"This Was the Best Night of My LIFE!"

Those words were spoken by Ben on the way home from the swim awards banquet last night. You see, he won the BIG award.

He talked about this all season and would often wonder aloud if he could win it. We kept telling him it was unlikely, because we honestly thought that was true.

This award, called "Screamingest Eagle", in the two past years we have gone to this banquet, has always gone to the older girls who wrangle the younger kids and lead the cheers, or to the boy who always has an Eagle drawn on his back and paints his hair green during the meets.

This year, the coach prefaced it by saying when they decide this every year, they take a whole bunch of things into consideration... how much the swimmer has improved, how they performed in meets throughout the season, general attitude, how hard they work, how they cheer on their team... etc.

Then he went on to say that this year's winner "Loves swimming.... BURNS for it, lives and breathes it.... he's at practice every day and gives it everything he has. He does everything he's asked during practice, swims extra laps just because and pushes himself as hard as he can during every single one....

(at this point, I started to think he might actually be talking about Ben because yeah... of all the kids on the team, Ben is definitely the most passionate.... that's just his nature... he's ALL in on his favorite things... LOL)

Then when he said, "And this kid starting winning races this year... crushing some of them! Did an amazing job at the trophy meet yesterday....  And he does all this while facing the unfortunate obstacle of swimming as an 11/12 in a 7/8 body...." (then I was kicking myself for not turning my camera on because at that point, the entire room knew it was Ben. LOL.)

"When he hits his growth spurt, he'll be one heck of a swimmer!!! He's also one of the loudest on the pool deck cheering on his friends!  Ben Graff!"

Ben practically FLOATED to the front of the room, I kid you not. He was SO excited. The last time I saw him THIS excited, was when he won the most improved award at the same banquet two years ago.

Anyway, it was a huge honor and we were all so surprised.  Two years ago, the first award sparked the passion.... this one will fuel it for hopefully a long time to come.  :)

Simon has been inspired too. He says he wants to do the trophy meet next year and also that he wants to win most improved next year. (he is a actually prime candidate. LOL) He has asked to do the stroke clinic over the winter, so we'll see where that goes. His little award was adorable. We knew who the coach was describing right out of the gate. ;) 

Anyway, so another swim season in the books. It was our best one yet! 

Trophy Meet 2015

The league trophy meet was this morning. Ben, having moved up to 11-12 this year, had to be there for the morning session. We were up and out of the house by 6:30 this morning. (yawn) Warm-ups started at 7 and the events started at 8.

It ended up being really nice though. WAY less crowded in the older kids' session. We were done by 9:50!

He did well this year! 8th in fly and 10th in back… doesn't sound impressive, but he beat his seed times by 8 and 5 seconds respectively. Pretty cool! He was also competing among a group of mostly 12-year-olds. (eerrrrrg….. as if other 11-year-olds aren't big enough!!)  They give trophies up to 10th place so he walked away with two, and was pretty pleased with himself!

His 4th grade science teacher who does the announcing at one of the pools in our league was the announcer for the trophy meet and he made a big deal out of Ben's name when he announced it both times and when he announced the results. Ben LOVES that. Mr. H is awesome! :)

As always the trophy meet was nerve-wracking for him, but when all said and done, a great experience that he was glad he participated in. Looking forward to doing it again next year!

50m backstroke results

50-fly results

Two trophies = awesome day! 

With Coach Doug. This guy is awesome. He's tough on them, for sure, but the kids love him. He has pushed Ben hard and gotten great results!

With Doug and Asst. Coach Lindsay. Lindsay actually played field hockey in college, but got drafted to be Doug's assistant last summer and returned for another year. It was nice to have a familiar face as his assistant this year instead of someone new! She's super sweet! :)

Final Meet...

Our last regular season meet was Monday.

Not the Graff boys' best showing, although Ben was involved in an "almost too close to call" freestyle race. It came down to the backup timers. I was standing right at the finish line with the timers since I was clerking and it truly looked as if they touched the wall at the EXACT same time. I couldn't have called it! At any rate, after some comparing of times amongst the timers and backups and officials, and it was finally determined he got third. He was disappointed, but happy it was so close. He took third in back too, which he wasn't happy about… he spent too much time picking his head up to see where he was relative to the other swimmers. The coach talked to him about this at practice the next morning and spent some time showing him how doing this impacts his time, so I don't think he'll do this any more! LOL.

Simon did free and back and came in second to last both races.  :( BUT… he used arms and legs the WHOLE time in back, which was great. (there's always something good that comes out of races!)

Tonight we have the pep rally and Saturday is the championship. Only Ben is competing and he is swimming back and fly. He found out yesterday he is seeded 10th of 12th in back and 9th of 9 in fly. LOL. At first he was annoyed at this…. but eventually agreed with me that it's better to be underestimated than overestimated though. ;) (he only has to place 10th or higher… so  he'll get one in fly no matter what!) Regardless of the outcome, he has had an amazing season and has held his own in a new age bracket with swimmers who are almost universally MUCH bigger than he is. He should be proud of himself!

