Forced Perspective Photo Shoot

Today on Facebook a memory from five years ago popped up, a memory that I apparently didn't ever get around to blogging about. It must have been near the beginning of the school year, still at the beginning of the pandemic, and we did a little photo shoot playing with forced perspective. 

Here's Zoë holding up Benjamin and Miriam:

Zoë at the County Meet

After a somewhat terrible night (with Phoebe and rogue fire alarms and other adventures), we got up bright and early to head to Georgia Tech for Zoë's session of the county swim meet. Their facility is phenomenal—it probably helps that it was built specifically for the Olympics in 1996. So it was just fun to be there, even though our kids didn't quite end up making it in any individual events. Zoë was 56th in breaststroke (24.96, but 50th place—the cutoff for county—was only 24.49 and these kids didn't drop to 23.84 seconds until 44th place, so Zoë was really quite close making it!). As the fastest breaststroker on our team, though, she was pulled into the medley relay. She also swam on the freestyle relay.

Ribbons galore!

As you can see, the kids did well at their swim meets this week!

Benjamin had a whole fistful of blue (first place) ribbons:

Coach Heidi approached me about the possibility of him swimming on the high school team, which he's super excited about! He wouldn't be a star swimmer (to start out with; he'd probably be in the slowest lane), but he's showing a lot of potential and she'd love to have him when he graduates from middle school. He'll be heading to the county meet on the freestyle relay.

Last meet of the year!

We did it! We made it through the swim season! 

Our final meet was tonight and it was a little...touch and go in the beginning. A thunder storm rolled in just as we were setting up so we spent the next 1.5+ hours waiting it out. We got our meet started at 6:30 pm and the officiants really moved through things quickly!

Make-up Meet: A Boon for Benjamin

It was a scorcher today, but as hot as it was, tomorrow is supposed to be hotter! 

Poor Rachel and Miriam are off to YW camp, where they'll have to suffer through the heat all week (their cabin has electricity, so they've each packed a fan and have a few more items to help keep cool). 

The rest of us only had to suffer for a few hours at the swim meet this evening. Everybody was dripping—either from having just climbed out of the pool or from sweating to death on the sidelines—but we had a really great meet!

It was such a busy day between morning practice and Benjamin's woodworking camp in the afternoon. I changed into my blue shorts but somehow forgot to change into my white top (which I have to wear as a stroke and turn official) until I was walking out the door and Alexander said, "Oh, cool! You can wear navy blue and purple to judge now?"

No—I cannot! Good thing he said something! I had time to go back and change before heading to the pool. Andrew picked Benjamin up from his woodworking camp and brought him straight to the pool...it was chaotic.

But so good!

I worked with Alexander on his backstroke last Friday. I haven't been working with the kids as much this summer—in part because Rachel and Miriam haven't been around to help with Phoebe, who is still pretty hands-on in the pool, and in part because I've had bronchitis (have I mentioned that?)—but on Friday I did pull Alexander aside and we worked on getting his arms windmilling up-up-up into the air and down straight behind his head before pulling through the water. 

And just look at how high his arm is, whizzing by his head just perfectly:

Fun Friday and the end of babyhood

And it was a good meet after all! 

The kids had some tough events, swimming longer and harder sequences, so they were pretty exhausted (which meant they didn't always break their speed records in their regular events), but overall they did just great!

Alexander walked away with several speed breakers for his backstroke, 25 free, and 50 free—he is making great progress! His freestyle relay came in 6th...of 6...but since they had Alexander (7) and Atlas (6) swimming up with the 9/10 year olds...I think they about got what they paid for.

Zoë got 4th place in her IM, 5th place in the 50 yard free, and 3rd in breast stroke. Her medley relay got 3rd (and her freestyle was DQ'd). Benjamin got 4th place in his IM, 3rd in his 50 yard free, and 6th in his 50 yard backstroke. His medley relay came in 3rd and his freestyle medley came in 2nd. 

Swim meet

We spent 9 hours at the pool today...which was...a lot. But we had another great meet tonight!

Nothing personal

While Rachel and Miriam have been "across the pond," we've been having a fine time here at home.

On Monday morning last week, Zoë came home from swim team practice and immediately began making cookies. She's determined to learn how to bake...and whipped up some delicious oatmeal raisin cookies...while wearing an apron over her still-damp swimming suit. 

Cancelled Swim Meet

These are the faces of some very disappointed children whose swim meet got cancelled this evening: 

Flying to London and Fireflies

On Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Miriam, Grandpa, and Darla piled into Grandpa's car to head to the airport. Andrew was their chauffeur. 

They made it to London without a hitch...except for the fact that their accommodations fell through. 

More swimming news

As we suspected Zoë had quite a few ribbons waiting for her at Fun Friday this morning. Uncle Patrick asked if she had robbed the ribbon giver—but, no! These ribbons were all hard-earned!

Early this afternoon Benjamin opened his birthday presents (more on that later), but we also got fun packages for most of the other kids that I felt kind of bad giving to them, considering we're technically celebrating Benjamin...but there the packages were nonetheless. 

Zoë, the girl on fire! (and Alexander, the comic relief)

Well, Phoebe woke up around 3:00 in the morning today. 

When it became clear she wasn't going to go back to sleep I let her get up...but made her unload the dishwasher. And then we folded a load of napkins together (she was actually getting quite good at it by the end). And then we did a reading lesson. 

At some point she asked if she could go back to bed, but was unsuccessful at falling asleep. 

So we got up again and put in a load of laundry. 

And then the kids got up for swimming practice, so they all had breakfast together. I made Phoebe play on her own while I did some work and when the kids got home, I went down for a long nap. 

