flippin' your fins...

i've been thinking about discipline lately. frankly, it's not something that i'm very good at...making myself do something that is difficult or that i don't want to do. i was reminded of this, once again, this past weekend as i watched my niece's swim meet. i was amazed as i watched these children, ages 6-14, swim for hours, not because they HAD to but because they wanted to. because they enjoy what they do and they want to be better at their sport.

here are some pictures and stories from the weekend...

each swimmer writes their event #, heat #, lane # and stroke on their leg or arm. this is so they keep track of where they should be, when they should be there and what they're doing when they get there.


Christi and Megan painted Cassadie's fingernails and toes alternating purple and green to match their team colors. Megan is a hilarious little girl. At one point I asked both girls what they think about when they're swimming. Cassadie said, "nothing, I just count my strokes." Megan said, "Chocolate cake! Oh, and pizza!"


warm-ups were my favorite part to watch. hundreds of little kids all in the pool at one time. sometimes they would be swimming three wide in a lane and i was amazed that no one ever got hurt. apparently it's organized chaos and they all know what they're supposed to be doing.


this is my favorite picture because of the smile on her face. she was obviously proud of herself and the race she had just completed.


at dinner the girls named Cassadie's calzone Patrick after a kid on their swim team that has blazing red hair. this got a little awkward when we opened the fridge the leftovers were in and found that it hadn't been on all night. Cassadie's response..."Patrick died."

i could probably go on with stories about poo in the warm up pool, kids who could barely swim trying to swim 4 laps, or waking up with socks on pillows. but, i will leave you with my favorite quote from some random girl that had just struggled through her 100 yard freestyle race..."i have two questions...did i make it? and, can you help me out of the pool?"

harnessing the wind

there are wind farms covering the hills of the columbia river gorge. you can see hundreds, maybe thousands of them off in the distance. i know that these wind turbines serve a good purpose...but i find them extremely creepy. i'm not sure what it is about them.


maybe it's their enormous size (they look small from a distance, but up close they are positively huge).


maybe it's the fact that you may only see one or two of them peeking over the edge, but lurking over that hill there are hundreds more. like i said, i'm not exactly sure why i find them creepy. they remind me of something out of a science fiction movie. like at any minute they're going to come to life, not unlike a transformer, and take over the world.