little fish, BIG POND

We got a great lesson in Big fish-little fish. It was humbling to walk into this HUGE natatorium and try to figure out where you fit. Coming up against some pretty tough teams from places like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin -- we quickly remembered we were from Mission. Marin got to see what a race looked like from outside of lane 4 and the fastest heat. She won't easily forget it. It seems to have motivated her even more. And that's what so great about it. She got to swim with the fastest TAAF swimmers in Texas. And that's a pretty big deal.

And little Santi? Lucky for her, they advanced the sixers to State. So she also got to swim with the best. At six! Although, I think the grandeur was a little lost on her. She wasn't too concerned about going fast. But man did her stroke ever look good! Fortuantely, we're pretty sure the girls understand that we think they're pretty Big fish wherever they go.

Lookie here! Marin was soooo happy to see Esmer. It was pretty comforting to have a pal amongst all those fierce competitors. They got to chat it up on the ready bench and a little afterward. Sweet relief.

And here's our relay! Lauren, Sienna, Lilly, and Marin. They did so amazing! And that's not subjective. They actually cut 5 seconds off of their best time! Could we be anymore impressed with these girls? It was a great ending to an awesome season for each girl. This relay team will be a lasting memory for Marin, also because Sienna is moving away next week. She's been a good friend. We'll miss her next season.

Marin and Santi with Blue team coaches, Coach Arnold and Coach Fabien. The opening ceremonies were really fun. The girls enjoyed marching in the parade of athletes with all the other swimmers.

A golden opportunity. We got to meet Olympic Gold medalist Josh Davis! He was so nice. He signed the girls' tshirts and let them wear his gold and silver medals for this picture! Can you believe it? What fun. The girls were totally excited and couldn't wait to come home and google his name and watch some of his races.

A far less stellar moment, but too good to pass up. I told the girls that if they made State, I would swim in a parents relay. What did I get myself into? A lot of no good. It was such a blast even though we came in DEAD last (which we kind of expected). It was pretty hilarious. We talked a lot of smack on the ready bench and only the teams who take this kinda thing a little too seriously were mildly offended. Until they realized that we all knew we had nothing to back our talk.
The coaches also swam a relay and Arnold kept saying, "We got this!" and "What? We're in shape. It's round, but we're in shape. Right?" I was dying. The funniest thing is that those serious teams got beat out by our coaches relay. It was awesome to see their faces when they realized it.
I have to say that my friend Monica, who did agree to swim with me, was so awesome and was such a hot momma in her suit too! I, however, quickly realized that there are some problem areas I'm not too happy I exposed to a room full of hundreds of people. What we will do for our children. And a laugh.
I promised some friends (who were smart enough to say no to my splendid idea of a relay) that I would post the video. If only the camera could lie. But sadly, it can't. Dara Torres is 41 and swims like she's 21. I'm 31 and swim like I'm 51. When I went to sign in at registration, I noticed Coach Arnold entered me as a 26-year-old swimmer. What a nice guy.

I'll post videos later. We're still having a few internet problems from the Hurricane. Lame.

This was a cute moment between the girls when they shared the same lane in different heats. They had Marin line up behind Santi and Marin couldn't resist giving Santi a little encouragement. It's a good thing she did. This was the 25 Back and it looked like Santi was about to get up on the block instead of inside the pool. As independent as Santi seems, there are times when she totally relies on her sister. Those moments just melt my heart. I'm so glad we didn't miss it.

to check out the girls' times go to the following link:
http://www.swimtaaf.com/Results/SGOT%202008/Session%204%20Results.pdf

Marin:

Event #68 50 Free

Event #72 25 Back

Event #92 100 Free Relay

Santi:

Event #68 50 Free
Event #72 25 Back

Event #84 25 Free

Well, Hello Dolly...

Dolly has come and gone and I have to say that I won't miss her one bit. Being our first direct Hurricane to the RGV, we weren't sure exactly what to expect. But fortunately, we prepared for worse than what we got and there wasn't a moment I didn't feel completely protected. Not that I wasn't scared by the frightening sounds and sights just outside our door. I wasn't even quite sure our house would withstand everything it did, but I was comforted that my family would be safe under any circumstance. Phew!


Above is a picture of Marin and Santi with our buddy Parker. He and his dad, Nate (who is also our EQ President) came to help us board up some doors. Parker and the girls prepared for the hurricane by using this little bubble blower gun to reenact the severe winds that would undoubtedly blow through our town. On a much smaller scale of course.

Thank goodnes, thank goodness for Brian and Nate. I was certain these doors off of the balconies were sure to bust open with a strong enough gust of wind (because they have before. in the middle of the night. while Bri was out of town. setting off the alarm all night. good times.). They did a great job because not one drop of rain came into the house.

