Pics from Camera A

The World Traveller Returns

The world traveller has returned safely home. Their flight was delayed 8 hours leaving London, so they didn't land in Houston until 7pm. Maddy came home with tons of pictures and even more "stuff." There will be lots of stories to hear. I just now finished loading pictures and haven't even really looked through them. I just picked a few quick ones to upload here. She is wiped out after having been up for 24 hours, but a little too keyed up to sleep. Fortunately we don't have anything pressing to do tomorrow. Then Saturday morning we head to Denver. Hopefully she'll recover before school starts!

Buckingham Palace

Today Maddy got to tour Buckingham Palace! Sorry, no pictures allowed! She was quite enthralled though! 240 bedrooms! 76 Bathrooms! Over 400 rooms! They got to see the throne, thte royal ballroom and the balcony. They also watched the changing of the guard and went to the museum of natural history, which was quite amazing! Mom and Dad were a little skeptical of the museum, but said it was fantastic! Tomorrow they are going on a bus tour of London and then over to Windsor Castle, then home. No homesickness yet from the world traveler!

Maddy in York Minster

Maddy's York part of her trip is now over and they are on the train speeding toward London where they will sightsee for a few days before heading home. Sounds like she had a great time in York and has plans for an english garden when she gets home. Don't think the flowers will like our 100+ degree weather though!

Castle Howard

Here is a picture of Maddy in front of Castle Howard. Today Peters grandson Daniel (same age as Maddy) is playing tour guide and will be showing them around York Minster, the wall, and the Shambles. The Ghost Walk might be tonight as well, although Maddy is a little skeptical about it. I think the time change is a little hard for her to get used to. When I talked to her yesterday is was almost 1am there. I guess the ghost walk would be better early in the trip rather than later!

Maddy at Airport

Maddy's Big Trip

Who would have thought that 7 years would go by so quickly? 7 years ago Maddy got a shirt with a castle on it from one of Mom and Dad's trips. She said she wanted to go and see a castle for herself. Mom said, when you're 10 I'll take you. In a blink she was 10, and never once in the 7 years did she let mom forget her promise. They left on Monday on a direct flight from Bush to London. Dad loosened his grip on his mileage lockbox and sprung for 1st class tickets. Thanks Dad. She'll never want to travel with us commoners again! They left on Monday afternoon, arrived in London at 7am and took a train to York where our good friends the Stanhopes will be playing tour guide. I talked to her yesterday when they got to their room and she spent 15 minutes telling me about dinner on the plane. I told her not to expect to eat like that at home! Today they were taking a steam train ride through the moors and then having lunch or dinner at Whidby Harbor. Not sure what is on the itinerary for tomorrow, but they have a huge list to choose from, not the least of which is seeing a few castles. There are several ruins to see as well as several that are still occupied. I'll post pics if they send any while they are gone.

The Almost Champions

Yeah Team! We were so close to winning the whole darn thing! We'll get them next year when the winners will be eligible to go to nationals! Learned a lot about the game of tennis that is played off the court. We all had a fabulous time in the Big D. The best part of the whole trip is that we never once the entire weekend thought about anything but the little yellow ball!

Goin' To Dallas

We did it! My USTA tennis team won the local tournament and we are headed to sectionals in Dallas the end of the month! It feels good to finally be on the winning side! Lynn and I had two marathon matches on Thursday and Friday. Sleeping with ice on my arm and shoulder was a small price to pay!

Camp San Marcos

Pictures from Wimberley and Natural Bridge Caverns.

Relief!

Finally! A little relief from the heatwave that has been smothering us for a month! Just went to the store and the thermometer read a cool 87 degrees! Much nicer than the 105 it has been reading! We are also expected to get some rain today at some point. Thank goodness! Played in a tennis tournament last night (we won!), and everyone was talking about the melted balls. Apparently a can of balls was left on the court all day, and when they went to open them, they literally poured out. All three balls had melted. Now that's hot! We play again tonight. If we win all three lines we will be headed to Dallas the end of the month to play there! It's nice being on the winning side for a change!

What Does Bear do on a Rainy Morning?

It rained this morning!!!! Lots of thunder, lighting and RAIN!!! Our first in well over a month! It made it really difficult to get of bed this morning though. Some spoiled dog took complete advantage of the situation and helped himself to the blankets and pillows. He looks pretty comfy! Do you think he had it this good at his previous home?... I bet not!

Fireworks at the Beach

We spent the fourth of July at Port Aransas with the whole crew. All 16 (I think) of us and 2 dogs. Fortunately it was actually much cooler along the coast than in Houston, and very breezy. Theres something a little strange though about walking into the ocean when the water temperature is 90 degrees. We just better hope that nothing comes into the gulf this hurricane season. The kids spent the days going between the beach and the pool, catching fish and sea creatures during the day and sand crabs at night. Since it was so breezy the surf was great and everyone fought over the boogie boards and had contests to see who could ride a wave the furthest. If we could ever get down there for more than a few days it might be fun to look into the surf lessons they offer in town. We went into town on the fourth and watched the fireworks go off over the intercoastal. We found a tucked away pier and had a clear view of the show!

