Pictures

As per request, this post contains very belated pictures from our last league meet, along with pictures from our fun meet.

First, my sister's pictures from the last league meet. (I didn't get any good ones on my camera.)

Hannah and Vic

Nathan and the back of Noah's head.

Matt and his little sister Kara.

Chandler

Eden, Natalie, Samantha and Trissa, our "little girls."

My mom had my camera the day of the fun meet.

Eating at the mall during the break between the water polo championships and the fun meet.

Tristan and Sean

Our team picture.

And my sis's pictures from the fun meet.

Sean as goalie.

Kara and Jessica, with Jessica playing defense.

Kara and Noah, trying to block her pass.

Rachel and Hannah watching the game.

Noah with the ball.

Kara shooting on Sean (he blocked it.)

Elizabeth S.

Will.

Mariah and Vic.

Matt with Rachel's fingers.

Mrs. M, Mrs. O, Mrs. Y, my mom and Mrs. B.

Brianna, Hannah and Rachel eating lemons.

Torin with his medal.

Sean and David. I don't see what's so fascinating about his food... do you?

Mariah and Kara.

Torin and Matt.

*gasp* They're actually posing! For a CAMERA!

My dad also did a post about the fun meet here.

Random: Earlier today, I walked by Sarah, wearing her "Swimmer's Excuses" shirt. I've seen it several times since she bought it, but as I casually glanced at it, something slammed in my brain. I did a double take and almost tripped in my sudden change of direction as I rushed back to examine her shirt more closely. There is a grammatical error! I'm not sure why I noticed it today and not before, but it is certainly there. I then hurried upstairs to see if my shirt bore the same error. It does.

See excuse #6? "I ate to much." *sigh* It should be, "I ate too much." And they did the other "too's" right, why not all of them? Ah, well.

~Lizzie

Fun Meet.

Yesterday was one of those really long, fun and exhausting days. I left at 10 in the morning and didn't get back home until 11 at night. I had a 2 hour piano lesson, and then the water polo play-offs. We (Sean's team) managed to beat Nathan's team and then we played Matt's team for the championship. We were up the entire game, and then lost in the last quarter by 2 points. It was kinda disappointing. Especially since they probably wouldn't have won if Coach had seen a couple inside-the-2-meters. *sniff* But oh well.

Then we walked over to the mall (TAC is RIGHT next to the mall) ate lunch and walked around shopping for about an hour before we went back to TAC for the fun meet. The fun meet was absolutely insane, with hardly any of the organization we usually manage at our own summer pool. It was still fun though. We had the family 200 IM relay (yeah.... guess who won?), the noodle relay, the flippers relay, the corkscrew relay and the multiple kickboards relay. Amazingly enough, we somehow escaped the multiple goggle relay. (Actually, I'm kinda sad about that.....) Along with regular events like freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Then we took our team picture with the B's ingenious idea of holding up letters spelling "undefeated." After which we packed up and drove to the other side of the mall to Ragazzi's for our award ceremony. Trying to get seated was crazy. Everyone wanted to sit with everyone else and there wasn't enough room at one table for everyone. We all finally got settled and ordered our food. Then Coach announced that the score of the fun meet had been tallied... and that some of us wouldn't be leaving with an undefeated season.

Now, keep in mind that these are different teams than the water polo teams mentioned earlier in this post. But still, Matt's team won. However, I guess we can't begrudge our best and graduating swimmer his completely undefeated season. Then Coach presented the most improved and most outstanding awards, and the ribbons (and medal! Torin won a medal!) won in the Championship meet. And lastly, he gave Matt a photo collage and championship shirt signed by all the Seahawks.

Then we all came home and crashed. It was a great end to the season. Even if it did make half of our team not completely undefeated. :P

~Lizzie

Driver's Ed.

Sounds normal, yes? Driver's Ed is the thing that nearly every young teen in the world can't wait to do, because after they finish, they'll finally be able to drive!!! Before you drive though, of course you have to take the classroom part.