Brian certainly had his work cut out for him. He had to be several places at once. Legally, he had to be at the facility to care for the patients. As the bishop, he of course needed to see to the safety of the ward members. As some sort of chair of the stake welfare committee he was supposed to keep the Stake President abreast of any major concerns within the stake. And surprisingly, he even came by the house to check on us a few times over the course of three days. He hadn't really slept that whole time and was run pretty ragged. Poor guy.

The worst damage we had was that a panel from the wood fence was blown over. The good news is that it's an easy fix.

We had sandbags at every entrance and even had a few leftover. Having extras turned out to be quite fortuitous for a family in our ward whose front door was flooding.

We drained the pool like 10 inches before the storm hit thinking that would be plenty for the rainfall. It turns out it wasn't. I woke up (got up is more like it, I didn't really sleep through it) the next morning around 5am because Santi was throwing up (extra super fun during a hurricane) and decided to check all the doors and windows while I was up. I peeked out to the pool and could barely tell by the morning light that the water was to the top of the pool. I was shocked. So I ran out there (luckily the winds had calmed quite a bit), rolled out the 50 foot drainage hose, pulled this, pushed that, and drained the pool another 8 inches, and rolled up the 50 foot hose. In pooring rain.
I felt pretty accomplished that I fixed this problem without having to bother Brian. The only thing I couldn't do was push down this one lever, but the pump was off and Bri could take care of it when he got home sometime that day. So a few hours later when Bri comes home I told him how I had nipped that problem before it could do anything major or costly. Imagine my surprise when I go to show him and the entire pool is half empty. Or half full. Depending on how you want to look at it.
Fortunately, my husband is ever the optomist and just laughed. Neither one of us knew that the timer could kick in and turn the pump from off to on by itself. I'm so glad the pump wasn't ruined because of my ignorance. So here we had a surplus of free water, just to drain it all and have to pay a big water bill to fill the pool up again. You just have to be willing to laugh. At me.
And below is a video of what Abram chose to do with too much indoor time. If anyone had cabin fever, it was this little guy. He stood at the back door and just stared out the window wanting desperately to go outside. Even as palm fronds were blowing past. I think I may have even heard a dramatic sigh.
Considering our very bad luck with posting videos lately, I hope you'll actually get to watch it.

Lime Light

When Abram's at the dinner table, he's usually in the limelight. We watch all that he does for a few reasons.

One reason he has our almost undivided attention, is due to all the unidentified flying objects coming from his direction. Bob and weave. He is getting a little better, although the dingey tile under his place at the table speaks otherwise.

The other reason is illustrated so nicely in the video above. We like to see his reaction to whatever we put infront of him. He might be a little too trusting. After this experience, I'm pretty sure he'll go light on the limes next time.

Incredible HULSE

In the immortal words of Jackie Gleason:

"One of these days, Alice. Pow! Right in the Kisser!"

With every passing swim meet this season, we continually kept in mind what was looming ahead -- Alice. Well, it turns out that Alice brought it, but it wasn't near enough to bring down the dynamic duo also known as, The Incredible Hulse.
Each of the girls placed well and we celebrated their victories. Again, we're most proud of how they've tried to hang around and dish out a few high-fives after the races. I really do hope that sticks.

I cannot express just how much fun we had. But for memories' sake, I'll try. The big fun was in the road trip and staying in a hotel. There's just nothing like getting away for even a day. Lots of our friends stayed in the same place which of course was so much fun.

Alice has an outdoor pool surrounded by fields. We bought a canopy and pitched it up the night before. At first I was so nervous about the heat and the sun (especially with a baby), but the breeze was so nice and it was kind of like camping with tons of our friends for a day. I jammed the cooler full of yummy snacks (Almost my favorite part of the day. I'll take any excuse to munch it.). Surprisingly, Abram LOVED hanging out in the pack-n-play and had lots of attention from everyone around. He even took a nap! We certainly don't deserve such luck. Phew!

The girls on the ready bench for the 50 Free. Santi is up front in the first heat. Marin is up top for the third. A lot of these girls have been rivals all season, so when I told them to scoot in and do a silly picture, it took a little coaxing. It helped break the tension. This was the girls' first race, so we had no idea what to expect.

The photo above is Marin with her big rival Esmer. If I wasn't convinced previously that it was a friendly rivalry, I certainly was by the end of the meet. These two were chatting it up the whole time on the ready bench. Marin's coach even reminded her to focus. Later, when I asked Marin what she and Esmer were chatting about, she laid the whole detailed dialogue in only a way Marin could (she gets that from her dad, right? Right?):

Since Marin had a new red cap, Esmer was looking for the girl with the blue one. Esmer told Marin that there was a girl at the last meet who had gotten a 45 and that she came in second with a 49. Marin said, "Oh, yah? Keep talking." All the while saying in her mind, "She's talking about me." After a little while Marin apparently revealed her true identity and they laughed about it. This is what I love the most from this story. When Marin finished her race, she said, "Esmer and I are going to state!" How cool is that? They've sharpened each other so much this season. I do so hope we see her there and that they swim together.

