Mayhap the Randomness will resume...

I stopped posting to The Random Digressors mostly because I felt like I was running out of things to share with any readers, and because it felt lonely without Sarah posting... I'm not going to change the name, but I will probably be the only one posting.

Anyway, this is just another short post to announce that my random thoughts will be here, but with a different theme. My new blog will be more focused, but I will continue randomness here. Mostly because I can tell a difference in my writing style without the regular practice at writing what I'm thinking...

So read if you want, but it will be the same random (probably boring) themes as before...

I was not looking forward to the lap-a-thon this year. As a super-senior, this is my last official year (meaning the last year that I "have" to swim the lap-a-thon) and I didn't think about that much until a few days prior to the lap-a-thon. Then I looked forward to it even less because I realized that I should have trained some and tried to achieve a particular number of laps (since this will probably be my most successful year of swimming...). But I was unprepared, and I only made 152. I swam on Wednesday, while my siblings all swam it on Tuesday (Tuesday was long course, and I hate swimming the lap-a-thon long course!) so I knew that Joel and David had both done 154, and I hoped to tie. Missing that by two laps was very disappointing. But I did improve by about 10 laps (I can't remember how many I did last year, and there appears to be no blog post on the subject...).

We're performing "The Wiz" two weeks from tomorrow. ACK!! I am NOT READY! Oh, why are we never prepared?? Thankfully, I don't have any lines. I didn't audition for a speaking role, for several reasons: they all had songs that I didn't like (and therefore didn't want to attempt to sing), I didn't want to memorize a lot of lines and I thought it would be less stressful to "just" do all the dances and chorus songs. Wrong. It's crazy. But I do think it will be more fun than trying to pull together a bigger role last minute. Which it seems that everything in theatre is always last minute.

Looking forward to summer swimming starting (except I'm NOT IN THE SHAPE I WANTED TO BE IN!) for my last summer season...

And we saw Wicked! BEST PLAY EVER.

And now you're caught up on my life.
~Lizzie

Undefeated and Deep Thoughts...

Yes, our swim team is undefeated!!!! Two summers in a row, plus 4 from 2007 makes us a total of 16 meets straight undefeated. We didn't think we were going to make it against Black Horse Run this past Tuesday. We were all unbelievably tense as we waited and waited for the score... some of the Black Horse Run swimmers were already celebrating, but the score was TCC 255.5 to BHR 239.5!! Much screaming and cheering exploded from our team. It was a very close meet, and BHR has some amazing swimmers. However, the mostly-homeschooled team continues to prove that we are just as capable of swimming as "normal" people are...

And as to my "deep thoughts"... It has come to my attention that so far in my life, I have yet to meet ANYONE (and therefore, particularly no men) who completely agrees with every Biblical belief I have. Let me explain what I personally mean by Biblical.

I have many beliefs that may not be definitively laid out in the Bible, but all of my strong beliefs are grounded in my understanding of the Bible. If I didn't have a Biblical reason for some standpoint, then I hope I would be able to easily reconsider my opinion. However, the ones with Biblical reasoning are very important to me, and as they are all related to my Christian beliefs, I would never be able to give them up lightly.

This is troubling for me, mostly because I've realized how very unlikely it would be for there to be a "someone" who would agree with me. And as the woman, if I chose to follow a man that didn't hold my beliefs it would be my duty to relinquish my beliefs for his. (Of course, I am still speaking of "bigger deal" issues and not minor things... I don't intend to become a female clone of my future husband)

But that is not the final dilemma. What I am trying to figure out is if I need to have more faith in God, or if some of my opinions are too strong. What is really important enough that I would reject a godly, honorable man if he disagreed with me? Or should I be trusting God to bring me a man that believes exactly what I do?

I realize that I'm being very silly to be worrying about this already, but I figure I can't hurt anything by trying to puzzle it out and pray about it ahead of time. It would be so much more painful if I already had a suitor that didn't agree with me and I had to have this time of deliberation. Right now, while my mind is still cleared of any partiality to any man, I have time to evaluate which of my beliefs are truly grounded in conviction from God, and which may be just opinions that I have formed and glorified on my own.

It is very intriguing...

~Lizzie

Of Butter beans and Swimming pools...

After picking and shelling butter beans this morning, we were all excited to go swimming to cool off and relax.

