Hmm... do we see a theme here?

Looks like someone's a little proud of their muscles!!! As she should be.

TAGS

Event 17A Girls 10 & Under 50 LC Meter Breaststroke

Name Age Team Seed Time

1 Schnibben, Mikayla K 10 CFSC-GU 40.26

2 Fields, Karsten E 10 TWST-GU 41.12

3 Powers, Kylie A 10 HSC-GU 41.58

4 Chinnis, Lauren E 10 LAC-NT 42.12

5 Shi, Vivian G 10 LAC-NT 42.21

6 Murphy, Halie 10 EPAP-BD 43.37

7 Newell, Sophie P 10 DADS-GU 43.51

8 Buchman, Sydney H 9 RICE-GU 43.51

9 Kutz, Sarah H 10 NTRO-ST 43.62

10 Morris, Megan L 10 LAC-NT 43.63

11 Bartley, Katelyn M 10 SASA-ST 43.68

12 Sims, Kaitlynn S 10 MAC-GU 43.87

13 Witteveld, Mikaela V 10 TWST-GU 44.27

14 Mackey, Madeline A 10 MARC-GU 44.50

15 Luo, Karley 10 MTRO-NT 44.52

16 Newton, Regan E 10 PACK-GU 44.74

17 Maher, Sofia N 10 NTN-NT 44.81

18 Praczko, Tamara 9 SWAT-GU 44.83

19 See, Zhi-Syuen 9 DADS-GU 44.92

20 Marvin, Payton C 10 NTRO-ST 44.93

21 Burch, Alyssa C 10 AAAA-ST 45.06

22 Lee, Madeline X 10 FA-NT 45.07

23 Wilson, Whitney E 10 ROCC-GU 45.08

24 Giles, Allie M 10 MAC-GU 45.18

25 Baker, Aubrey L 10 FA-NT 45.20

26 Jozwiak, Lauren A 10 WETT-BD 45.24

27 Perley, Portia L 10 NTRO-ST 45.26

28 Sullivan, Ilona D 10 CPS-ST 45.31

29 Oberoi, Shalom 9 FCST-GU 45.33

30 Cook, Julia 10 AGS-GU 45.49

31 Ridley, Meagan N 10 AQUA-GU 45.49

32 Vincent, Clarissa A 10 DADS-GU 45.49

This is the psych sheet from this weekends TAGS (Texas Age Group Swimming) swim meet. The time cuts are set so that only about 24-30 can make it. Best in the state. Look who is at number 16!

Kerrville 2011

A few pictures from this years Kerrville trip. Can't believe how big they are getting! As usual it was a mad dash between swim meets for the trip.

Summer League

We are off to a good start for summer league swimming. 2 meets down, 4 records broken.

44.74

6 hours of practice a week... one goal... a TAGS cut in 50 breast. Regan woke up on Saturday morning for her meet and asked if coach Kimberlee would be there that day. I didn't know. I asked her why. Because I want her to be there to watch me get TAGS. She was over a second and a half away from a TAGS cut. Not an easy task at this level. But she was confident.

Race time came, she was in the second heat, behind swimmers with TAGS seed times. She looked good. But they weren't posting times so I couldn't tell what she swam. So I zoomed my lens on Coach Kimberlee across the pool after the race...











I think this picture says it all... Guess we'll be makin' the trip to the State Meet this summer...

Great End to Short Course Season

23 hours at the pool for about 15 minutes of swim time. But worth it based on the amount of hardware around their necks. They amazingly continued to drop time in all of their events. Short course (25yard pools) is now over and the girls will be training in the long course (50meter) pools after spring break and are looking forward to attending the Texas A&M swim camp right after school is out. Summer league is right around the corner. It'll be hard for Regan to go back to swimming 25 meter events. They've both really excelled at the longer events this year.

Perfect Texas Friday

Not to rub it in or anything, but today is one of those perfect weather days. Not a cloud in the sky and a fabulous 70 ish degrees. And a Friday to boot! Makes it a perfect evening for margaritas on the patio of our fave Mexican restaurant. These are a few pics from our recent trip to Kemah. Obviously still reveling in the Packers superbowl win.

