Round Rock Unclassified and Red vs. White

Olivia and I have been having several issues with our computers over the past few weeks and this has caused a real backlog of pictures, blog posts and general updates. We haven't quite gotten all the computer stuff fixed but, wanted to get some updates on Madison's recent swim meets out as soon as the pictures could be loaded.

Round Rock Unclassified - Sept. 25th

Madison participated in her first outdoor swim meet, in Round Rock, Texas. It was a hot and sunny day and most of the parents were wishing they could jump in with the swimmers to cool off!

Madi debuted her new "competition" goggles and new suit for the meet.

Stylin dude!

Madi also participated in a new event (for her), the 200 IM which was very exciting to watch and pretty tiring to swim according to her.

Checkin' out the competition.

She started out strong with her new favorite stroke, the fly!

Things looked good as she moved through her old favorite, the backstroke.

The breaststroke is probably her second favorite stroke but at this point, she wasn't enjoying it so much!

Finally, she finishes strong with her freestyle!

Waiting on a few swimmers to finish.  Gives her a little time to rest before before climbing out to get ready for her next event.

Madi plows through the pool in her 50 breaststroke heat.

Looks like she is just moving into second as they touch the wall (I think the girl in first is on her way back in this pic)

It is tough to tell from the angle but, it looks like she's hanging on to second!

To the wall and...

She placed second in her heat with a new best time!

Madi also swam in a 200 relay with three other girls who were all very new to competition swim meets. It is crazy to think that she is the "experienced swimmer" in some of these things already.

Madison's next meet was held one week later, here in Belton and was an intra-sqad meet for her middle school team. They swam against their team members from Lake Belton Middlle School (LBMS). It was a really fun meet for the kids to work on the things they had been practicing and compete against their teammates. This meet also featured swimmers from Belton High School competing against each other and it was good for Madi and her friends to get to see how the big kids swim too.

Red vs. White Meet - October 2nd
It was a little confusing for the onlookers as the team all wore their Belton swim caps and they don't have official team suits but, they'd be wearing the same ones if they did!

Madison competed in a total of four events including relays, freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke, I think.

All of the distances were short and none of the events was more than 100 meters.

All the kids got to swim in four events and they seemed to enjoy themselves.

Madi said it was probably her most fun meet to date because she had a great time with her teammates and enjoyed cheering on so many friends from school.

I was a timekeeper for the meet and it was interesting to get to time the kids in their events. I didn't mess things up too badly and made it over to take pictures with the family

Madi's fan club turned out for the meet as usual, minus Aunt Gennie (who is usually at every meet but, had to work that Saturday morning) and Olivia who took the picture, as always.

Olivia was able to convince a nice man to let her get in this shot!

Not only is she super goofy....

She's super smart too!!  Really.

Madi got her first six weeks report card last week and I’m so proud to say that she made all A’s! You can’t do better than all A’s, so Jack and I are very happy/proud parents!

Madi pretty much always makes good grades, but this year (7th grade) started off at a frantic pace and for awhile Jack and I were worried, wondering is she would be able to keep up with all the school work plus all the swim practices and all extra curriculum activities with swim and choir. But she has really surprised us with fitting it all in and still getting all A’s! Awesome Job, Madi! You make us so proud!!

So, because Madison made such good grades and because we felt like she deserved a little fun, Jack and I let her go to the High School Homecoming football game and the Junior High Homecoming dance this past Friday night WITHOUT us! You guys already know how huge this is for Jack and me! We’re the type of parents who chaperone everything and get involved with the activities. But, we understand that we have to give Madi a little bit of space, it’s not healthy to not let her experience things (at this age anyway) without her parents breathing down her neck. So that’s why, when she asked if she and her best friend, Carly, could go to the game together without adult supervision, we said yes. She earned it and so did Carly, who I’m pretty sure has never made anything less than an A – ever!

Jack and I took the girls out to eat just before the game started and tried our best to prep them for the night ahead. We must’ve told them a thousand times to be safe, stick together, hide your money, don’t talk to strangers, call if there’s any fighting going on at the game, call if you need a sweater, call if you need anything, don’t leave the lighted areas, don’t walk outside of the football field until we text or call you to tell you we are standing there waiting, and the list goes on! We agreed to not chaperone, we didn’t agree not to give our safety speech or worry!!

