It's synchro season again...

Now that Sidney has joined the competitive team for synchronized swimming, from now until the middle of June or so, there is a meet at least once a month. This season started off in Tucson a weekend or so ago. Sidney is swimming a team routine and a trio routine. The suits are so great.


Sidney is the 2nd one in from the right.



Sidney is right in the middle.


Sidney's trio, she's in the middle. These suits are so cute, right. I helped design then and them the team seamstress made them. I tried to get a better picture during the routine, but none turned out great.

Way to go sweetie!

There is a time for every season...

Sidney has had a blast with her synchronized swimming team. She's made some great friends, and she's learned to push herself farther for something that she wants. The regular season ended a few weeks ago and is allowing a healthy 2 month break before the new season begins. We are glad that she enjoys herself.



Here's Sidney at the end of her last meet where her trio placed 1st! (Can you see the moon behind her?)

Another synchro event...

Last weekend, Sidney and I made our way to Tucson for a Synchronized swimming event. I makes for a long day and we weren't even there the entire meet, she only had Saturday events. Anyway, she did her best and got 1st in her duet for her age group and 5th in figures for her age group. Yay!!! She's really enjoying synchro, and getting some confidence by doing this herself. I got video of her, but can't seem to get it to cooperate to download to blogger.

So here's pics of the edge of your seat excitement that goes on at a synchro meet. The swimmers are either in the water or waiting.





Way to go, Sidney!

A birthday, a watershow, a book signing...

Last Saturday was filled with great events, all surrounding my beautiful daughter, Sidney. First of all it was her birthday, she has officially reached tweenhood by turning 11 years old.



She was treated to dinner the night before. She chose Korean food, much to her dad's pleasure. We gorged ourselves while the servers looked on, amazed that an American family could put down so much Korean food. (This restaurant does not cater to Americans looking for dumbed down Korean food, this is pretty authentic stuff. Oh, and it's so yummy!) Grandma came along for the feast, as well.



Anyway, Sidney got some great things for her birthday. One of which was a chair for her room, from Grandma, lime green, of course, since it matches her room and it's her favorite color at the moment.



She had to spend most of the day either practicing for her synchronized swimming watershow, or performing at it. She has to put her hair up and then I have to put Knox gelatin in it to make it stay in place when she gets in and out of the water. It really is quite noticable when you're in public. (This comes into play later in the day.)



The watershow was awesome. All the teams seemed to do their best routines ever. There was even a routine where the dads swam with their daughters. The dads were awful at synchronized swimming, but the performance was great.

So, after the watershow was over. I took Sidney and a nephew and niece to the nearby Barnes and Noble bookstore for a book signing. The author, Brandon Mull, who writes the series, Fablehaven. This is the 5th and final installment in the series. I find it a great read and it's meant for young readers. Very creative, mythical, and clean.



Anyway, we waited for two and a half hours at the bookstore. Fortunately they had some activities for the kids to do like puzzle games, making bracelets, and face-painting. Finally, they called our letter for us to stand in line to actually get the book signed. When we got to the author, he almost immediately noticed Sidney's hair since it was still "knoxed" from her watershow. Mr. Mull was so taken with the oddness of her hair, that he became almost speechless. I told him he could touch her hair to feel the texture of it, and he did. We told him that she was wearing her hair that way because of her synchronized swimming show earlier that day, and then he began to ask her a few questions about that. She asked him if he would personalized her book by signing "Happy Birthday, Sidney" so she would always remember that she had the book signed on her birhday. He obliged with that as well. It was a cool experience and one that maybe even the author might remember. In fact, Sidney said later that if he creates a character in a later book that has something in their hair that might resemble the knox gelatin that she had in hers, that she probably inspired him to write about it. I only hope that he really does write about it...that would be awesome. I would have taken a picture at the signing but John had the camera and he didn't come with us.

What a full day! Sidney said she had a great birthday, and I didn't have to throw a party! She's not hard to please. I sure do like this sweet girl. I love talking with her and sharing ideas and spending time with her. Does she have to get older?

Can you swim in the rain?

This last weekend was a big day for the synchronized swimming teams, the Cactus Classic Meet was held at a local Jr High aquatic complex. While this is a long 2 day event, it is a chance to compete with other local teams as well as some teams from other states.

The forecast was a 30% chance of rain in the beginning. The actual weather was windy, cold and rainy...all day! Many of the parents and even some of the athletes asked when it began to rain really hard, "Are they going to cancel the meet?" Well, the answer was no, only unless there was lightning, and there was no lightning. The athletes were obviously already wet, so there was no reason to stop.