Granite Falls Swim and Athletic Club just opened in Rolesville on July 4th. And the pools are salt water! Knowing how bad chlorine is for you we were excited. We went over there on July 4th, ready to swim at their Grand Opening... only to find out that it was for people who were already members. Silly us, we thought they'd let us try it out first! But the lady there told us that once the indoor pool opened (there's an indoor competition pool, two outdoor pools and the exercising room) that they would offer day passes. So today, we called to find out how much the day passes were, only to be told that to visit, you have to be the guest of a member. Fine! Forget that! We're not going to pay $400 (a one-time fee) and THEN $88 a month without even getting to try it out first! That is a ridiculous cost.

We were so disappointed, but still determined to swim, because we all had our hearts set on it. We decided to go over to Optimist. When we arrived, we saw the results of the "renovations" they'd been doing. It was supposed to be all glass, with removable panels. Instead, a permanent tent-like "bubble" is over the pool, which used to be an outdoor pool. So we didn't get any sun. There were garage doors open on the side, I guess in an attempt to let in fresh air. It still smelled like chlorine, and the water tasted funny.

After hardly any time swimming, it started to rain. And apparently it thundered, because they cleared the pool. Since the wait to get back in was a half an hour, we decided to just leave. We went in the locker rooms to shower, and in the middle of our showers, a life guard came in and said, "No showers! Clear the pool deck!"
"This is the pool deck?" I finished my shower anyway. (I know, I'm such a bad girl.)

As we were getting into our cars, the sun came back out.

~Lizzie

Meets!

Okay, so I haven't done any meet posts this summer yet, and that's mostly because Natalie has found bigger and better cameras to borrow, so I don't have any pictures. Sarah does, but you have to be on Facebook to see them, as Sarah has almost nothing to do with the blog any more.

But just in case anyone was wondering, we've won all 3 of our meets so far.

And here are the two pictures I managed to get on my camera...

Obviously, I'm in this one... Mom took it for us. This is our 15-18 girls relay team.

Sarah, taking pictures with her Canon Rebel XTi... dangerously close to the edge of the pool.

I hope everyone has a nice 4th of July tomorrow!

~Lizzie

Yay for spring-like weather in February!

If this is global warming, bring it on! Who cares if the polar ice caps are melting? (Okay, just kidding...)

This lovely weather was just what I needed to boost my spirits. I'm definitely a spring person. I like a little snow because it's pretty, but cold and shivering for too long drives me crazy. I love being outside with warm air and cool breezes.

Oh, and I was so excited! We had sparkling bubbles in the pool yesterday! They're usually just boring bubbles, but yesterday they were all sparkly and kinda rainbow colored. It was so cool! Alex was saying she wished we had underwater cameras so we could take a picture of it, but that it probably wouldn't look the same in the picture. And that made me realize something kind obvious that I'd never really thought about before... pictures are never the same as being there because you don't feel the same as when you took the picture. It probably has something to do with cameras not being as awesome as the eyes God gave us, but I think it's also because you just aren't there. For example, even if I could show you a picture, you probably wouldn't understand why we were excited about sparkly bubbles. But if you were swimming in a somewhat dark pool (because half the lights are off for some odd reason) and you're in the middle of a monotonous set of backstroke and you're kind of bored, and kind of tired and you roll to do your flip turn and see sparkly bubbles, suddenly you're just happy. Or maybe you're not. If you're a guy you might not care about sparkly bubbles at all. But it made Alex and me happy...

What does it sound like to you if a swim coach asks if you want to play a game called "Go Down 4 Times, Come Up 3"? (Don't answer if you heard this yesterday...)

~Lizzie

What a gray day...

It's such an awful depressing day outside (in my opinion) and I'm really tempted to do a dull complaining post.... since not much good has happened to me today. But I think instead that I'll do a wry complaing post and try to wring a chuckle out of my readers.

I slept really hard from 11 to 9, and woke up feeling strange. My entire body ached from swimming, dance, swimming and water polo. And even after sleeping in, I still felt so tired that the last thing I wanted to do was get up. But I did.

And I drove Sarah to her art lesson, and then went grocery shopping. It is a fact well known that precisely 87.22% of all shopping carts are evil. Yes... they have personalities. And those evil 87.22% are adept at picking shoppers who are having not-so-awesome days. You thought you picked the cart? Well, that just shows how sneaky they are. The government could learn some tips from shopping carts.

So today, the particular shopping cart that picked me was innocent looking enough. It was even close to the door, instead of being miles away in the almost-empty, depleted tunnel of shopping cart storage. It even appeared to work fine until I'd gotten so far that I didn't want to go back and get another cart. And then it started swerving to the left. Some carts not so evil as this one will swerve gently, and in wide open spaces. This cart swerved sharper and more suddenly and maliciously than a cart shoved by two young boys, and it made sure to swerve when there was an elaborate display of parmesan cheese nearby. However, that is not the end of this particular cart's talents. It also made turning right insanely difficult.

