Yesterday was the meet of all swim meets, the best of the best...The Meet of Champs. Swimmers from the central Arkansas region had to qualify to enter. Isaac qualified in freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, IM (100 meter medley), and relay. It was so much fun to be around so many good swimmers. Isaac was pumped. He did fantastic. Better than we anticipated. He broke his own person records by seconds. He came in 6th place over all in his age division for freestyle, 2nd place in IM, 3rd in relay, 9th in butterfly. His shinning moment came during backstroke. He is the Champion...not to be beat. He came away in 1st place over all in backstroke. There's a kid he has raced against a few times named Joseph Pots...watch for him in the Olympics. This kid is amazing...true talent and skill. His times are phenomenal for an 8 year old. Isaac's #1 goal was to beat him in something...he did it in backstroke. Watch the great defeat. Two timers stood up at the end so you can't actually see him touch the wall, but you can see the win.Coach Janet was jumping up and down. So excited to see her new swimmer take gold. At the End of the Year Party last night she told us Isaac broke the 11 year record set back in 1998. The record was 25 meter backstroke in 21.84 seconds. Isaac is now the record holder at 21.00 seconds. Couldn't be more proud of him. He has worked hard and swam fast. I think we found a new passion for him.
Last night was also the End of the the Year Party for the swim team. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, the kids all got their trophies and medals. Then we went swimming (what else do you do as a swim team?) It was a lot of fun. At the end they pulled all the kids out of the pool and threw in tons of quarters. The kids all dove in and got as many as they could. Hayden came away with 75 cents, Isaac with $3.75, and Caite was too tired to get back in. It's a fun tradition.
We had a really fun 4th of July! Aaron had the day off, which hasn't happened since we've lived here. We went to our little Maumelle Parade. When I say little, I mean really little. I think it was over in 15 minutes. But they threw LOTS of candy. And that's really the only reason the kids want to go. Then we went to the Crandalls for a BBQ with lots of friends. It was fun to just relax and eat good food and catch up with everyone. The men had fun setting of fire works...I think they had more fun than the kids. When it got dark we went over to the lake for fireworks. We had fun, the kids had fun, it was nice to spend the whole day together. That really doesn't happen very often.