Fall Happenings

I haven't been blogging much lately because I'm always on Facebook! So I will do some catch-up, if I can even remember all that we've been doing:)

September and October are always busy months for us, with highschool swim season in full swing. All of our meets are out of town; Soldotna, Homer, Kenai, Valdez, etc. We only had two home meets this year and two meets in Anchorage, all the rest were out of town. It gets a little crazy to say the least, as we try to attend all that we can. I missed a few this year, as I was in Fairbanks helping my most AWESOME friend, Sheli, transition from the hospital to home after spending a week in Seattle getting a cancerous tumor removed from her kidney. It was a beautiful nine days!! I got to snuggle lots and spend lots of wonderful one-on-one time with her incredible kids!! It was hard to say good-bye when it was time to come home. I miss living in the same town as Sheli when I could pop in whenever I wanted to!

Kev had a pretty average swim season, as he was fighting illness AGAIN!! Every swim season he has been sick almost for the entire two months, either with something like mono or just a constant cold/flu. We see a naturopathic doctor and she has really been trying to encourage Kevin to move just a little away from the vegan diet. Not only is he growing rapidly but he is an athlete, which makes it very hard to get everything you need in your diet. The men that do it are very scientific about it and keep careful track of what they put in their mouths. Kev has a very healthful diet but I don't think he is getting enough of what he needs to grow and be an athlete at the same time. He is slowly opening up to change. BUT, the last few weeks we have been pumping him up with protein shakes, Cultured Veggie's and such. He had the most AWESOME meet ever last weekend so it is making a huge difference! Now that he sees it he is ready to add SOME things that aren't vegan, like egg whites, to his diet so he is getting a bit more protein.

He bested his time on his 100 Fly at 1:00.55, missing his chance for state by .57 of a second. He was a little bummed but fired up to train hard and be at the top of the pack next year. The boys Medley Relay, that Kev swims the Fly for made it to state and got 1st in their region. He also bested his time for 100 back and is really close to a state time in that as well so next year should be awesome!! He will be swimming for club throughout the winter and next summer so he will get lots of training in.

Calista started swimming club two weeks ago and is really enjoying it. She is a hard worker and coach has been pretty impressed with her excitement and hard work. He called her a "beast"! Tristan has decided to try out as well, hopefully by the end of the week. Their coach is also the coach for the highschool so he's pretty tied up with the state meet coming up so it might be next week. Tristan is thinking that he wants to swim for the highschool next year as well, unfortunately, they only allow you to swim as a homeschooler if you are through the correspondence program or Twindley Bridge Charter school. I don't know if he is willing to go through that many loopholes to swim for the school, since it will mean doing curriculum, etc. If he decides that is what he wants to do I will support him 100%, just as I have with Kev.

We also said good-bye to Jared last month, after having him for five months. It was sad and hard to let him go but I think he was getting a bit homesick. We had so much fun with him and I hope he has LOTS of great memories to hold on to. I would take him every summer if I could:)

We still don't have any snow! Tristan is really wanting to get out and snowboard so he is not too happy. He said, the other day, "This winter sucks!", as if winter was almost over:) We have had lots of high winds over the last week or so but no snow. Weather is calling for sun the rest of the week so it might be a while before we see the white stuff. Our temps are hanging out right between 25-30 and I'm not complaining. It's going to make for a short winter.