Swim Olympics

Our internet has been down for one of the busiest weeks of the year: the last week of school! So I have a lot of catching up to do as far as posting things on the blog! Every time we turned around the kids had another party: birthday parties, end of the year parties, class parties, goodbye parties, graduation parties. In addition to those, we had several big "events" the first of which started on Monday, June 1. Every year as the temperatures rise at the end of school, the kids have a swim unit in PE. One of the moms in our community was a competitive swimmer all through high school and college, and she has become the backbone of this program. The kids all enjoy it so much! We are thankful at her willingness to share her skills with them. As Sahel does not have a pool, this unit involves renting a pool or two around the city for the week or so they have daily lessons. This year the pool our girls were at had a 3 meter platform. Both of them braved the platform and jumped off! Kay, our spunky one, didn't stop there though! She was doing front flips off the 3 meter platform, curling into a ball and somersaulting off! Since then, she had been working on her back dive so she can try a back flip next year. Here she is going off the tower.

This year the girls worked really hard on learning different strokes. I was so impressed with Kay's butterfly!! I can't even do that! Heidi improved a lot too. Her shallow dive has really improved which helped her when it came to race time. Here she is doing the back stroke.
The best part of the swim unit is the elementary swim meet at the end. Teachers, parents and younger siblings all turn out to watch. The kids have LOTS of fun with races for every level of swimmer, as well as fun events such as the biggest splash and longest holding of your breath under water. The K-6 swimmers are divided into teams and compete through the morning for points for their team as well as individual points. Here Heidi (in the blue striped swim shirt) is sitting with some of her friends and teammates.

This is Kay (pink suit) and her buddy. They both just got their short haircuts in the last few months. Aren't they cute?
At the end of the morning, the kids have some snacks and then free time in the pool while the points are being tallied. Kay won first place in the girls' 1/2 class category! We are so proud of her. She is not the biggest, nor the strongest, but she definitely has good coordination and some interest in sports. Perhaps she will be the family athlete! Well done Kay!