Jonathan is determined to do swim team next year… so I have to get him swimming across the pool over the winter.  I hope he can do it. I think he'll love it!

Swim Meet #7!

Coming down the home stretch!

I was flying solo on Wednesday at what is truly the most challenging pool all season. Challenging in so many ways. First off, it's crazy long. (33 yards… the rest of the pools are in the 25m/20yd range) Also, there were bees literally EVERYWHERE. It was truly awful. The kiddie pool was on the opposite side of where they put our team, and there was a small playground, but it was behind the bathrooms out of my sight line. Not particularly useful for entertaining Jonathan. ARGH.

Anyway... Ben was SO nervous about this meet. And when Ben gets anxious, he gets angry. As the time got closer and it was clear that thunderstorms weren't going to cancel it, he got more and more worked up. He threw a shoe at his wall and broke a poster frame. Then, he came down and told me had had ripped his team suit in half. (!!!!!)

I threw everyone in the car and ran to the sporting goods store an hour before the stinkin' meet to track down a suit. Of course, it being July, not much is left, so we settled on one that was the wrong color and size smaller. So annoyed.... at least Ben apologized later and admitted he didn't know what he was thinking. ARGH.

The meet though. Not enough people on our team were there to cover all the events we usually swim, so everyone was shuffled around. No one swam fly or IM. It was weird. Ben swam free and back... first time not to swim fly in two years! Simon swam free and back too. This ended up working out well for Ben, who got TWO second places. (against the second toughest team in the league!) AND Simon,  who managed to win his heat, which thrilled him. :) It luckily happened at a pool that gives out blue first place ribbons for heat winners. WHEW!

All in all, a good night... glad we ended up going!

Swim Meet #6…. First Place!

Last night was an awesome meet! We swam against the only other country club in the league. The rest are dedicated swim clubs and attract WAY more swimmers and, in general, much better swimmers than we have. Usually our 40 or so swimmers are swimming against clubs with 100+. Last night was much more evenly matched and the score was actually tied halfway through. Exciting stuff! :)   The other team ended up winning, but not by a landslide. :)

Anyway, exciting stuff. Ben got a legit (no one DQed) FIRST PLACE in backstroke!  Then he got second with on one DQing in fly.  Man was he excited.

Simon swam really well too! He won his heat and then he swam fly and actually would have taken 2nd place except he only touched the wall with one hand. He was SO angry all the way home. :( I felt sorry for him… but… rules are rules and that's the only way to learn.

Simon started this trend last night. He calls them "Power Gauntlets". Even the older boys caught onto it and started running around with cups on their wrists. LOL. I'm sure the concessions people were thrilled. 

Coach Doug kept wandering around writing random things on the kids with sharpies…. he got Ben during relays…. the result is below…. cracked me up!

Boom Shaka Laka….
Also, please note, off in the distance waiting to swim…. the guy in the far right lane. He was as big as Michael Phelps and he swam in the relay against a kid Ben's size. I swear, the guy swam the length of the pool in ten strokes. RIDICULOUS!

He Did It!

Ben finally got the first place finish he has wanted so badly. :) He got his shot last night when he swam an AWESOME heat of fly. He came from behind for what looked like a great second place finish, but the kid who was in first DQ'ed (and pretty horribly so… like, actually STOPPED and stood up in the lane… ?! in 11/12?!?)  so first place was all his.  Suffice to say, he was ecstatic.

He also had a third place finish in back, which he wasn't thrilled about, but I think he will be when he sees his time on Friday. I'm pretty sure he beat his record.

Simon was put in free and back (ARGH) and finished 7th and 11th. Have I mentioned he's basically over swim team? LOL. I just signed him up for a robotics camp in two weeks, so I'm excited for him to start something this summer that will give him a self-esteem boost… because swimming kind of knocks it out of him. :(

Three more meets to go, two home and one away. Coming down the homestretch of swim season!

Swim Meet #3!

This guy had his best showing EVER in butterfly last night. He finished a SOLID third. The 4th, 5th,  and 6th place boys ate his bubbles!

This pictures was taken right after he exited the pol. He was so pumped up!  I'm shocked he even had the energy to swim because after the one-hour practice in the morning, we went back to the pool and he spent the entire afternoon swimming every boys event just to see if he could do it. He swam every age group and stroke combination. LOL.  Suffice to say, swim team passion has once again kicked in. 

