All Star Swim Meet and end of basketball season and more

Last weekend (Feb. 25th and 26th) was the Pacific Swimming Association All Star Swim meet in Santa Rosa. Phoenix and Rubix qualified for the event, but Rubix was too young to "go" with the team. We dropped Phoenix off at Gunderson High school at 11 am on Saturday, for her to take the team bus to Santa Rosa Junior College, where the team was scheduled for warm ups later that afternoon. Keith, Axel, Rubix and I headed up in the car after dropping her off. As you can see she was very excited.

Here is Phoenix with her instant new friends/team mates waiting for their turn to warm up. Apparently, it is very difficult to orchestrate all 5 zones in Northern California so the kids had to wait more than an hour and a half to get into the water. 

The kids were brought into the locker room area to get their swim suits on. There they received their All Star sweatshirts and swim caps. Here is Axel helping Rubix. 

Rubix was a bit nervous and timid. 

Rubix lightened up when he was getting into the water!

And had a ton of fun with his new friend Cayden from MAC. 

They managed to take a team photo after practice and before heading to dinner. 

After the team practice there was a team dinner that we were allowed to attend because we where "chaperoning" Rubix. It was pretty exciting getting a free dinner :). Phoenix roomed with 3 other girls who were 9 and 10 years old. She had a great time and the girls woke early the next morning to make it downstairs to get bussed to the team breakfast. They managed to go to breakfast and get back in under an hour. I witnessed them leaving and was surprised to see them back before I was done with riding the Peleton.

Rubix was able to sleep in until 7:45 am and we headed to the meet at 8:30 am in time for team warm ups. The kids were able to complete the Medley relay BEFORE the rain began. Phoenix did amazing and did her 50 breast leg of her relay in 40.5 seconds, which was a PR and only one second off of Far Western Time Standards. Rubix did his 25 fly in 17.6 seconds, also a PR for him. Unfortunately, the rain started during the individual IM which was the next event and lasted the entire meet until it ended. The timing system broke before Phoenix's 100 IM and to make a long story short she ended up waiting outside wet with just a towel in raining 45 degree weather for more than 25 minutes and was completely numb and cold and she had a really tough race fighting through a body that she couldn't quite get to cooperate. She was incredibly frustrated to not only not shave off the .2 seconds needed to qualify for J.O.'s, but to go 3.5 seconds slower than her personal best.  

Good news about this meet is that there was an indoor building for the kids to hang out in, in between races which helped them stay warm. We also tried to stay warm in our tent with the sidewalls up. You can see us all bundled up, thanks to Axel taking a photo with his phone. Axel actually joined his Alpha Star Academy 2 hour math class under the tent in the pouring rain.

We arrived home after 5pm on Sunday and had a quick turn around to get ready for the school/work week. Phoenix had her last basketball game last Wed, March 1st. You can see her here jumping to block the shot. 

Phoenix had the game of her life. Keith made surge to capture our small parent cheering squad. 

And the 5th grade and intramural basketball team cheering section.

Keith's photo is a bit blurry, but you can see each player had a cheering sign made for them. Phoenix's is "Rise of the Phoenix". That is exactly what she did this game. 

She made 2 beautiful free throws and 2 other shots. She scored 6 of the 10 Harker points to help them take the win. It was her free throws that turned the game around as they were down by 4 points. 

Here is the basketball stud herself!

Daddy and Phoenix!

The happy group of girls celebrating their win. They went 3 and 3 for their first season!

Many people have asked if we were having snow. We did not get snow at sea level, but we did have snow very low to close to a thousand feet. Keith and I hadn't been able to ride up the hill because of the weather, but we finally had dry and warmer 59 degree weather that allowed us to ride up the hill. We were surprised that their was still snow.

We are expected to get another cold system coming in with even more rain and snow. Crazy weather! We really are looking forward to the start of Spring and warmer weather here.

On Friday the kiddos had Spring pictures. I tried to snap a photo of both of the kids before school. This is often the look or attitude we get from our 10 year old. You would think she is already a teenager. I am thinking we are going to get lucky and she will grow out of this phase before she is a teenager, but I know this likely won't end until she is an adult, from what I hear from other parents. :)

Our little handsome Rubix wearing Axel's hand me downs. 

On Friday night the kids tried out for Santa Clara Swim Club. All three of them absolutely loved it. Phoenix and Rubix went to practice on Saturday while Axel was at his Mathcounts competition. They went back again tonight (Monday) and literally all of them got out of the water beaming with happiness. This first picture is Axel's group. 

This picture is Rubix's group at the end of practice during 5 minutes of social kick. He fits right in. Phoenix's practice was before the boys, so she was already at home. 

It is pretty awesome to have the kids in such a fine program. We are really excited for what the future holds. This is where the meet is held this weekend, so it will begin to fill like home soon as we spend hours at the International Swim Center each week. 

Axel was so excited to make the Mathcounts Team. He worked so hard. He ended up not making states as only the top 10 make it, however, he did get 11th out of the 99 students who were there. Harker did very well and won the competition. Here he is doing math! Axel had nearly a 20 hour math week as he did a 4 hour math competition on Wed., did a 3 hour prep on Thursday, 7 hours on Saturday and another 3 hours at Alpha Star on Sunday. This does not include his math class he has at school and the PreCal he is doing on his own. This kid amazes me at his determination and drive to do better. 

