First meet, first swim, first parade

The first swim meet was also the first swim of the season for the Sunnyside High School boys' swim team! Our school rents the pool at a fitness club for swim practice. The various parts of this pool's pump, heater, etc. are notorious for malfunctioning. The pool was out of commission for the entire first three weeks of the swim season! The first time the boys got into a pool this season was at their first meet in Moses Lake on December 4th. Jeff got in the pool with them during their team warm-up time and started teaching new kids how to swim. The really crazy thing is: this wasn't the first year that the swim team's first swim of the season was at the first meet, and it wasn't the first time Jeff has gotten into the pool at a meet during warm-ups to teach kids how to swim. So none of these obstacles are new, but that doesn't make them any easier or more fun to deal with! Somehow, these guys still broke several school records at the first swim meet of the season!

Go Jay!

The second time our swim team got in the pool was at their second meet in Walla Walla on December 6th. Since this meet was on a Saturday, I was able to go. With a caveat. In spite of gentle parental encouragement during the autumn months, Jay did not sign up to take the SAT until the night before the deadline. Consequently, all of the slots in Sunnyside were full, so he had to go to the next closest school with openings. That ended up being in Hermiston, Oregon, which is a 75 minute drive from Sunnyside. Hermiston happens to be 1 hour from Walla Walla. The SAT was set to end around 11am. The swim meet was set to begin at 12pm. The timing would be tight, but it was possible to do it all!

For insurance (and other) reasons, members of high school teams are not allowed to drive themselves to competitions. If they don't ride the bus with the team, they need permission from the athletic director for a parent or guardian to drive them to the competition. We obtained permission for me to drive Jay to the meet after his test in Hermiston. That meant I got to leave home with Jay at 6am on Saturday morning. Jay drove us to Hermiston. I drove us to Walla Walla. Amber and Rose rode the school bus with the team to Walla Walla. Rose is a team manager, so it was only Amber catching a ride to the meet. After the meet, I took Amber with me and Jay rode the bus home with the team (along with Rose). 

During the nearly 3.5 hours Jay was in Hermiston High School taking the SAT, I mostly sat in the van! How boring of me! But there were 20mph sustained winds outside so going for a walk was uninspiring. And since it was 8am on a Saturday morning in a small town, nothing was open except Walmart. In the van, I talked on the phone for a long time and prepped my Sunday school lesson. Then I drove to the Walmart to use the bathroom. While I was there, I picked up a few groceries. Then I picked up Jay and we drove to Walla Walla. The strong wind was almost exactly at our backs the entire drive, so our minivan averaged 28.3 miles per gallon! It was almost unheard of in a minivan. We drove northwest from Hermiston to Walla Walla, right along the big blue Columbia River, which was full of white caps from the strong wind.

The swim meet was at my favorite swim facility: the pool at Whitman College. Automatic timing, a scoreboard, elevated spectator seating, and a good announcer make this meet much more fun to watch than many others. One unforeseen issue was the high heat and humidity this time around--swim meets are rarely cool and breezy, but they are also rarely as hot and humid as it was this time. I was having flashbacks to my childhood summers in west Tennessee. My face was red and I was drenched in sweat! The meet lasted for 3 hours! I sat with some other parents from our team and we all bonded over our shared sweaty suffering, haha. Our boys did so well for only being their second time in the pool! I know about 75% of the boys on the team, so it was fun watching them all swim. 

Jay transitioned from standardized testing and road trip mode to swim meet mode and swam his heart out. This meet was only 50 yard and 100 yard distances, so there wasn't a 500 yard freestyle, which is one of Jay's best events, but he swam barely a second slower than his 100 backstroke PR from last year! Go Jay!

My heart melted when I saw an upperclassmen in the warm-up pool, teaching a freshman how to swim so he could attempt his first race ever. This was the same kid that I taught how to run back in cross country season. Since he didn't know how to physically move his body in a running motion back then, I was very impressed that he managed to stay afloat for his entire 50 yard race, even if he did change strokes partway (to float on his back and catch his breath, bless him) and ended up getting disqualified. I got to say hi to this kid's older brother, who ran cross country with us and graduated a few years ago. He was visiting from college to watch his brother swim. I even remembered his name, miraculously. Being a coach is pretty fun.

Amber and I went to Costco on our way home, then we hurried back to Sunnyside as fast as legally possible to catch the tail end of the 37th Annual Lighted Farm Implements Parade. As is our tradition, we parked nearby, dashed over to where the parade was lining up, and walked down the lineup to admire all of the lights in about 20 minutes. The parade was mobilizing when we arrived, so we only saw about 2/3 of the floats, but even with just that fraction, it was possibly the best lighted farm implements parade we've ever seen in the 12+ years we've been attending! It was a fun dash through the dark with my Amber girl. We were laughing and Amber was pulling me along while I hobbled and tried to warm up my stiff tendons enough to keep up with her.

I left home at 6am on Saturday morning, and got back to my house a little after 7pm. It wasn't the longest day I've ever had, but it was still a lengthy day out with 4+ hours in the car, punctuated with long stops at various schools, pools, stores, and a parade.

Jay got gas for the third time in his life en route to Hermiston, with a few pointers from me. Since he drives an electric car, he hasn't had to pump much gas.

Walking in to Hermiston High School. I felt like such a mother, sneaking a picture of my son walking in to take a big test.

Jay, in lane 3 (white cap, red stripe on his suit), ready to swim!

Jay is the second swimmer from the left.

Jay got third in his heat of the 100 yard backstroke with a time of 1:16.37, less than a second off his all time PR.

Rose and Kennedy: the swim team managers, got roped into timing lane 1 for the entire meet. Timing is grueling and boring (and wet) all at once. They are so great!

Jay, ready for another race (2nd from the left of this picture). He gave me a little wave once from the starting blocks. Heart melt.

Amber played Nintendo for way too much of the meet. She was already doing it when I arrived, and she was totally in coach's daughter survival mode, so I let it be, just pausing her to watch Jay's races when he swam. She even played a bit with another little sister from our team.

Jay, lane 1.

Our team was stationed on our side of the room, so I took this picture while peeking over the railing from the bleachers. That's Jeff and Rose in white shirts, and Jay on the far left closest to the pool.

Jay, starting another race!

Since there was no limit on entries for each event, Jay did a 200 yard IM (individual medley, where he swam 50 yards each of all four strokes). I've never seen him do butterfly or breaststroke in a high school meet before, so it was cool. That's him on the right in the white cap, doing butterfly.

As the meet progressed, the bleachers slowly cleared and the humid hot temperature eased up ever so slightly. Amber was first there and last to leave, bless her. Being the coach's daughter has some perks but also a whole lot of long days. I am thankful that Jeff didn't start coaching swim until Amber was 8, because bringing age 1-5 year old Amber to a swim meet would have been daunting.

Part of the parade lineup! Amber and I were so happy to make it in time to see some of the floats!

We had to take pictures of the Coke truck--it comes every year.

Jeff was trying to get the swim team back to Sunnyside in time for the parade, so they did not stop for dinner on their way home from the meet. Jay was HUNGRY, and made use of the fresh batch of Costco groceries to concoct a massive baguette breakfast sandwich.