Cal's first swim meet

This weekend, Cal had his first swim meet-- he has had plenty through summer swim, but this was his first with his new year-round team. 

It was Saturday morning and at NCSU in Raleigh, so we headed there nice and early to watch our buddy swim! Eddie was out of town, so I had to drag Andy with me- I was dreading entertaining him the whole time, but he really did well for the most part! (we had another really bad week with his tummy last week--UGH-- so he was in the middle of yet another massive clean out at the swim meet, which is awesome.....thankfully he got most of it out Friday night, so Saturday wasn't too too bad for him)

It was an intrasquad meet, so all of the YOTA swim team was there-- basically about 80 8 and under boys....there were a LOT of swimmers! They decided to not swim freestyle, which I was sort of bummed about, but every swimmer did every other stroke... and it was a LONG meet.  We arrived at 9 and we walked back into our house at 4.

Cal did SO well and I was really proud of him! One major difference in these meets is that there is VERY little parental involvement.  The kids have their events written on their arms and it is up to them to get to the right place at the right time.  I was stressed.  Cal was not.

He did great in all three strokes and dropped quite a bit of time from the championship swim meet.  I was nervous for him swimming butterfly because he never really loved it during the summer and then had a hard time during a meet once, so he wasn't excited to do it-- but he did it beautifully!

Okay so pics:

Thankfully, Cal's buddy is on the team with him, so they stuck together through the meet and helped each other keep track of everything- which was scary, haha! I had fun sitting with his parents too.

They were taking it all in-- it was a bit overwhelming, I will be honest.  I was nervous, so I am sure they were too. 

YOTA caps on and they were ready to leave their parents....!

Cal's cheering section (yes, that is a huge gash on Nug's nose.  We can only hope for school pictures while it is nice and bloody....)

 The big arena:

Getting ready to warm up:

There he is in the camo! Still during warm up....

 And this is pretty cool! This is Ryan Held who was on the Olympic gold medal relay team with Michael Phelps.... pretty sweet! He was a swimmer at State so he was at this meet-- he was timing Cal's lane for fly and when he got out, he high fived him and said he did a great job.  Means a lot coming from him! ha!

 And two videos-- you really don't need to watch these.. I just have to document this on here.  (if they even load....)

The first swim meet is under our belts! We are looking forward to the season!
Take aways from this meet:
-I do not do well not being on the pool deck....I am not good at sitting in the stands.
-Swim meets are long
-and very very hot
-and long
-people at these big wig meets don't yell like I do.... I was seriously like the only person screaming... didn't stop me.  Just saying.