborhood friends, the Chases.  For my part, I was so grateful to have the kids in homes where I knew they were being well-cared for and they would feel so comfortable.  Many thanks to the Schramms and Chases for making this weekend possible.

First stop, a little Chick-fil-a for lunch.  Yes, please.

I didn't realize Faith hadn't been to St. George since her 7th birthday when we came down on a girls' trip for Bethany's dance competition.  Faith got Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys for her birthday.  This time around she was thrilled to see palm trees.  Bethany took a series of silly pictures of Faith all weekend-- this being one of them.

We loved being Faith's entourage and cheering for her.

We enjoyed going out to eat, even if we had very time-consuming periods trying to decide where to eat.  Here we are at Black Bear diner with Faith's friend, Alex-- a super fast breast-stroker.

Another silly Faith picture.

Their B-relay in the 4x100 medley relay did great and they were less than half a second behind Lehi's A-relay.

At this meet, you can swim two bonus events in addition to what you are officially qualified for.  She was officially qualified for the 100 butterfly.  Her bonus events were the 100 back and the 200 back.  By the end of the meet, she had dropped times and is now officially qualified in both of those events. 

We were excited to meet up with Rachel who still holds the 100 fly record at Riverton.  She is basically Faith's swim idol and it is Faith's goal to try to beat Rachel's time before she graduates.  We'll see, but it was so sweet of Rachel to come to watch Faith swim.  It meant a lot to Faith.

A little Waffle Love to celebrate the end of a very fun and successful weekend.   

That's pretty much the end of the short course (25-yard pool) swim season.  

Now onto long course season!  (50 -meter pool)