My last day of this was 2 days ago.

I went on the first day, excited and somewhat nervous. Lizzie had finish her classroom part about 2 1/2 years ago, and from what she told me, it seemed like alot of fun. Her teacher was really nice and funny.
Also, I was doing it with friends (Kara & Nathan from swim team, and Daxton who was more of a acquaintance.) This would add to the overall funness of it, and make it less boring.
I thought it would be boring because I already knew how to drive, so I thought I wouldn't learn anything. I was wrong. I learned quite a bit (and I'll get to that later.) My Dad had even taken me out on our dirt road in his Volvo a couple times.

So I got up at 6:30, packed up a lunch and notebook, and arrived at least 20 mins early.
After all their overly-strict rules, and roll call we split up alphabetically. (Luckily I ended in the same class as all the people I knew!)
And then we met our teacher. He was a football coach. I imagine he was a good one too; he was big, mean and unforgiving. Which works for football. Not Driver's Ed. Practically everyone in the class got in trouble with him.

The other teacher apparently was no better. She seemed a little crazy. At any random time she would burst into our room, and start talking in a very loud voice. At lunch one day I heard some one tell some one else what some one ELSE and said about her: "You know that water bottle she's always drinking out of?? I don't think that's water."

We did the whole class of the computer. Module1, topic1. Quiz. Topic2. Quiz... etc. Through 10 Modules, whos topics ranged from 3 to 6, whos pages ranged from 1 to the 20's. We also watch corny movies, took 2 15 min breaks, and 30 mins for lunch.

On the last day we did drunk driving, where you would drive around a cone-course, once normal, and once with "drunk goggles" on. Everyone did really well. I'd say that overall, less cones were hit when the person had the goggles on.
NBC 17 news was there doing a story on these goggles. The reporter interviewed two people, then filmed them driving. When they drove with the goggles, she actually TOLD them to hit the cones (!!!!) in order to make it seem that the goggles work really well!!! I will never watch the news the same way again....

And now what I learned:

- I'm SOO glad I'm home schooled!
- a new interesting way to crack my neck.
- ABS means Anti-lock Brake System.
- I don't need glasses.
- way more than I wanted to know about organ donating.
- girls like to get attention by screaming at bees
- guys like to get attention by kicking things and acting silly.
- Driver's Ed isn't quite as fun as I thought it would be.

I also built alot of character. :D

--Sarah

We did it!

The Seahawks made it undefeated this summer!! It was rained out on Tuesday, and rescheduled for Wednesday. Wednesday was rainy at first, but it cleared up and we managed to finish the meet before it got too dark. Then we all went to Remington Grill (they stayed open an extra hour for us!)
And now, I'm going to shock everyone. No pictures.

~Lizzie

*sniffle*

I just went outside.... and it felt just like numerous other days that we've spent at our summer pool..... earlier today was soooo hot, we all would have been alternating between lounging in the pool and breaking the limit of 3 people in the concession stand. We would have had hotdogs for lunch.... and when it started to rain we'd all hang out in the clubhouse eating drumsticks (the ice cream variety) around the ping-pong table.

Now is when we'd be going back in the pool, diving off the boards and playing Five-A-Live and water basketball. We'd finally get out of the pool at 8:20; 20 minutes after closing, and gather our stuff to go home, refreshed, water-logged and ready to come back tomorrow.

It's not really all the water that I'm missing (although it has been terribly hot) but the fellowship and all the time spent hanging out. We got so much closer as friends and as a team during the summer, it's just not the same now. We see each other 4 times a week, but we show up, swim and leave. I'm really looking forward to our fun meet (we split into 2 teams and have a meet with the parents team) I hope it'll be like a little taste of what summer means to me.

~Lizzie

So......