Marin had practiced endlessly for the Back. And it totally showed. She cranked those arms around so quickly and actually pulled water. Even though she had worked so much on her finish to not repeat the illegal rollover, she was a little nervous. We told her that if she got a DQ, we would take her to Dairy Queen (yes, it's a play on DQ) and we got to order for her. But if she didn't get a DQ, we would still take her to DQ and she would get to order for herself. Whatever, but for some reason it helped calm her down.

Marin's 100 Free Relay: Sienna, Lilly, and Marin (missing Lauren). This was by far the most exciting race of the meet. At least for us. According to the heat sheet, Alice was expected to beat us by 3 seconds. And these girls weren't having that. Marin's coach told me Marin was trying to pump up the relay by getting the girls to focus on breaking their times during their splits. She apparently also told them, "Now let's go kick some Tigershark butt!" Poor Alice didn't see it coming. Individually, Marin recovered and even gained yardage over Alice, which our girls totally needed in the end. We ended up coming in first by about half a second. Every single one of our girls broke their individual best in the relay. Can you believe it?

Now let's talk a little bit about Santi. Viscous! We didn't realize that at regionals, the six and unders were going to be scored in their own age group. Score! That was an unexpected and wonderful surprise for us! As a result, Santi placed first in two events and second in another. She hadn't placed in the top three since the first meet. She was elated.

We're still not sure if the little ones will advance to state in their own category, swim with the eight and unders, or not advance at all. Seeing as how we haven't heard an official word yet, we're guessing they don't advance to State. Nevertheless, Santi swam three events and brought home three medals.

I went to where the results were posted and heard two moms talking, "And who's this Santi from Mission?" And all the other "pick a little, talk a little" you might get in such a situation. Then they turned to me (seeing that my shirt said Mission Swim, I guess) and I said pointing to Santi's name, "That one's mine." At first they thought I was joking and then they said, "Oh, she's doing so good."

She's just so little up there swimming with all the eights. I love how that doesn't seem to bother her.

Santi's form has improved so much throughout the season. And so has her confidence. I do have to mention that she improved her times in 25 and 50 free, which is awesome. Something happened on her 25 Back. I'm not sure if she was tired from the 50 Free (she went straight to the ready bench for the Back after her 50), or if she thought form precedes function... But she must have been singing, "Take it Easy." It was so sweet, I couldn't help but love every graceful, albeit, leisurely stroke. Her coach kinda looked back at me like, "What's going on?" I just shrugged my shoulders. Fortunately, he's the same coach who took underwater video of her (when she slowed down to look at the camera) and knows that sometimes she's more for show.

This is what Abram preferred to do during the down time. He stuffed as many goldfish (baby goldfish, mind you) as humanly possible into his mouth without a thought as to how he would chew it all. Which resulted in spitting out a few. And yet he continued with his favored method all day. Good thing we were outdoors. We didn't do a thing about it.

I'm quite the lucky one. I'm so grateful to my family for trying to see the good things in hot, sticky situations. It was hot, and the Alice facilities weren't all that, but we couldn't change that and I'm so glad it didn't ruin our day.

Having traveled through all these small towns while en route to San Antonio, I have gotten a small taste of what poor small town America is really like (I mean seriously poorer and smaller than where I'm from). This is a huge subject for another philosophical post, but in short, hosting regionals meant so much to an obscure little town. Even talking to some of the people from Alice they said, "We've got such a great program because there's nothing else to do out here." These kids swim in a less-than-stellar pool (I'm being generous; six lanes, no gutters, blocks on one side, old, old, old.) and yet for them it's a motivation and not an excuse. During the school year when the kids have to swim long course, they have to travel 30 minutes just to practice, and sometimes twice a day.

And their parents are just beaming with pride; and they should be. I am so impressed with the program and everyone in it. Everyone pitched in to pull off a great meet. I don't know how they did it, but that pool was scrubbed spotless. Somehow they struck a beautiful balance of humility and pride like I've never seen. It really was our pleasure to be a part of it.

Marin:
1) 50 Free 42.33 (-3.04)
1) 25 Back 24.06 (-.82)
1) 100 Free Relay 1:25.87 (-7.13)

Santi:
1) 50 Free (-16.69)
2) 25 Back (+5.64)
1) 25 Free (-1.7)

Deka

If I knew then what I know now...

...I'd do it all over again...probably...

Of course!