Besides the annoyance of swerving and not being able to turn right, those two faults combine to make an action worthy of being considered a third fault in its own right. Imagine this.... I'm looking at the organic juices on the right, and to the left are shelves and shelves of wine bottles. (I see you wincing... my story is too predictable.) I finish selecting juice, and begin to move forward. The cart immediately swerves to the left, into the wine bottles. I try to stop and turn the cart to the right to compensate for the swerve to the left and encounter the 2nd fault: turning to the right is almost impossible. The cart then accelerates by itself and sweeps down the entire row of wine bottles, sending them crashing to the floor. People stare and the store employees come running.

Don't worry, it wasn't all that awful. I managed not to hit the wine bottles. But as I jerked the cart to the right with all my screaming muscles, I did see that scenario flash before my eyes. Somewhat how I imagine one sees one's life flash before one's eyes in situations where you think you might die.

After that close call, I made it through the rest of my shopping without further mishaps (thank goodness) and as soon as I was through with the cart, I gave it a nice shove into the brick wall of its home as payback. (Yes, I'm fond of such petty but satisfactory retaliation....)

I got home with Sarah, and even started feeling better. Until we got to swim team. Warm-ups weren't so bad, and we had an easy 50 set. But then, we did 3 200 IM's split lane and I was supposed to lead. (This was because I was in the Silver lane for all that were curiously wondering how I managed to lead Platinum.) I tried, but my muscles were refusing to work well, so I ended up making Sarah lead. And then I sat out the 3rd 200 in an effort to recover. That didn't work either. Then we did 20 25's on the :30. That worked pretty well, actually, cause I barely made it, and then I got out of the pool, climbed on the block and dove off so fast that I didn't have time to get dizzy and fall off the block.

By then I was almost completely exhausted. And we did relays. It's very sad.... there are three things we do in swimming that it seems most everyone enjoys: relays and two games, Sharks & Minnows and Capture the Flag (flip-flop). I have difficulty deciding which I hate more. I used to think that Sharks and Minnows was the worst, but then we played Capture the Flag yesterday and I think it's worse. It goes on longer, and there's the potential for getting grabbed, kicked, scratched and then pulled to the surface and tagged more than once in Capture the Flag. In Sharks and Minnows it only happens once and then you get to be the one grabbing and tagging. You do still get kicked and scratched as a shark though.

However, I'm quite certain that relays involving corkscrew are worse than both of those games. Corkscrew, for those that don't know, is a torturous practice not worthy of being called a stroke. You take one freestyle stroke, and then roll to your back and take one back stroke then roll again and take a freestyle stroke and so on and so forth until you arrive at the wall. Hopefully the wall arrives before the wave of nausea. When I was finished with my leg of the relay my head was pounding, I felt sick, and my muscles were completely limp. I eventually dragged myself out of the pool, mumbled something about leaving early and went to take a nice hot shower and change into my dry clothes.

I survived and made it home, and I feel much better now that I've had a snack and sat around comfortably doing nothing. Hopefully I'll be fine tomorrow because I won't get a relaxing weekend this weekend. We have a lot to do.

~Lizzie

My life needs a pause button.

Or, as Monk would say, a 'picture freezer' button....

Recently, it has been brought to my attention (again) that I have not been posting as often as I should be. (read: as often as Lizzie) Therefore, I shall now post a post explaining why I do not post. Ironic, right?

First, I have no time. As I write this I am continually reminding myself of the numerous other thing I should be doing instead.
Right now, I'm in the middle of 3 art projects, need to start 4, and have then all finished by the State Fair deadline. Which is in a little over a week... I think.

Also, I should be practicing flute. Some of you know that I have recently joined the Lighthouse Christian Homeschool band. Having never been in a band before, I REALLY need to be practicing right now. BTW, for anyone who cares: Band is the reason I'll not be at Water Polo for a while. (Who knows how long a while is...)

Tuesday is voice lessons/Broadway dance class/musical theatre, an I gotta practice for that too. *is overwhelmed, and bangs head on desk* .... I decided, I am definitely not a dancer, unfortunately, it a requirement for musical theatre. We're doing "Oklahoma!" BTW. Somehow, it's gonna be made do-able.