Anyway, after dinner we drove the girls over to the High School and I walked them up to the ticket booth. We had started worrying long before we dropped them off, but now the questioning our decision began. Was it the right decision or were we bad parents for just dropping two twelve year olds off at a football game?? I mean really, what were we thinking??? And, because we obviously needed to feel even more negligent, Madi’s cell phone battery died just before half time! Nice! The one thing we hadn’t thought of – the cell phone battery! Thankfully, just as we were about to walk over to the stadium (it’s just right across the street from our neighborhood), Madi called to tell us that her battery was dying and that she and Carly were ready to come home to get ready for the dance. So, we went on over and met them outside the stadium.

As we walked home, Jack and I asked the girls tons of questions, but they really didn’t seem to mind. They were both very chatty and more than happy to talk about the fun they had at the game. They were so chatty that they came right out and talked about how Madi (our Madi, our baby!) was “touching Dalton’s hair” because “it was soooo soft”!!
*Madi, you’ll love reading this story someday I’m sure, but for now, you’re just going to be embarrassed that I shared that little fact!

I’ll skip writing about how Jack and I feel about the whole feeling-of-Dalton’s-hair-thing. I really don’t have the energy right now, but I will say that neither Jack nor I blew a gasket.

After a quick few minutes at home, Jack and I drove Madi and Carly over to the dance. The dance was held in a beautiful old church in downtown Belton. After talking with a super nice lady at the door, Jack and I felt much better about the kids’ safety. We were so glad it was held at a church and so relieved that the adults really seemed to care about what the kids would be doing while there.

The girls were safely home, chatting, laughing and eating homemade chocolate chip cookies by 11:30pm. It was the absolute best ending to a really hard night for Jack and me!! I’m pretty sure it was the best ending for Madi and Carly too!
I didn’t take pictures! Sorry!

Veggies, blooms, cute bugs and one lazy dog...

Our Mexican Mint Marigolds have started to bloom.  We noticed them starting to bud over the weekend and by Monday, we had tons of small golden-yellow flowers. 

~Yellow is my favorite color and one that we didn't have in the yard until these fall beauties bloomed. 

Our Fall vegetable garden seems to be doing pretty good so far and I'm getting really excited and hopeful that it will be better than our summer garden was.   

This pepper is a mystery to Jack and I.  When we bought our pepper plants, we thought be were getting serrano and jalapeno peppers, but somehow we ended up with two of these mystery pepper plants and two jalapeno plants. Well, whatever kind they are, they're doing really well. There's half a dozen or so that seem ready to be picked. 

We continue to have more Okra then we can eat.  We've prepared them every way imaginable and though we enjoy Okra very much, there's only so many Okra fritters a person can eat!  Next year, remind us not to plant eight okra plants!  I think just two will do.

~ A late watermelon. Only our second of the season and probably our last.

~Our Basil is growing like crazy! I haven't trimmed them back in a few weeks and as a result they've started to bolt (flower).  This is not a good thing if you want fresh, non-bitter tasting basil, but really good if you want to attract beneficial insects like this little bee who is enjoying our lemon basil plant.  

~some of the wildflowers Jack planted are still blooming

and our butterfly bush is looking better then ever.

 While I was snapping pictures of the garden and flowers, a group of Wren visited our backyard.  They were so tiny and cute; playing and chattering about.  In the picture above they're setting on our Bouncing Back tree and below they're exploring our corn plants. 

~ I found lots of ladybug pupa on our winter squash leaves.

It's pretty crazy to me that the ladybug larva and pupa are so ugly, yet the ladybug itself is so cute and colorful.  I took a few pictures last summer of some ladybug larva and pupa on our cilantro plant.  I never posted them, and can't get to the pictures right now (still no desk computer) but, if you haven't seen a ladybug larva and are interested in what it looks like or in the different stages of a ladybug, click here.

 ~I also found one cute, but lazy dog.

~I don't see how this could possibly be comfortable!

So anyway, I'm really pleased that our fall garden and flower beds are doing so well right now. The Mexican Mint Marigolds should continue to bloom throughout the Fall and hopefully we'll enjoy lots of garden fresh veggies from our garden during this time as well.  

I'll try to post more about our fall garden than I did about our summer garden (which was never!) but hopefully, I can get Jack to do it since he's the expert.  We'll see! 


Happy Wednesday!