Simon did great last night despite a stomachache all evening (he ate too much right before he swam). He swam heat 3 of freestyle (lots and lots and LOTS of heats last night because the other team was enormous) and he finished third in his heat. He also swam fly and I don't think he DQ'ed, which is HUGE. He may have even gotten fourth or fifth out of six because even though he came in last, I'm pretty sure at least one of the other boys did DQ.  We'll see when the ribbons come in! I know he'd be excited to get one of those! 

This team we swam last night offered Ritas Italian Ice at their bake table which was quite popular. LOL. 

First home meet coming up tomorrow!

In other excitement, we have a four-day wedding extravaganza for my cousin coming up from Thursday-Sunday. Jonathan is a ring bearer, which should be interesting, if nothing else! LOL. 

Another Day, Another Meet….

Meet 2! Another away meet… one more after this and then we finally get to be at home for a few in a row!

Ben did not swim his best in freestyle, mostly because he froze and jumped instead of diving to start.  WTH? Not sure what happened there. He did swim fast after that, but it was too little too late. I think he finished 6th.  On the positive side, he did his first ever flip-turn during a race.  He does them in practices all the time, but hadn't worked up the confidence to try it in a race, so this was big! :)

He swam fly later on. It was a bit of a confusing combined event. (boys/girls/11-12/13-14), so I wasn't entirely sure who his competition was. I THINK he either came in 2nd or 3rd. We'll see on Friday when they give out the ribbons.

Simon swam heat 2 of freestyle and did AMAZING! He was on fire! :) He ended up finishing sixth overall, I think…  he swam fly too and finished 4th, his highest place ever! I'm hoping he didn't get DQed for his feet, but we'll see…  ribbon Fridays are always exciting. :)

My clerk of course job was a little on the crazy side last night. We have a set of seven-year-old twins on the team this year who are new and they won't tell anyone which is which --  they also disappear and don't show up for their events. One missed his freestyle swim, which was annoying. I had to chase down a lot of kids and I'm still learning who some of the new ones are, so it was rough at times.

I leave you with this photo of Simon right before his butterfly race. ;)  He is convinced the speed button actually worked!

First Swim Meet….

We had our first meet on Monday night.

We started the season off away, which I don't love… but, whatever. It was at a nice pool that we enjoy going to and everyone had fun. It's also a historically quick and efficient meet, which I always appreciate! ;)

 Anyway, Ben swam 50m freestyle. I believe he took 4th. He was happy with his race. It was his first 11/12 race and given the size differential (it's huge), 4th was pretty amazing. If he could really nail his flip turn, he could pick up a couple seconds and maybe place higher next time.

 Simon swam 25m free. It was actually one of his best races. He hung with the middle of the pack the whole race. He was in heat 2, but finished 6th overall out of 10!

 I worked clerk of course the whole first half and it was chaos! We couldn't hear the announcer and so there was lots of shuffling around of lanes and they combined a lot of events which made it ultra confusing.

 After freestyle, we had a LOT of downtime because BOTH boys weren't swimming again until fly. Yes, Simon too! We discovered just a few days ago that Simon can swim butterfly! He had no idea he was doing it. He calls it "two arm freestyle". LOL. I had sent an email to the coach because he ALWAYS puts Simon in backstroke and honestly, it's a lost cause. He just can't do it. But butterfly, he can! I wanted the coach to see him do it in practice to make sure it was passable, but instead, he just stuck him in it for the meet. (face palm) Whatever. Simon was unfazed. I reminded him over and over again what he was swimming. Then it came to his turn and…. he swam freestyle.

 Sigh. On the bright side, it may have been his FASTEST freestyle time ever. But… obviously, DQ. ;) 

Ben was the only one in his age group swimming fly for our team. He had been worried about it because it's the first year he has to swim two lengths. He did great though. He came in third and was thrilled with that. I'll be interested to see his time when they give out the ribbons on Friday.

 We have another meet tonight. Forgot how exhausting swim season is. Fun, but exhausting! Not sure Simon will do it next year… I think he's kind of over it. :( We'll see.

Keeping Them Busy.....

Today we went to Home Depot (exciting!), but struck out on cold weather veggies for our garden, so we went up the street to Valley View and picked up some broccoli, kale, and a lettuce mix. Apparently all should do well until the frost and it said the lettuce can even survive a few frosts!

We spent a TON of time checking out the pond part of the store... the koi had just been fed and were acually coming OUT of the water to slurp up the food pellets left on the rocks. It was crazy! The boys got the biggest kick out of it!

After that, we went for italian ices. Came home and cleaned off the sticky by playing outside in the hose and now they are having a little screen time. I downloaded the new Muppet Movie to the TiVo for later since it looks like it's going to storm.

Five more days of summer!! ;)

Feeding the Goats....

Simon and Jonathan got the biggest kick out of this. Ben, you can hear in the background, was totally disgusted. "Ew. Wash your hands!"  ;)

What We've Been Up To....

I have been trying to keep the boys busy and out of the house as much as possible lately.  Otherwise, the day usually ends up something like this.

