Devil Rays Swim Meet

On Friday and Saturday Rob took the three older kids up to Draper for the Devil Rays meet. It was nice because none of them had any long course times (measured in meters instead of yards, I think), so they were all in early heats and there was no time to beat. Rob used a Sharpie to give them tattoos like Sebi's here.

Maddie beginning her backstroke

She's been working so hard in swimming and was excited to show off all of her improvement.

She came in first in every heat and got a squirt gun each time.  She said it was great to hear the announcer  calling " . . . and winning the heat in lane 7, Maddie McFarland of Utah Valley Aquatics!"

Will has improved a lot, too. This dive is miles ahead of his last year.

Here he is doing a 100 freestyle.

He has shot upwards and thinned out in the last year, and all of this despite snarfing down any junk food (or junk like- or food like- substances) in the house.

We signed up Sebastian for the meet too, though as a newbie, this was an awfully big event for him. Nonetheless he swam a 50 meter race in each of the strokes. He was the smartest of all the kids because he let Rob put sunscreen on him.

After his first event his coach said "we've got to put a cap on that hair"-- 'that hair' being The Living Pelt.

Here he is doing butterfly. He's had an easier time doing both backstroke and butterfly than either of his older siblings. Maybe because he's loose jointed, maybe he's shaped differently, maybe because he's been watching swimmers for years now.

But Maddie's been working hard and her butterfly has come a long, long way.

Here she blew past the girl in the next lane in about three strokes.

In the meantime, Joss and I took Aunt Clarissa and Uncle John to the Provo Farmers' Market and Station 22 for lunch. A very nice lady painted him into a tiger and he was inordinately proud of it. Even a little prissy about it while drinking at lunch. He wanted to be sure and show his papa.
And Clarissa brought us many, many cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes in SoHo where she's working when she's not singing. Or tutoring. We enjoyed them all. A lot.

Joss thrived under all the attention and food (foccacia, beef bulgogi, white chocolate/raspberry cupcake,  a pear and a caramel macaron, and all that before we started lunch). Rob et. al. came home pleased with their performances and Maddie and Will got well and truly sunburned -- with some very strange markings where their dad had given them Sharpie tattoos!