Then of course, there's swim team, Radical Wednesday... baseball and basketball (OK, I don't do those, but they still use my time.) Yesterday, I had a grand total of about 30 mins of free time from 6:30 AM 'till 8:00 PM. (Don't get me wrong I enjoyed nearly every minute of it, it just doesn't leave time for posting)

That's just my first reason, but don't worry, that was my main one, the second reason will be shorter. :)

Second, I have nothing to write about. (Have you noticed this post doesn't have a plot??) Nothing worth writing about happens to me that doesn't happen to Lizzie, and we can't post the same thing. *Hehe*

That's it. (See? I told you the second reason would be shorter)

Random Question: does it seen strange to any of y'all that I enjoy mowing the lawn?? My neighbor was making fun of me yesterday for enjoying it. [/random question]

There you have it, in a considerable more amount than a nutshell, the incredible hectic-ness of my life right now, and the reason I have not been posting. Be happy. Be VERY happy. ... or else.

Now, if you will please excuse me, (no applause necessary) it's 6:15, and I have only had half a energy drink, half a 6 inch sub, half a root beer, and a few potato chips. Needless to say, I'm hungry. (ever thought it was funny that people say "needless to say" and then go ahead and say whatever it was that was needless to say anyway?)

--Sarah

AHHH!!!!!

*bounces around like an insane maniac screaming* MY WATER POLO BALL ARRIVED!!!!! I'm beyond excited! Now I just need to go to a pool! Now no matter what pool we go to, or when, I can always have my water polo ball! *sighs happily*

I was also hoping that Coach would let us use it for the game ball (cause the ball we used to use was a men's ball, and it was ginormous for my annoyingly small hands), but now we've been using some red, white and blue women's size balls that are at TAC, so I'll guess I'll just use mine for warming up and fun. And anyone who dribbles it on the pool deck better beware.... *shudder* I can't stand seeing people dribble water polo balls like they're basketballs. Don't they know that that ruins them??

Here's a picture of my ball! Just so you know, water polo balls are usually somewhat expensive, but I got mine for $25 on sale! All of my babysitting money from the past month. But it was worth it!

I'm sure you don't care.... unless you're Jessica or a reader that catches other's excitement well. But I just had to post about it. :D

~Lizzie

2008 Olympics

It's rolled around again...... probably the most costly and overrated sports event ever. That said, my family has always enjoyed the Olympics. We watch the swimming, diving, water polo, gymnastics and anything else except women's weight lifting and women's beach volleyball. *cough, choke*

We were going to update from our regular basic cable to standard just for the Olympics... but, amazingly enough, our cable provider canceled our order for us. (Apparently they canceled it because we ordered a faster internet connection at the same time and our modem won't support the faster internet, so they canceled the entire order.) I was all for ditching them all together and getting another company in time for the Olympics.... but the higher powers (my parents) were unenthusiastic.

So we've been watching what we get on NBC and USA. We really enjoyed watching both our men's and women's water polo teams beat China. That was cool. The diving was neat, but we were disappointed that both of the synchro teams that we've seen so far haven't medaled. Especially since Ariel Rittenhouse is our friends' cousin. The gymnastics has been fairly uninteresting so far. Probably because we've only seen the prelims. The swimming has been the most exciting.

Last night my whole family was gathered in our living room to watch the 4 x 100m Free relay. The last 50 we were all shouting, and when Lezak just out-touched the French guy, we were all screaming along with Michael Phelps. Winning is really exciting. Winning that close is extremely exciting. Beating a team that planned to "smash" you is crazy awesome exciting! And they didn't mess up our anthem for the medal ceremony. *pumps fist in air* *realizes that girls always look pathetic fist pumping* *claps enthusiastically and jumps up and down*

I think what I've personally enjoyed most so far though, (besides screaming like a maniac when Lezak nailed the gold medal) is watching Natalie Coughlin swim. I guess she's my favorite because her main stroke is my favorite: backstroke. She's kinda become my swimming "hero" and that's saying something since I usually don't make heros of celebrity types. Notice that I said 'kinda' and 'hero' is in quotes.... which denotes something closer to admiration than hero worship. Mostly my estimation will be displayed in my attempts to emulate her strokes.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of this week, hopefully seeing Natalie Coughlin and the rest of the Americans taking some more medals... preferably gold. :D

~Lizzie

Sleep over!!

That's the great thing about sharing a room with your sister; you get sleepovers every night! Some are more amusing than others....... Tuesday night was one.

First, we were trying to figure out how many more 4-hour days of swimming are left, and how many I would have had left if I missed the practice Thursday. We bantered back and forth, "3 more Thursdays" "no, 2 more Thursdays... plus the Tuesdays which makes.... 5 days" "no, I think it'll be 3 Thursdays" "no, it'll only be 2!" and so forth. We finally decided to abandon mathematical equations of that difficulty at 12:30am.

