Vacation (Fishing Tales)

We just returned from eight nights in the Smokey Mountains.

We had the best time enjoying family and the lazy days of summer.  It will soon be time to return to the school schedule, but for now, we can still pretend to be there.

The girls tried their luck at fishing for the very first time.  We soon discovered that they needed the old trusty cane pole.  This borrowed rod and reel would prove to be more trouble that it was worth.

After lots of watching this

and doing this

prayers were finally answered.

Hannah's very first catch!

Can the smile be any bigger?

There would be several more attempts

and several more fish!

(to be continued)

Swim Team

The girls have participated in a broad list of sports, but until this year, swim team was not included.  Hannah wasn't sure about trying this one, but after the information meeting, she was fired up and ready for a new adventure.

Practices started two weeks before school was out and were held four evenings during the week.  Once school was out, we had practice 5 days a week.  The season consisted of 5 meets, 2 of them being at other pools and three at our pool.  Each of the girls competed in the back, breast, butterfly and freestyle strokes.  They both also competed in the team medley races.

Travis and I enjoyed keeping tracks of times and events and watching the improvements from meet to meet.  The amount of improvement was amazing.

Thankfully, shortly after this picture was taken, Haley learned how to dive.

Her tummy was thankful as were the spectators that had to grimace every time she smacked the water.

Swim team is a very short, but very intense season.  We loved every minute of it and I think that I might have found my new favorite sport.  As an extra bonus, we were very surprised when both girls qualified to go to the championships.  They each qualified for the maximum of three individual events as well as Haley qualifying to compete in two medleys.

At championships, Haley broke one of her previous bests and Hannah blew all three of her fastest times out of the water!

All of this was fun and rewarding, but the highlight for Travis and I came at the end of the season party.  Each swimmer (over 100) was given a special award.  To come up with 100 individual awards, obviously creativity had to be involved.  We were so, so happy when Hannah received the "Hardest Worker" award and Haley received the "Most Polite" award.  We'll take that over any swimming achievements any day of the week! 
So proud of you, Haley and Hannah!

Cousin Camp

Once Haley was home and the campers were together, it was officially

Cousin Camp 2010.

We did arts and crafts, made yummy desserts, and visited with Grandma Peggy.

We painted houses and snakes and ate lots of popcorn, too!

We love Cousin Camp!

Hello Summer (continued)

The next day,

they pretended to have mustaches

and they drank red Kool-Aid

and ate ice cream sandwiches,

but the real fun came on Tuesday when they got to attend the

Young Chef's Academy.

Cold Beefy Pizza and Lemon Freeze

were on the menu for this day!

Yummy!

Wednesday brought yucky weather and a trip to the

Children's Museum.

We stayed for only a few hours, but could have stayed for the day.

They loved it!

Finally, it was time to welcome our camper back home. 

We missed that big girl!

With all three together, now it would officially be

Cousin Camp!

(to be continued)