The sun would pop out intermittently, but then it would rain again, seemingly harder than it had the time before. Sidney and I were there from 6:45 am to 6:30 pm on Saturday, which made for a long day. Sidney swam early and then not until the evening, but she has to stay for the whole day. Since Sunday was optional, she opted out of that.



I think it's great when the girls get to get pumped up for their routine. They have to "knox" their hair, so it's all uniform and out of their faces. Then they put on these handcrafted suits that are meant just for that routine, with headpieces to match.



I should have tried to get a group shot of her trio and then her team, but it was pouring down rain when her team was getting ready to swim, it stopped a little during her routine though.

Check out this video of Sidney's team routine. Don't mind the cheering you hear in the background, we're just showing our support.

Synchronized swimming

I am posting this quite a bit late, but I've wanted to see if I could post movies from our flip video to blogger. Cross your fingers because this is going on almost the second hour...



If you know anything about synchronized swimming, you will recognize the dolphin, sommersault back tuck, ballet leg single and a shrimp. If you know nothing about synchro, don't worry, it's a world unto itself. Just like how ice skating has figures, so does synchronized swimming. These swimmers compete with others in their age group and level of ability. Sidney has competed in the City's summer synchro program, but this was her first time competing on a team. She got to compete at the novice range since this was her first competition, but her coaches told her she would have to start competing the next time at the intermediate level. Anyhoo, she finished 3rd in her age group at the novice level, and we couldn't be happier.

Now she is learning a team routine and will shortly learn a trio or duet routine for future competitions. That's the fun stuff! Colorful suits and hairpieces. Good stuff. Hopefully I'll remember to post those videos sooner after the event.

The synchronized swimming meet...

This last Friday we went to the City's synchronized swimming routine championships meet. It is the final culmination of routines that the girls have been practicing since the beginning of the summer. Some of these girls have been swimming for a couple years, but it's mostly everyone's first time doing "Synchro".

Here is the promised video of Sidney's trio doing their "Swing" synchronized swim routine. And the family was all there to see it this time. Even if it was a blazing 112 degrees.

They really did a great job! So good in fact that they placed 1st in their age division for trios!!! Sidney was ecstatic!!! (It must have been the cute hair piece! JK!)




Here is Sidney's team group that performed to various "American" themed songs. It is pretty windy, so the music is harder to hear.

They ended up with 3rd place for their team. They were thrilled!!!



Here is Sidney with her winnings... a blue ribbon for her 1st place trio, a medal for her 3rd place team, and a rose from her coach. We're so excited for her!




She will probably join the recreational team for the Desert Dolphins. Check them out here: http://www.azdolphins.com/, they even have a blog where you can watch routines from their recent Nationals trip to Florida.

Just missed it...

So, Sidney has been taking a synchronized swimming class through the City's recreation program for the summer. She really enjoys it. This last Friday was the first time they would get to perform their routines at a qualifying meet to see if they go on to the championship meet. So, I took Sidney on Friday, they finished getting ready and warmed up. Here she is with the other girls in her trio...




Sidney is on the far right. Don't they look great!!

*Side note: I made the belts and the hair pieces for their routine. They turned out way better than I expected them to. Here's a close-up of the hair-piece.

So, back to the routine meet...John and Hayden and my mom were waiting at home because it was unbearably hot and we didn't know when Sidney was going to perform. When I saw the list, Sidney and her trio were performing 4th to last. So I asked one of her coaches how long the meet was supposed to last, and she told me until about 8 pm. So I made some assumptions and thought that she might be performing around 7:30 or so. I called John at home to let him know. They were going to come later without waiting in the heat. Also, the pool is about 30 minutes away from our house.

Needless to say, something else came up and I had to run home shortly after the meet got started. I told Sidney I would be back in an hour. Traffic and road construction hindering me along the way, I didn't arrive back at the pool until about 6:40 pm. To my utter surprise, the parking lot, the bleachers and especially the pool were deserted. Only a handful of people were left putting away stuff from the meet. My poor Sidney performed without us being able to watch. We were all very shocked and very sad. Thankfully, a good friend took some photos of Sidney during the routine that I'll get later.

Fortunately, Sidney's trio placed 3rd and she will be performing next week at the championship meet. We won't be missing this one, in fact, I will be sure to record the whole thing on the camera. And just for the record, many people said it was the fastest meet they'd been to.

Proud of our own!

We have reached the end of Sidney's synchronized swim class that she took through the city's Parks & Rec program. The weekend before last she competed in a figures championship and placed 36th in her age group (I can't be sure how many there were, but my guess is at least 80, so in my mind she's placed better than half). Then just this last weekend her team placed 3rd in their age group for their routine. We are so excited for her and proud that she has done so well.

Here's Sidney all dressed for her team routine!

Here she is with her team.

Their final pose in the water.

Way to go sweetie!