Phoebe...did not. 

She played in the basement with Alexander and Zoë. 

I left for the swim meet early with the kids (and still had to park on the street quite a distance from pool) and got them settled in "the bullpen" and checked in for my volunteer shift—I actually switched shifts with someone else. I was scheduled to be stroke and turn judge for the second half rather than the first half, but I just didn't know that I would have the stamina to make it through the second half (given my track record this week—cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze). 

Zoë sang the national anthem (as she has for every meet we've hosted for the past two years—I think she's up to five times now...but she'll probably sing next week as well, bringing her total to six). Considering she's also coming off a cold, I think she did well! That official was so nice (I'm not sure what his name is, but you can see that he tries to step in when Zoë lost her place in the song—and that wasn't the only nice thing he did today, either!)

First swim meet of the season

The kids had their first swim meet of the season this afternoon. It was drizzling when we arrived and soon started a veritable downpour. The chairs that I brought got completely soaked. All the children's towels were drenched. Everything was soggy.

I had Andrew bring an extra canopy for the kids when he came. I should have brought one when we set out, but ran out of time to grab it. Next time we'll be better prepared. It would probably be good to set up the canopies when it's sunny outside as well, truth be told, so it's good we dug them out.

Here's Alexander doing his warm up (he's adjusting his goggles—you can see "A Heiss" on his back):

Zoë's 10!

Zoë woke up early on Friday morning and convinced Grandpa and Darla to take her and Alexander to play pickle ball. So by the time I saw her she already felt like the luckiest girl in the world. 

After breakfast we headed down to the beach, where we found so many creatures. Brown comb jellies, sand fleas, clams, fish, crabs...animals were everywhere.

Here's Zoë pretending to pop a clam into her mouth:

Giant beaded lizards

To say nothing of Andrew's work schedule (which doesn't always populate on my calendar), today...

• I had a meeting from 10:30 to 11:15 
• I had a meeting from 11:15 to 11:45
• I left with the boys and Phoebe for the pool around 2:30
• Zoë had piano at 2:45 
• Miriam had piano at 3:45
• Zoë and Alexander had swim practice at 4:30
• Benjamin had swim practice at 5:00
• The big kids had mutual at 7:00
• The medium kids had an activity at 7:00
• Alexander had his baptism preview event at 7:00
• We had to record a song for my mom at 8:30

It was a busy day and—aside from "leaving for the pool around 2:30"—that is just the official stuff that made it onto the calendar. We did other "stuff" as well!

It was also the last of a lot of stuff, which is why I don't mind sharing our calendar publicly. Swimming, piano, and church activities will all get switched around beginning next week...so this is the last day we'll have a schedule like this. And it may have been the first day we've had a schedule like this. 

Phoebe Narrates the Easter Egg Hunt

"Take, take, take, take, take!" she said as she gathered the shiny plastic eggs (that were expertly hidden by the young women earlier that morning).

Lavender/Lilac

Phoebe wanted to make soup for dinner, using some rosemary she picked in the garden. She even got out a pot and put it on the stove with the rosemary in it, but I got out a bigger pot and started dinner in that. We had a head of cauliflower that we hadn't gotten to yet, so I decided on cauliflower soup and even found a recipe for rosemary cauliflower soup...which I loosely followed.

We decided on a whim to add some red cabbage to the soup. Quite a lot, actually. Because one head of cauliflower isn't going to feed a family of seven and we had some red cabbage in the fridge. 

Plus, it was bound to turn the soup a delightful pinkish-purple, which felt very springy, very Easter-y. 

Phoebe was very pleased with the light purple we ended up with after everything was blended together. But then I decided that it could use a little more acidity. So I grabbed a lemon and squeezed it into the pot and...

We're here to burgle your turts!

Phoebe slept in her own bed—and stayed dry!—until 6:00 or so. I helped her go potty and then we climbed back into bed for some morning snuggles and ended up falling back to sleep. She woke up hankering for a trip to the park.

I had a meeting in the early afternoon, but we decided we could do our writing time at the park and our math when we go home (we've finished with our science curriculum for the year and the kids have been working on reports for social studies). So we got up and started getting ready to go right away.

We had fun at the park, and I'm sure the kids would like me to share pictures of the cool stuff they did (and I will) but this post is about the turtle-y awesome walk we went on just before we came home. We decided to just take our ordinary stroll around the pond to see how spring is coming on (very nicely, if I do say so myself). 

Suddenly Zoë screeched, "Is that a turtle?!"

"Is what a turtle?" I asked. 

"That!" she said, pointing to the sidewalk. "I thought it was a rock...but it just moved..."

Curly Fives

Here's Zoë first thing in the morning on Sunday, just after taking out her curlers. She was excited to go to church with curly hair. It was a fast Sunday, which meant it was testimony meeting as well, and yet even with those gloriously sproingy curls Zoë stayed glued to her seat. 

Miriam got up to bear her testimony, though, which made me think back to a story I've never written down because Miriam was so embarrassed about it years ago...but she's mostly finished being embarrassed about it, I think, so I'll share it now. 

When Miriam was about Zoë's age (a little younger, perhaps (we were still living in Spanish Fork)) she asked me to curl her hair for church—on a fast and testimony Sunday! During the testimony meeting she surprised us all by standing up to bear her testimony. She regally skipped down the aisle and bounced up to the podium. With some enthusiastic head bobbing she bore her testimony. Then she skipped back down to sit with the family.

Running and handedness

 Zoë drew a picture of a runner the other day, which she decided was me. I am wearing gloves because she messed up on the hands. But I think it turned out pretty great!