Just keep swimming...

The weekend before we left for our vacation, the boys had a swim meet in Greensboro, on both days. We got the arrival times (6:45am) for each day and just had to laugh. It was a solid hour and ten minute drive to get there, so we had two early mornings in a row.

As I mentioned before, Andy is new to this swim program, so this was his first meet in this arena. The place is HUGE and there are about 5 pools with a LOT of people in each one (for warm ups).

We arrived Saturday and Andy freaked the freak out. Like, wouldn't go down on deck (parents aren't allowed down there- just kids and coaches), wouldn't stop crying, whole body shaking...scared. So we told him he didn't have to do it! Just sit in the stands; it would be fine! But that upset him more because he really really wanted to do it. We finally got him down on the deck and bribed Cal with a milkshake if he would stick with Andy to get him where he needed to be and when. It was  cluster- I was in a full blown sweat and it wasn't even 8am.

Let's back up.

Driving to Greensboro at the CRACK of dawn:

When we finally got Nug down on deck. Cal was by his side, Andy was NOT having it. 

But I took a pic to show them how proud I was!

The boys' coach giving Andy a pep talk.....Andy crying. A lot. 

 His first event was 25 backstroke. And wouldn't you know it, the kid won the whole event. Not just his heat. Nope. The whole dang thing. Seriously.

He got out of the water after winning and burst into tears and refused to swim again. But his coaches didn't let him quit. They got him in the water for his next event- and Cal happened to be in the same lane in the heat after his, which was pretty neat.... the previous heat stays in the water until the next heat takes off....so Andy was under Cal as he dove in. 

 First day was super dramatic and difficult and surprisingly successful! It wore Bruce out!

 Day two, everyone was all smiles. Go figure. We told Andy he could skip warm ups and he was good to go! We figured out there are about 30 kids per lane all doing circle swim and basically running over each other and that scared him to death. So when we said he could skip it, he looked at us like this:

 The two stuck together again, which was great.

Cal had a BIG day this day. He placed in his events and his relay! Super cool. 

 It was an exhausting weekend in that we were up early each morning, but it was also super rewarding because the kids were really proud of their efforts when all was said and done. Thank goodness we had a week vacation to recover! haha