CatchUp

What a weekend! We are finally home, and happily nearly caught up with the loads of laundry that were produced, along with the seriously lacking sleep we were able to endure. The photos above are indicative of how the whole weekend felt~Chaotic! State Swim Meets bring together 14 teams of swimmers here along with nearly 2 parents per swimmer. There is no room for spectators and swimmers at a pool. Whoever builds pools never seems to consider that there might be people there watching, and thus the space allotted to spectators is seriously lacking. We were cramped, crowded and crabby for 2.5 days just as I expected.

It amazes me how some team's parents seem to think they have the right to a certain area of bleachers and no one else is allowed to invade their space. One certain team in particular decided they could take up an entire section of bleachers, they had balloons, banners and very few people there saving an entire section of bleachers. As I said, there were 14 different teams there. There are 6 sections of bleachers, and one team claimed an entire section. Logically that makes no sense to me, it is such a sign of selfishness. After the first day of swimming (really half a day) the host team sent over representatives to discuss the situation with those particular parents, and they had the gall to actually argue with those representatives, claiming that they "needed" all that space. That's some good sportsmanship! As parents, shouldn't we be setting the examples? Isn't that our job? This same crew of parents also consistently did team cheers over any announcements that were done regarding records or high scores being set by other teams. Again, we have a great example of immaturity.
But I take heart that the rest of the teams were kind, courteous, generous with cheering regardless of team affiliation, and more than willing to allow others to sit with them.

On to more positive notes. Miss 15 was top ten in every event she swam this weekend. She cut time in 6 out of 7 of her events and Hubby and I were very proud. She had a great time staying with a friend from the host town, and this allowed Miss 10 a bed of her own in the hotel room, I think that fact led to both of them being more rested, always a good thing. Miss 10 also cut time in 6 out of 7 events. She placed in the top ten in several events, and in the top 20 in the remaining events. Her relay teams were incredible placing fourth and sixth overall. Both times they just missed a higher placing by hundredths of a second.

Hubby and I were crowded and hot and tired of sitting. For most of the three days we couldn't both leave our seats at the same time for fear of losing them, this posed a few challenges. The first full day we were at the pool for 11 hours, and the second day we were there for 8 hours. The noise in the pool negated most chances for conversation and left ringing in our ears much like a rock concert does. We saw some incredible shows of sportsmanship by the swimmers, lots of hugs, high fives and a few belly bumps, and those weren't from team mates, they were from opposing swimmers. I love that swimmers are friends up to the race, competitors in the pool, and back to being friends the moment they get out.

Our drive home was mostly silent aside from requests for more food from the back seat. Both girls were famished and exhausted. We were all a little nervous to come home to a house that Mr 19 had been alone in for 2 days. On the surface things looked pretty good, but as the past few days have gone by I notice little things that make me suspicious: a picture knocked off the wall, a mysterious nick out of my table, 15 or so two inch stains on my carpeting, marks on the kitchen floor, both windows in the garage wide open, a ton of food disappeared, unusual garbage on the deck, a strange un-removable mark on the tv in the kitchen, sticky strange things on pictures in the kitchen, tons of dried grass, leaves and sand piled up at both the front and back door...

We are glad to be home, and we are very proud of the girls and all their hard work, but at the moment, we are most excited that swim season is over for a while. It's exhausting sitting and watching them!