Summer camp fun!

The kids had a great week last week. Emma went to a Girl Scout day camp and Alex went to a robotics camp. Emma enjoyed making s'mores, going on a field trip to the natural history museum, making lots of crafts and swimming every day. She did all this while enduring 100 degree heat every day which earned her an extra patch for her Brownie vest. It appears there is a patch for everything in Girl Scouts. Alex worked in a small group and built a robotic rover. I was very disappointed that I didn't get to see it run as they were already dismantling it by the time we arrived from picking up Emma. The instructor for the robotics camp said the kids learned a great deal about compromising and working together plus they worked on a very cool project. Maybe sometime I'll actually get to see a Lego robot go.

On Saturday, the kids had another great swim meet. Sean and Benjamin made it out to watch several of the races. Benjamin was thoroughly entertained with Grandma Mindy's bag of Cheetos and some ice cubes. Sean commented about how the kids look when they get out of the water. They do look a little dazed and confused, although I think they all look like that afterwards. They really swim hard for their races. Emma received a special award from this weekend's meet called the Fast Fishie - she had the largest time improvement in her age group for the week - almost 17 seconds faster in backstroke. She is now about where Alex was when he was in 6 and unders since I remember him doing backstroke faster than freestyle. Emma swims both in about 39 seconds. She opted not to do the breaststroke since she hasn't had very much practice in it, although I think she might try it this week. Alex managed to improve his time in the long freestyle race despite not doing a flip turn due to the shallowness of the pool. They're both turning into good swimmers.
Picture 1 - Emma getting ready for freestyle race - she got 7th overall...
Picture 2 - Emma before the backstroke race with her coach, Andi
Picture 3 - Emma swimming backstroke - she got 7th in it as well Picture 4 - Alex on the block for the 50 yard freestyle race - he got 3rd Picture 5 - Alex swimming long free - He's the one right in the middle of the picture
Now we're starting to think about getting ready for vacation. We will be leaving next week, so I've had many errands on my to do list. I'm whittling them away, but I fear there are many more to add still. Speaking of that, I should probably get cracking!