Sunday Rubix celebrated his birthday with a 4 hour playdate with his BFF, Kian. 

The boys played extremely well together all afternoon. 

They enjoyed some lunch and..

cupcakes!

Please do not blow out my candles!

Here is Rubix on Saturday night helping me prepare his cupcakes.

This is a fun trophy that Axel got for his math teacher, Mrs. Kadam, who hates getting 2nd place at competition. He gave it to her last week and she loved it. She had a good laugh. 

I forgot to mention that between posts, Keith was in Taiwan. Here are a few pictures that he sent during his trip. 

He had wonderful tropical weather there. 

And lovely food!

He worked hard going from meeting to meeting and preparing for all of his customer visits, but he felt it was worth the trip. 

While he was gone the kids and I were busy with lots of fun activities. One of them was Axel's first senior open meet on March Feb. 18th. The meet was at MAC's pool, which was Milpitas high school. It was so different to be around huge high schoolers and athletes who were trying to make the National Team and eventually Olympic trials. There was about 4 or 5 males and females who had times that made the cuts for both Nationals and Olympic time trials. Axel had a phenomenal day taking seconds off all of his events, the 500 free, the 200 IM and the 50 free. I was so proud of him. 

We are gearing up for the next two weekend of swim meets, soccer games and Axel's birthday party celebration before Keith takes off to Japan. I hope to get another post in before we leave for Japan, but definitely check back mid April for a post of our first International travel as a family to Japan! Until then.....
 

More J.O times, All-Star swim Team, Basketball, tooth extractions and Valentine's celebrations!

 

Phoenix has now completed 4 of her 6 basketball games. I was finally able to go to my first game last Friday, which was her last away game. We braided her hair for the first time in a very long time the night before. Keith and I picked up Rubix and arrived at the Pinewood gym in time to watch the girls warm up for their 4 pm game. 

It was a tough game and the girls played really hard learning how to be aggressive. The other team  taught their players to grab the basketball from their opponents which lead to more than 25 jump balls in one game! The girls lost 8 to 6 and ended up in tears, frustrated and shocked at how aggressive the other team was in taking the ball, rather than shooting the ball. 

Here is Phoenix at the start of the game during the jump ball. 

Here she is playing under the net. 

Last week I was blown away with how much bigger Phoenix compared to Rubix. With just 3 years separating them, I was surprised to see how much taller she was than him all of a sudden. 

To not leave Axel out, I took another picture including him :)

We have continued to be blessed with rain and, yes, rainbows! Here is a beautiful rainbow from last Sunday that we were able to capture from our house after spending most of the day in the rain at another swim meet. After Phoenix had an amazing weekend last weekend we were excited for her to swim again at the DACA meet the following weekend. She did not disappoint with an amazing 200 free time that qualified for J.O times by over 2 seconds faster. Her splits were amazing with her first 50 ,34 seconds, and her second 50 yards, 39 seconds, her 3rd, 41 seconds and an amazing 34 second last 50 to come in at 2:33.54. She was frustrated to get the exact same time in her 100 IM which was again an A time standard but a quarter of a second off of the J.O. time standard. The following day she was able to qualify for the 100 breast but was frustrated with her 100 free. You would think if she could do a 34 second first and 4th 50 free in the 200 that she could get 1:10 for the 100 free, but somehow her second 50 was just too slow and she got a similar time as the week before a couple of seconds off of qualifying J.O. time. Great news is she is now going to J.O. for 4 events, the 50 fly, the 50 breast, 100 breast and the 200 free, which means that she will be participating in all 3 days of J.O.s. 

Both Rubix and Phoenix were chosen for the all- star team and will be going to Santa Rosa to compete in the meet Saturday Feb. 25th and 26th. Phoenix will have to catch the team bus and go with the team. Rubix, because he is under 8 will go with us. He still participates in the team dinner the night before, but he sleeps with us rather than his team mates. 

I was able to go with Phoenix and her 4th grade class to the Exploratorium in San Francisco on Tuesday. Here is Kylie and Phoenix on the way up in the bus. 

I had 5 kiddos in my group which made it interesting to keep track of and make sure the boys and girls agreed on where we went. Here is Phoenix shooting baskets with the glasses that move the basket to the right. 

Kylie, Phoenix, and the 3 boys in our group on the 3 bear chairs. 

Phoenix high fiving herself in the 3D mirror. 

On the way home Phoenix and several other classmates were tired!

Rubix had a field trip on Thursday and on Friday was the first grade Valentine's breakfast where the parents were able to spend the morning with their 1st graders. You may be able to tell that Rubix has a bit of a cold. 

Yummy waffles with whipped cream!

Today was our first day of having some down time. Axel did masters swim and then went to get his last 2 baby teeth extracted. He was pretty upset with me as they had to dig out a root. I had been trying to make this appointment since October and I happened to follow up yesterday and they said, we have an opening tomorrow at 9am so I took it and sprung the news on Axel. 

He was/is a good sport and baked his way out of being upset. He made cinnamon rolls, but we haven't taste tested them yet, although they do look appealing. Tomorrow we have his friend coming over to watch the Super bowl after we do a track practice and soccer practice for him and Rubix. 

This week we hope to get some good rest in, family time together and catch up with family and friends that we haven't talked to in awhile because of our crazy busy schedule.