I went a whole week without posting. Mostly because I was pretty busy with swimming and meets. Sunday we had the Greater Raleigh Championship meet. Monday we had practice, Tuesday we had another meet, Wednesday practice again and Thursday water polo. Throw in a dentist appointment that was 2 hours long, Wednesday night prayer meeting, sewing and land-scaping guys doing yard work (serious bush trimming, removing dead tree branches and cutting down a dead tree, etc) and you basically have my week. So far today I haven't done anything except try to recover. Oh, hey, eating something might help with that....... *returns with PB&J*

So, to post pictures from the meet. (The score was 323 to 177 or something like that.) This week we have an interesting twist. Natalie borrowed my camera for most of the time (not the Natalie that comments on here ..... my friend's little sister, Nat. You can see a picture of her on "Random") Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to show her how to focus, so a lot of them turned out blurry. She did get some good ones though, and had fun teasing some of the boys who were walking around with towels over their heads to hide from the cameras. (They looked something like nuns. It was very amusing.)

See? I told you.... nuns.

Or... maybe not. Maybe pterodactyls....

Hannah and Vic. Possibly inspired by the boys... (I took this one.)

They didn't want to let Jess play nuns with them. Her towel didn't work with their dress code anyway.

Nat liked this one. She said it looks like he's hanging. With that in mind, Tristan's black hoodie is kinda .... interesting.

Yet another nun.

A great picture of Hannah. Yes, I am definitely the kind of person that will magically whip this out at her wedding 15 years from now.

Ha! No towel! Certainly can't swim with one....

A nice diving picture...

Definitely let his ---- towel down here. This is going in my blackmail folder. You have to know Nathan to understand how rare a shot of his face is. Or, should I say... a shot of his face that isn't contorted into some strange expression as he's trying to evade the camera.

Our last league meet is coming up. We have an undefeated season so far...... it's been a great summer.

~Lizzie

Oops!

So I took Daddy to pick up his car, and after I dropped him off, I went to Wal-Mart to get some elastic for a shirt Mom's making. On the way to the back of the store I took a few detours... through the pillow isle, curtain isle, and plastic-storage-containers isle. By then I'd gone to the back of the store... but the wrong side of the back, and on my way to the elastic I slowed to look at some movies.

Then when I got to the sewing section, I got distracted by all the fabrics and looking at ideas for future projects. I did finally manage to get the elastic, but it's next to the patterns... and I caved and got this really cute skirt pattern that I'm going to make as soon as I finish the blouse I'm working on. And then I saw the sale rack of fabrics and got even more distracted. There was a lovely orange bolt of flannel on sale, and I wanted to get the whole thing, but I didn't.... and now I wish I had at least gotten a couple yards. That was right next to the ribbon and my departure was further delayed.

I finally made it back to the front of the store to check out.... and I almost went to look at clothes when I realized that I had been gone an hour! And I left bread rising in the oven! I tried to call home but my phone was dead. Hoping that my family wasn't worried or steaming mad that I'd been so careless, I hurried and checked out and came home as fast as the speed limit would allow. When I got home, my parents were fine (I guess they know how easily I get distracted...) and my wonderful little sister had taken care of the bread for me.

Whew. I'm very grateful.... but I've really got to be more focused. And I do wish I'd gotten that flannel.

~Lizzie

Random

I ordered a Creative Zen MP3 player. I recently decided that I wanted an iPod, but I talked to my dad about it and he said that he didn't think it was wise for me to spend $200 on an already outdated iPod (I was looking at the nano). So I looked for some cheaper options. The Zen that I decided on is $80 ($120 cheaper!) with 2GB, an extra media slot (for more space, if desired) and FM radio among other things. I actually like its features better than the iPod features, and I came out of the deal $100 richer (I got a case that was $20).

I'm excited about the upcoming arrival of my Zen for another reason. My mom recently found this site which offers FREE audio books! You can download them and listen on your MP3 player. I've already got a list that I want to listen to.