 The pool hasn't really been an option because it has been chillier than normal, although we might try today if it's as warm as it was yesterday....

So what have we been up to?

Well, for starters, we have done a tour of Baltimore and Harford County Playgrounds. We have discovered we prefer the ones with swings, although in a pinch, any playground with do, including the ones at the boys' schools.

We rode bikes on the NCR trail... more accurately, the boys rode bikes. I pushed/pulled Jonathan and chased the older boys. 

 We ate lunch out... a LOT.

We roasted hotdogs and s'mores at Grandmom and Poppy's....

We painted some pottery.... two dragons and a "Lego Holder"/goblet. ;) They will be ready on Friday. The boys are super excited to pick them up and see how they turned out!

We took a hike with cousins and climbed rocks and played in a creek near a waterfall.... 

We took a trip to Washington to see the American History museum. Turned out all the best stuff was closed for refurbishment. Had some lunch and took a quick run through Air and Space. Jonathan had had enough by that point.  We were reminded how hot D.C. can be even during a cool summer.... no one wanted to walk around and see any monuments. We just happened to walk by the Washington Monument....

Monday, we hit yet another playground, had yet another lunch out and went to the farm store to get some veggies to add to the sauce I want to make from the tomatoes in our garden. 

Yesterday, we dropped by the school library to help out with a quick project, then headed out for an errand that put us near Aunt Sarah and UNcle Taylor's house. Texted and they were around so we stopped in to play outside for a bit, then went to ANOTHER lunch and to another playground.

I am running out of playgrounds and running out of ideas..... seven more days until school starts!!! ;)

And five more days until someone's biiiiiiiiirthday! :) :) :) (which is why I had to get my blog caught up!!! Birthday post coming soon! :)

Dutch Wonderland 2014

Ben has been asking to go back to Dutch Wonderland since we went LAST year, so we promised before the end of the summer. Well, summer weekends are quickly dwindling.... so we took advantage of beautiful weather yesterday to go.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea because it was WAY more crowded than last time we went. Still not ridiculous though.

As we worked our way through the rides, an amusing pattern emerged.

Simon was pretty good about riding everything, but not without complaining and worrying he would throw up or the ride would be too fast or scary.  At the Turtle Whirl, he actually tried to climb the fence to get out of line before we got on. (you may also remember he got us kicked off of Splash Mountain last time we went to Disney because he screamed so much getting into the boat.....)

Ben sat out the majority of rides for fear of various and assorted random things including "sparks" on the bumper cars, drops, spinning, speed, and "lameness" (translate: I'm scared but don't want to say so, so I'll say it's too lame).  He is my child through and through. Tom was getting SO ticked at him. People seriously HATE going to amusement parks with me because I always just want to sit out while everyone else rides the scary stuff. (on the positive side, I will happily watch your stuff while you ride!) Anyway, Ben was having fun in his own way..... so all good. I always encourage him though that if *I* tell him a ride isn't scary, he shouldn't worry about getting on it. We're working on it....

Jonathan, on the other hand....the kid got on EVERYTHING. And I mean.... EVERYTHING. It started with the slides where he declared it was like Tower or Terror and "SO AWESOME!". Then Tom took him on the log flume -- "Let's do that again!" We passed up the Kite Flight on the first go-round because it seemed a bit much for a not-quite-four-year-old. But on the way back through, he wanted to go.... so..... he did.  I could barely watch.  I asked Tom (who had to ride with him) what he was saying and Tom said he was just yelling "Wheeeeeeee!!! This is so fun!!"  OMG.



I was in line with him for the Frog Hopper but there was a huge kid in line in front of us who took the adult seat in the middle. I asked Jonathan if he wanted to wait until the next round or go by himself. You can see which one he chose.




We did get Ben AND Simon on the cars.... Ben sadly, was two inches off the height requirement even though he would have been totally fine driving this thing himself. He was rightfully irritated. I had a flash forward as I sat in the passenger seat....



We got everyone on the Merry Go Round.... though not entirely without angst.

Everyone handled the pretzel picture okay....

And after Tom threatened to make Ben pay him back for his ticket if he didn't ride SOMETHING that wasn't a ridiculous tiny-kid ride, Ben acquiesced and rode the hopper with Jonathan. Then he loved it so much he rode it two more times immediately after. (Again, so me.... when I finally rode Test Track at DW, I rode it six more times that day until I could keep my eyes open during the "barrier test")

We also spent some time in the water park, which was absolute and total craziness, but the kids had a blast there too. No pictures because I was chasing Jonathan in a Where's Waldo scenario the entire time. 

All in all, a totally successful and great day. We left the house at 9 and didn't get home until six, which is HUGE! We are finally to the point where we don't have to leave places for naps. :) It's a hard-earned milestone, for sure!