For an "unofficial" celebration of our "official" day, I could not have asked for more. With all the excitement (and a little stress) of multiple activities happening simultaneously, including leaving for regionals tomorrow, Bri and I decided to celebrate our Big Ten next week. But neither of us could resist some small displays of affection. We mostly reminisced about our big day way back when and laughed at ourselves. I have to insert here that I cannot believe Brian picked me. I was such a dork! And still am, although not so much now. Fortunately for me, he had faith that I actually could grow up and hopefully would. I'm still trying to catch up.


I had this tropical arrangement delivered to Brian's work. It was really fun to anticipate his phone call when they actually arrived.


Abram woke up early this morning, so Bri took the opportunity to make a trip to the store and pick up some yummy breakfast treats and a very beautiful sunflower bouquet. They're still my fav. Bri said that Abram kept roaring at the sunflowers and finally figured that he was associating them with lions (He's really big into animal noises right now). I can just imagine him in the store wearing his little robot jammies and roaring at any sunflower he saw.


These are some of the treats Bri surprised me with. It was a sweet ending to a long day of practices and errands. These treats totally represent each of our dessert tendencies. I go chocolate, he goes fruity. Usually. So I thought this was a perfect balance. Plus he was smart enough (by experience) to just let the girl have her cake and eat it too. I love how different we are.
And I love that Bri is not threatened to be married to a more attractive, more intelligent, more compassionate, and more hilarious spouse. Oh wait. Strike that. Reverse it. Except the hilarious part.


Marin's gift to us were these beautiful "Happy Tenth" rings that she made. It was a complete surprise and I have no idea how she sized our fingers either; but they fit just perfectly. I so love the ring box too. She's such a sweetheart. I will keep these forever.

Rain, Go Away

It's raining. It's been raining for DAYS. At first, I LOVED it because it was a welcomed change and it cooled the temperature from 100 to high 70's. Who could complain about that?

Things that LOVE the rain...

Marin and Santi have been on a mission to save any bug that might fall into the abyss of rain puddles in the backyard. They've even saved fire ants to fight another day. I believe they'll regret it later. Just shy of offering CPR, they house the bugs in the "bug saver" container, offer them crushed graham crackers, and then release them into the herb garden. When they feel so accomplished, how can I point out that the bugs will be feasting on our seasonings?

Mud Puppies. This is what it's all about. They insisted that Marin's croc fell into this puddle (which is still controversially debated as quicksand or just a puddle of old fashioned mud) and that it most certainly HAD to be retrieved. How? It's quite obvious that one would be required to remove the baby's diaper and plop him into the potential quicksand to fetch one's favorite shoe. Right? He really didn't mind. But seeing as how he wasn't lost to the quicksand, the girls decided to throw in a couple of toys to keep him happy. Where was I while all this was happening? Blogging.

A texas orange previously scorched by the hot sun gets a much needed drink (because we don't water it much).

Things that DON'T love the rain...

Abram's toys have been left to fend for themselves and have all but disappeared in the murky mess.

While the puddle fills, the pool reaches maximum levels. We've drained the pool twice since it started raining which seems like it will become a daily chore.

One of our recently transplanted palms is leaning toward giving up under such rainy and windy conditions.

This one already did. I called the landscaper last week to come back and stake it again since it was leaning and Bri was too busy. But in true Rio Grande Valley fashion, he never showed up to finish the job. How does anyone stay in business down here? Sad.

While the kids were playing on Saturday, I got this strong feeling to bring them inside. And I'm so grateful I did. The palm fell Sunday afternoon. The experience became a handy lesson in obeying Mom's instructions. I'll be using this one for years.

There's still a very slight chance to save the poor palm and I hope so. It's such a lovely creation and would be a terrible waste.

Independence

I won't go into what that word really means here in the Hulse house. Suffice it to say it is a misnomer for all things curiously mischevious. It's what we politely call our children in mixed company when their ideas don't exactly match up with ours. "He's a very independent little boy" or "She likes to express her independence quite often."

But to celebrate the holiday, we started off with our traditional Red, White and Blue Pancackes this morning. The girls LOVE them. Abram was napping during breakfast and missed out. How sad? Well, not really since he woke up at about 6:30 am. Considering Bri had the day off, we had planned on sleeping in, at least longer than 6:30 am. Abram apparently was not on board with this plan. And I had no plans of making pancakes that early. So he skipped out.

The best part of the day was having a very, very quiet day at home with Brian. Remarkably, he hasn't received any calls from either work or church. We just might squeak by today. We watched a little bit of fireworks on TV and then had Friday Family Movie Night. Bri thought it would be a special treat to get TV dinners and picnic on the floor. Very fun.

Staying inside is the key to celebrating the Fourth down here. Any holiday is a great excuse to fire off guns into the air. I would say you might feel like you were in a bad TV Western or The Three Amigos when people carelessly fire into the air, but unfortuantely, these are semi-auto guns. But to end on a happy note, the photo below is our picture perfect pancakes.

And in honor of Marin learning the preamble this year, with a little help from School House Rock:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.