We Swim...

Summer is here in full force! And for the Thorson family that means many hours spent with out summer swim team (either at practices or meets). This year we have 3 of the 4 kids swimming with the Ashburn Village Aqua Jets. This is Asher's 3rd year with the team and he looks forward to summer swim all year. The best friends he has made here in Virginia are through summer swim team. He thrives in this environment.

Asher with his relay team (these are his best buddies)-he swims the breast stroke leg of the relay. Since Asher is a year round swimmer with NCAP he tends to fair pretty well during the summer swim meets. Joel and I often joke that Asher swims all year to shine in the summer. His relay team won 1st place at the last meet! These boys encourage each other on to be faster and can still maintain their goofiness all summer long.

For Anna, however, summer swim tends be purely be a social sport for her. She swims her 30 second heat just so she can hang out with her friends on the hill for hours. But this year a fire has been lit inside of her and some competitiveness has come out!  She made 3 goals for herself 1) to be a heat winner, 2) to not get DQ'd in butterfly by the end of the summer, and 3) to make an "A" meet (the top 3 in each stroke at the "B" meets get selected to go to the competitive "A" meets on the weekends). She made 2 of the goals at her first meet by taking first place in the 25 breast stroke! Joel and I are floored and super excited for her. 

 This is Jesse's 1st year on the team! He is considered a "little squirt", which is the developmental team. He has come such a long way in a few weeks! He chose to swim in the first meet and did amazing! Here her is coming into the wall for back stroke (smiling the whole way at us).

And he won his heat too! He placed 6th overall and when they handed him his place ribbon he ran screaming "I got a BIG ribbon!"! In his mind, he won the whole thing and we aren't telling him any different :).

And it is not every day that you get to meet an Olympic Gold Medalist! Matt McLean won gold in the 2014 Olympics (on Michael Phelps relay team) and just happened to make an appearance at our swim meet on Saturday.

 He was super gracious letting all the kids hold and wear his gold medal. Jesse wasn't too impressed.

This guys is 6'7"! He had to bend down to be in the picture with Anna. I couldn't believe how tall he was. Thank you Matt McLean for taking some time out for our team!

And one cannot forget Josie. Poor Josie is too young to be on the team but sweet talks the coaches all during practice. Her smiles often earn her first choice of the donuts on Donut Friday! One coach said to me that she is the favorite kid on the team and isn't even on the team! 

It has been crazy for me keeping up with the swim schedule. We often go to practice, eat lunch, then head to the recreational pool. The house is a mess, we eat out a lot all of a sudden, and acknowledge that soon we will be caught in the throws of another move. So for now, we will stop and smell the roses..I mean chlorine.