Six Flags

Over the school year, the boys earned tickets to Six Flags for logging reading hours.  This is a great program that was open to traditional schools as well as homeschooling families.  It also allowed me to receive a free ticket because I'm their teacher.  We loaded up the car and headed out for a day of fun!  We were unlucky in the fact that is has finally decided to be summer here and the heat was really turned up  today.  With that exception, we had a great day.  

 We explored a lot of the animal exhibits. 

 First ride of the day, a quick swing.

 Ty wanted to touch the rays, but they just wouldn't come over to where he was. 

 We all loved seeing the walrus, they're friggin' huge!

 The boys taking a spin, look at that face on Ty!

 We saw the sea lion pirate show for some fun.

 Then it was time for more exploring of the park.

The boys loved the M&M steps.

 Alligator Isle...

 We road a few rides, including the family friendly (tamest) roller coaster Cobra.  

Cody really wanted to ride Sky Screamer, so Keith went along. 

 It was too high for me, and I'm not sure we realized Ty could have ridden it was well, but he hung back with me and we watched. 

 Seriously high!

We road a few more jungle rides, lots of spinning around.  

Then we headed over to the butterfly habitat.  

This is such a beautiful thing to see, and amazing to have the butterflies all around you. 

We made the mistake of hitting this mid afternoon and it was ridiculously humid in the building.  

We will be going here first next time, while it's still cool out.

We road the bumper cars and the big wooden coaster next.  

This is where we realized that Ty's shoes put him right at the 48" height, a golden number at Six Flags!  

Of course we had to stop and smash a couple of pennies along the way. 

 As we were winding down we walked through the shark exhibit.

 Then over to the dolphin show. 

 The boys really liked this show, it was full of excitement.  

The boys and Keith made the Monsoon falls the final ride of the day.

 There they go, the slow climb to the top.

 AAAAHHHHH!

As I said, we had a great day.  

Next time I'm determined to make it over to the elephant show, it just didn't fit our schedule today.  

We also took advice from a friend and packed in sandwiches, such a great time and money saver.  

Can't wait to go again.

Sacramento Valley Meet of Champions

Topping off the boys' first season of swim, they both qualified for the Sacramento Valley Meet of Champions.  We packed up the car and headed over to Woodland for the day.  

Tyler started off the day with his bonus event, 25 freestyle

26.21 finish (5.52 faster than his best!)

 Cody also swam the 25 free as his bonus event, finishing in 18.76 (2.19 faster than his best).

 Cody qualified for the event in backstroke. 

He swam it in 21.66 (2.1 faster) and finished 26th out of 60 for the day. 

 We had a lot of time between races and the boys were doing everything they could to keep themselves entertained.  All it took was some tent stakes and some dirt to dig in. 

 We eventually had all the coaches in our tent area, which the boys loved. 

 Dog pile on coach Devin....

 To end the day Ty swam with his relay team that qualified to come.  

They finished 8.92 faster than their best time, besting the OV boys relay record!

 Cool t-shrits to mark the day.

 A star by their name on the back with some of the other teams that were there. 

Such an awesome way to end their swim season.  

Here's our season by the numbers:

Tyler:

1st freestyle: 47.81  Best: 26.21 Improving 21.6 over the season

1st backstroke: 38.67 Best 34.75 Improving 3.62 over the season

He worked hard all season, and didn't always best his time each week, but had a great time. 

Cody: 

1st 25 freestyle: 31.63 Best: 18.76 Improving 12.87 over the season

1st backstroke: 29.46 Best: 21.66 Improving 7.8 over the season

1st breaststroke: 53.78 Best: 35.36 Improving 18.42 over the season

1st 50 freestyle: 1:14:03 Best: 49.63 Improving 24.4 over the season

1st butterfly: 54.24 Best: 30.89 Improving 23.35 over the season

He really took to swimming and had a great season, improving every time he raced.  

Last day of swim, take 2...

With the boys qualifying for Meet of Champions, we were signed up for 2 more weeks of practice. 
Friday marked the end and they had some fun races to cap it off.
They started with some warmups, interesting in the open pool without lane lines!

They had a relay/obstacle type race with all the kids.
Starting off the blocks and swimming to the shallow end.

 Then swimming around the shallow end

 Running around the edge

 Swimming back down the side of the pool, under the lane lines

 Out of the pool, down the slide, swim to the end of the pool and back under the lane lines to the blocks.  Phew!

They were doing some lap swims in between as well.
Ty and Ty

They also had some back and forth races, sharks and minnows and other types of games with all the kids.  As much as I'm glad to be done with the every day morning practices, we are going to miss it.