Pinetop days 2-4

Not much happened day 2,3 or 4. Elyse, mom and I saw a movie and played Monopoly. Ultimately Mom won Monopoly. It was lots of fun.

Swim Team

As you can see I don't do my posts in order, but oh well.
One of my favorite things to do is swim. I have never been one to just lounge It was my first meet so I was very nervous. But I got fourth in the freestyle and back stroke. And second place in the 200 free relay.


Over time I won every ribbon except 5th place. Yes that means that in one of my races I got last place. But I had been doing volleyball all week so my body was tired.

One practice really stands out to me now. It was July 3rd. It was nice and cloudy which was fun. It also rained during warmups. Cloudy days always make me happy. So after a difficult 20 minutes. Coach Kelly said that we were going to do 4 100 IMs. An IM is a 25 butterfly, 25 backstroke, 25 breaststroke then a 25 freestyle in that order. They are very diifiucult. She said that we had to to them fast normally I would have been upset because that is a long way to swim. But it was a cloudy day and I was happy. On the  4th one I gave it my all and worked as hard as I could to keep going. When I got back I was out of breath. But I was proud of myself. Then you know what she said?! She said "Changed my mind your going to do another one" But we did it. At the end I felt great. Even though I just swam a 400 at about 85% effort!!

My last meet we were swimming a 50 backstroke, 100IM and a 50 butterfly. AT that point I didn't have any 1st place ribbons. I thought I had no chance of getting a  blue ribbon.. But I was placed in the 3rd heat and that gave me hope. I got second in the 100IM, second in the 50 backstroke. My parents said that one was super close. Then I got 1ST PLACE  in the 50 butterfly. I was super excied.

Pictures from all season.

This is me before my first meet.

Me after my first race.

Freestyle start. I am the one almost to the water in the middle with the gray swim cap.
(first meet)

Waiting to begin 50 backstroke. Lane 2. Gray cap.
(first meet)

Me after my last race. 50 Butterfly
(YAY first place!!!)

Me with coach Kelly after my last meet.

Me hoping I didn't get DQ after 50 butterfly.

Quick Updates

I'm sure you can tell I don't tend to my blog like a pot of plants. As I was reading all my past posts I noticed I said I that I would give more info but I never did. So here are some updates that i don't need to go into terrible details about.

1. Patriotic Speech Contest- Unfortunately I didn't place in the top 5. But I was proud of my performance.

This is me before the speech contest.



Here I am with my coach Mrs.Schneider

Here I am receiving my certificate.

2. PCC- Every year PCC has an award Banquet every year. Everyone gets certificates. They are quite nice. Select students get special awards like Perfect Attendance (Self Explanatory),Most Improved (Also Self Explanatory), Director's Award (The Directer Chooses a Chorister who is overall a great student) and the Outstanding Theory award (All the choristers are in a theory class and each teacher chooses 1 student who is an out standing theory students) I was in Ms.Hann's class, and I won the outstanding theory award!!



Here I am with my outstanding theory award.

3. Roger Waters- There are about 300 choristers in PCC. Of those 300 kids 16 kids were selected to perform with Pink Floyd's songwriter Roger Waters. And I was one of them. We sang Another Brick in the Wall. The experience was absolutely amazing!!! To think that thousands of people came see 1 guy perform. And it wasn't even the whole band.

This is all of the kids with Roger. I am on the far left on the bottom row.

This is during the performance. I was on the end so I was very close to Roger.

This is the big teacher puppet. If you know the song it makes sense. The big red eyes freaked everybody out.

This is also everyone with Roger. I am in the same place.

Everyone who sang got a signed photo and we got to keep the t-shirts!! (They say "Fear Builds Walls")

Journey to Pinetop (Day 1)

Most of our vacations involve at least a 2 hour drive. I don't mind longish drives. I like to read and talk. The drive to Pinetop was about 4 hours long. On the way we stopped to have lunch at McDonald's. As much as a dislike McDonald's it was pretty good.

Once we got there Mom went to open the door. We were told that there would be a key pad to unlock the door. But it took at least 40 minutes to get the door open. To make matters worse I had to go to the bathroom and it was raining AND there was thunder and lightning. When we did get inside the house it was pretty nice. That night I slept on the couch. Quite honestly it was pretty comfy.

Pinetop: my first reaction

My family goes on vacation about twice every summer. Normally for about 1 week. That is enough time for me. But my Mom and Dad always want to stay longer. So this week they decided that we were going to stay in Pinetop for two weeks. I can honestly say I wasn't thrilled with the idea. The worst part was that once we got back we would only have about a week and a half left of vacation. I also wouldn't get to go to go to swim finals or championships. (more on swim later)