So then we were discussing another topic (about my evil-ness in supposedly poisoning Sarah's mind against someone [I didn't!!]) and she said, "Ooh, that would make you Gollum! And that would make me Sam!!"
I humphed insultedly, and then she said, "Oh, wait... actually, that would make me Frodo...." *snicker* "and *so-and-so* Sam."
I said that I thought we were abandoning mathematics since it was so late (early) and we were obviously not functioning well, and she asked if that was math.
"Well, you have to decide if 'a' equals 'b' or 'c'. "
She thought for a moment and then asked, "Would that make me 'b' or 'c'?"
I stared at her dark shape on the other side of the room. "That would make you 'a'."
And we collapsed into giggles.

Then she wailed, "Oh, I'm so blonde! Is my hair changing color?"

This brought to mind a quote from about a year ago. We were looking at pictures, and Sarah goes, "It looks like my head is connected to my neck! Oh... wait.. it is."

Then Wednesday night we had too much caffeinated tea with supper... we ended up staying up til 3 in the morning. We ate a bag of chips, and played this great game where we listened to our not-iPods and guessed what song the other person was listening to by the way they were bouncing/bobbing their head/pretending to sing. It was fun... but not something that I'd let just anybody see me do. I'm sure I looked dorky.

So Thursday (after going to bed at 3, mind you) Joel and I had a little swim competition. You see, we're pretty close to the same speed, and we have a tendency to pass one another. On Tuesday I was making a hard interval, and Joel had already missed, but he wouldn't let me pass him, so I missed the interval. And yes, I confess that I was pretty frustrated. So Daddy decided that we would swim 10 50's on the :45 (the interval that we did on Tuesday [and that basically means that you have to swim 2 laps in 45 seconds, 10 times]) and the one who makes the most gets the permanent right to go in front of the other person.

And I confess.... I was prideful about that. I mean, he missed an interval before I did, and that's why he messed me up. Surely I could beat him... right?? What I didn't count on was him making ALL 10. And thereby qualifying for the Platinum team. (We have 4 levels... Masters for parents, Blue [which is the easiest], Silver [harder] and Platinum. The top. He is officially a Platinum member. I'm still Silver. I only made 8. I'm so bummed. And the really sad part is that if I'd managed to get a good night's sleep, I probably could have done it. :(

Kara and I had a very interesting discussion about courting Thursday night. I might even do a whole post about it. Basically we were discussing why we might say 'no' and whether you should have feelings for the guy before you say 'yes' to courting. But it's really made me rethink a lot about what I believe about courtship. I'm kinda uncertain right now.. still mulling it over. Fortunately, it's not an issue right now, because I certainly don't have guys lining up at my door. :P And Daddy would likely say that I'm too young anyway. I tend to agree.

Faith for the Man He'll Become
This one was just an interesting point of view. Not really an article that I need at the moment.... but I realized that I was kinda expecting the spiritual qualities that I see in older men in younger men, and it's true, "The qualities you can see in a 50-year-old man's life were developed over 50 years. There are 25 more years of growth ahead for the 25-year-old man before it's fair to compare them."

You Made Me Sin
"In the same way, when we get squeezed by the circumstances of life (an inevitability), we ooze the overflow of our hearts. We usually don't like what we see, so we blame the squeeze. We blame the circumstances. "I wouldn't have reacted that way if I hadn't been tired." Or, "I only said that because I was hot, thirsty, and uncomfortable." That's our default setting: blame the circumstances."

What Girls Wish You Knew
Before you ask, yes, there is a "What Guys Wish You Knew." There's a link at the bottom of this article if you'd rather read that. I decided to share this one because it clarified some things that I only half understood about myself. And yes, guys, those are exactly what we wish you really knew. But girls, this is for you, so if you happened to be like me, you can finally understand those vague ideas.

You know, growing up is so depressing. There's so much of a burden that comes with the knowledge you gain. When I was a kid, I didn't worry about anything. Now I see so many things on a different level.... everything is so much deeper. It's richer, and possibly more enjoyable than the blissful obliviousness of childhood... but still, I see things now that hurt me.. that I never would have noticed as a kid. And I'm not sure that I ever felt emotional pain as physically as I do now. All I can hope is that I'll outgrow it. That just seems like such an unlikely possibility now though, especially since it's been years since I've outgrown clothes. Ah well.

I don't want to end on a depressing note, so I'm going to share my favorite Bible verse (as of today anyway): "Even youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:30-31 (KJV)

~Lizzie

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

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

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