The meet Tuesday went pretty well. The team was really small, and we basically crushed them, so it was sad (to me). Plus not as much fun. It's more exciting when it's closer. We won 300-something to 100-something. I got some nice pictures though (I'm sure you're all tired of pictures [OBVIOUSLY, since I haven't gotten much of anything in the way of comments.... *sulks* Just kidding :D] but you'll just have to deal with it.)

Nat, my friend's absolutely adorable little sister.

Sarah, taking a pic of me taking a pic of her. :P

Jess and Kara

From closest to furthest: my little bro, David, then Will and Chandler.

Our 15-18 free relays. We had no competition, so our girls team swam the boys team. (Courtesy of Vic.)

We're actually a little ahead! (We still lost. Why do boys always win? Don't answer that.) Also courtesy of Vic.

Kara and I (and Kara's pizza! Haha.) Courtesy of Jessica.

Kara, me and Jess. Courtesy of my sister, Sarah.

Will's totally awesome tatoo. His brother did it with a Sharpie... I wanted one, but there wasn't time. We plan on forcing them on the whole team for the TSA Championships this Sunday.

On a more serious note, I have a big decision in the near future. The fall registration for piano is coming up and I'm considering quitting. This would be a big change for me, since I've been taking lessons ever since I was 8. I will, of course, keep it up. I will always love to play, but I'm quite certain that I won't be going to college and majoring in music, and I'm taking from a teacher that specialized in preparing students for college, and as such, she is rightfully somewhat expensive. I am content with the level of expertise that I have achieved, and I don't think it's necessary for me to go any higher since I'm not going to college. So all the signs seem to be pointing towards quitting lessons. Anyway, if you feel like giving me your advice, I will listen (read....) and I would greatly appreciate prayer for wisdom and guidance.

~Lizzie

Meet last week

Certain members of my family requested a post about last week's meet. I really should have done one already, since it was actually our biggest meet so far. We swam a team 2 divisions higher than us (meaning that they were probably going to squash us) and we won! 256 to 233. So it was a really good meet.

It seemed like a really nice country club at first.... driving through all these winding, woodsy country roads to a neighborhood with nice-sized lots and horses. The pool had a big clubhouse that looked like a barn.... with a loft. But, once again, the pool was a disappointment. It was almost as bad as the first pool we swam in (Yeah, that's a link.....). At least their blocks were attached to the wall. The very very worst thing I think, was that the turns end of the pool was sooooo shallow. I scraped my hand on the bottom of the pool trying to do my flip-turns. Various other members of our team acquired minor injuries as well.

When we arrived, the second thing I noticed about their team was their coaches (the first thing was that there was only 4 lanes........). They were two young guys (and I'll explain why I noticed them in a second, so don't get any ideas) one a sunburned blond with spikey hair and the other a typical lifeguard type. I noticed them because the blond one was stalking up and down the side of the pool, watching the swimmers warming up and yelling, "GoOOo, goOOo!!" and the lifeguard type was... on the lifeguard stand, leaning out over the pool and waving the swimmers on (as if they could see him..... they were swimming freestyle!!). They continued to amuse me in such a manner for the rest of the warm-up, and the blond one continued throughout the meet. Jess and I finally dubbed him "Captain Flamboyant" because of the way he sauntered up and down the side of the pool.

Pictures:

Mom and Mrs. Y, getting organized.

Our "little girls" as they're affectionately called, talking to some of the BHR girls.

Sarah and Hannah

Torin, begging for something. (Who could refuse? He's SO cute!)

My brothers (the pale ones) hanging with/on Sean and Matt. I think it's a pretty good picture ... I just wish Joel didn't have his cap and goggles on... I think it'd look better without. Caps and goggles are so not flattering....

So anyway. We went to Goodberry's afterwards to celebrate... but another team beat us there and there was a line out into the parking lot. So we ran/walked/skipped across the shopping center to a McDonald's instead (unfortunately this was before I heard about the boycott against McDonald's because of their promotion of the gay agenda.........) We filled up almost the whole joint and hung out til about 11.

I'm so excited that we won.. and I can't wait for our meet tomorrow!

~Lizzie