Fall Champs Swim Meet

Spent the WHOLE weekend at the Fall Champs swim meet. Maddy and Regan dropped time in most events. Hard to do after having a week off of practice for Thanksgiving break. Regan even qualified for Gulf Champs next weekend in the 50 Breast. So I guess we make the 1 hour drive, probably before dawn, for a 30 minute warm up and then a 30 second swim. Gotta love it....

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a busy Thanksgiving weekend! Grandma Gerrie and Papa came to visit. Maddy won't stand up straight in the picture because she doesn't want it known that she's taller than Grandma Gerrie now. She's grown another 1 1/2 inches in the last 3 months.


Then we headed to San Marcos for Thanksgiving Day. We had our traditional hayride, which Bear got to enjoy with us. It was freezing cold that night! Much different from the 80 degrees earlier in the day!


We topped off the weekend with a marshmellow roast by the new treehouse. The kids dug out a firepit and even decorated the treehouse with Christmas lights. Don't know if you can really make them out in the background, but Dad finally got to use some of that pallet of spindles he bought years ago for $50 (because, you know, they might come in handy some day). They go all the way around the front porch of the treehouse and line the top of it as well. I'm not usually a huge s'mores fan, but i had two of them that night.

Scare A Kid Today, Make a Better Adult Tomorrow

Scare a Kid Today, Make a Better Adult Tomorrow is a quote i saw recently from Alton Brown, the guy from the food network. This saying ended up being my "theme" for halloween this year. And yes, I did scare several kids (and adults) at our 4th annual Haunted Train. It was tons of work, but sooo worth it. In a few more years we're gonna have to open it up to the public to get a little more mileage out of it. Here is a link from a slide show my sister put together. I didn't actually get to take any pictures. I misplaced my camera and didn't find it until we got home. It was in my purse. Who'd have thought to look there????

http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d546b354e6a67784e6a52384e444d334f546b774f444d3d0d0a&sb=1

Happy Halloween Week

When witches go riding
and black cats are seen
the moon laughs and whispers
'tis near Halloween!
-author unknown

websites of people who really know how to do Halloween
www.pumpkinrot.com
www.lovemanor.com
www.hauntedoverload.com

Renaissance Festival

Time for the Texas Renaissance Festival! We made the annual trek out to Plantersville to see what kind of scary creatures would make themselves known to us. Turns out it was "Fairy" weekend, so the forest was pretty void of anything too crazy, but we did find these guys, who totally look like they belong in the forest but were nothing to run screaming from. No dressing up for us this year, since it was about 90 degrees! This weather has way overstayed it's welcome...

6 Months in Under 6 Minutes

Swimming in the BIG Pool

We spent the weekend at Texas A&M for the girls first "long course" swim meet. Long course means the 50m pools. Wow! That is a LONG way to the other end. The facility was fantastic. Wish they had had it when I was there for school. No wonder college is so expensive now. The ammenities they offer these kids would make you never want to leave! Anyway, we had a good time and they swam great. Regan for sure has decided to continue swimming through the summer. Maddy has yet to commit. She wasn't so thrilled with the big pool! Summer league begins as soon as the neighborhood gets the pump fixed. Always something... I don't think the girls realize how "easy" summer practice is going to be after the practices they've had at the club level. And the 25m pool will seem very short!

We Are The Champions (of the C2 division)

Appropriately, the season ended on a rain makeup. I believe we only had 2 or 3 matches that didn't require a rain makeup this year. By Monday afternoon, it was mathmatically impossible for anyone to finish ahead of us. Wednesday's makeups were, as Gene put it, to simply leave no doubt that we deserved it. We easily won our last 3 lines. Yeah us! It's nice to finish on top for a change! So now we celebrate and accept our trophy, or towel or whatever they bestow upon us, and move on to swim team and USTA tennis. LET SUMMER BEGIN!

More Bluebonnets

Just a few more pics of the spectacular bluebonnets at mom and dad's. The fields were an endless sea of blue. We just couldn't stay out of them! I think there were more every day! Once again, though, it was easier to get cute pics of the dogs. They were much more cooperative. I wish they could stay forever...