Swimming at the U of M

Last weekend the kids had a meet at the U of M. This wasn't a "typical" meet. Swimmers needed to have a qualifying time in order to enter each event. This was a crazy-fun meet for a couple reasons.

For one, this was the largest meet ever held in Minnesota! There were over 1,300 swimmers participating. There were over 8,000 races held in 2 1/2 days. And there were teams from all midwestern states and from as far away as Colorado and even Florida.

The University of Minnesota Aquatic Center is an awesome venue. Fall/winter is our "short course" season, so they use 2-25 yard competition pools simultaneously and the diving well is used for warm-ups and cool-downs. (on the second video below, you get a glimpse of this HUGE facility).

We also got to witness Mallory Weggeman set a world record. What an amazing and inspirational swimmer. And what a great role model for all those young swimmers in attendance. WOW!

This video is Maddie swimming the 50 Free. Despite the short distance, she has been dropping time like crazy in this event over the past couple months. She is so close to breaking 30 seconds! In fact, only .91 seconds to go!! This is her personal best time.




This video is Will swimming the 50 free. He just recently broke 30 seconds. This was his second fastest time at 29.94! At the beginning you can see where he almost does a false-start. He's been doing that lately...almost gives me a heart attack.



Maddie had a big 6+ second time-drop in her 100 IM. She's a pretty well-rounded swimmer and this race suits her well. She likes it because she gets to do a little bit of everything, but Free and Fly are definitely her favorites.

My Little Boy

Sometimes I look at him and I can't quite imagine the man he's becoming.

He's my little boy with a smooth, soft face.

He's my little boy with amazing eyebrows. Within hours of his birth, 11 and a half years ago, the nurse commented on his beautiful eyebrows.

How can these eyebrows not make your heart melt?

Mine is melting right now.


And how can I restrain myself when looking at his cute little smirk while he is fake-sleeping? It makes me want to scoop him into my arms and cuddle his smooth, soft face before it's transformed into something manly and abrasive.



And then right when I'm feeling all nostalgic and like life is just rushing by too fast, he does something like this to make me laugh and squirt pop out of my nose.


I love this kid.

Hmmmm...

I can't decide which is my favorite version...