Maddy's PI Breaststroke

Here is Maddy's prelim and final round breaststroke. She swam a personal best both times so again broke the team record. Regan's medley relay swam this weekend as well and placed 8th. Not bad considering Regan was the only PI qualified swimmer on the team. They again broke the team record. You could tell Maddy was intent on swimming well by her "warm up" routine. :)

Regan's PI Freestyle Video

Here is video of Regan's prelim and final round freestyle. She ended up 10th overall. The finals round is a big deal... they play music and announce each swimmers name and team.

Ponderosa Day 2

Feels like a giant repeat of Saturday. Today was Maddy's day however. The girls swam fly, breast, medley relays and Maddy swam the IM. Regan placed 20th in fly, swimming a personal best by .5 seconds. She added a little time in breast, but still did great. Maddy swam a personal best in the breast prelims and then bested again in the finals, finishing 12th overall. Which means she again broke our team breaststroke record. I have videos and I'll post them tomorrow, maybe. It's been a long, long 2 days. Maddy is now done swimming 25's. Next year she moves up to 50's. I'm sure she can rise to the challenge! Regan also moves up an age group. Overall they had a truly phenomenal year!

Ponderosa Day 1

Well, it's 8:30 pm and we just got home from day 1 of Ponderosa Invitationals. Talk about a long day. We got there at about 6:30 this morning. I went through some stats and figured that about the top 5% of swimmers in the Gulf Coast swim here. The girls were in very good company. Today the girls swam freestyle and backstroke. They swim prelims and finals here, so the top 16 swim again in the evening. We were pleasantly surprised when Regan made finals and ended up 10th overall. Not bad out of about 50 swimmers. Maddy finished 23rd I think. Neither girl swam their best time, but neither did a lot of people they were swimming against. Not sure where they finished in backstroke, but it was solidly in the top 2/3 at least. We head back tomorrow, at about 7 am this time. Girls swim fly, breast, Maddy does IM, and both swim a relay. It will be a long day. Maddy's best chance for making finals is in breast, but she has some serious competition. She'll have to swim a personal best to make it. To let you know how fast kids are getting, 2 years ago, Maddy breaststroke time would have gotten her 3rd at this meet. Yikes..... little Phelps' everywhere!

Annual Kerrville Trip

We took our annual trip to Kerrville last week. We again went out to Hunt to look at Stonehedge II, the kids had to race each other to see if anybody has gotten faster. David can still beat Dakotah. Maddy takes one step for every three the other kids take. This year the kids got to serve the Blue Bell on free ice cream day. I wonder if they ate more than they served... Despite the heat, easily 100 in the shade, it was a good trip.

Newton Girls Rock at Divisionals

Saturday was our swim team's big divisional meet where we swam against the 5 other teams in our division. We hosted it at our pool and expected over 600 swimmers, 1800 people overall. And it was the hottest day of the year! It was a long, long, long day to say the least, waking up at 5:30 am. The meet lasted from 8:30 to 4:00, which is late for us. Our dual meets are usually over by noon. Not only was the air hot, but the pool water was easily over 90 degrees. It really felt more like a hot tub. Not easy to swim in. The girls each faced some competition here. They had several swimmers with times very close to theirs. I think we might have had an edge having practiced in the "hot tub" for the last week though.

Regan's medley relay took a close second, but they have previously broken the team record held since 1993. Maddy's medley relay took first. Both girls freestyle relays took first, and both broke the team records. Regan took first in free, breast, and fly. Maddy took first in free, swimming a personal best of 16.09 for 25m, breast, and IM. They really racked up the points for the team, but overall we ended up placing 3rd in the division. We're ok with that because we really don't want to move up a division and swim against the giant teams that have nothing but year round swimmers.

It was a long day, which ended with mexican food, margaritas, and bed by 9. One more meet to go next weekend where the girls will face "NWAL's Best" swimmers from all over the gulf coast of Texas. A few of their strokes are barely qualified, but they are in there pretty good for the others. We'll see how they rise to the challenge!

The Newton Girls Can Swim

We had our third swim meet this weekend. Although our team lost the meet, Maddy and Regan swept their events. Maddy swam freestyle, breast, and IM. In breast stroke, she broke our competitors pool record and our own team record, and her freestyle relay broke our competitors pool record and they again broke our team record. Her IM was very strong as well. She knocked about 15 seconds off of her seed time and qualified for allstars. Her goal is to get a Ponderosa time in all events. She is very close.
Regan swam breast, back and fly. She qualified her back for allstars and is very close to Ponderosa in breast. She has already qualified her freestyle for Ponderosa. The days and therefore the water are getting warmer, so getting faster times is getting harder and harder. Regan made some huge gains for her team in the freestyle relay to bring them in for a win. It's so fun to watch them do so well! 2 more meets to go before we swim divisionals and invitationals. Hard to believe we're coming to the end of the season already!