Connor earns his letter

For a kid who loved baseball and soccer, it is truly amazing to have that child turn into a letter earning, varsity Hudson High School swimmer.  Connor has put a lot of hard work into the last 2 years and the rewards have been amazing.  After 15-20 hours a week in the pool over 7-8 sessions, the level of fitness and definition of stroke stands as the evidence.  When an athlete measures progress in 1/100 of a second, the difference between a satisfying season and disappointment is razor thin.  In his opening event at JV champs Connor swam the 100 free.  His letter time to achieve was 54.18.  He finished with a disappointing 54.77.  Last year he missed a letter by 3/10s in the 50 free.  It felt like it was going to be a long summer.  Connor was also scheduled to swim second in the 400 free relay.  If he moved up to 1st swimmer position, the result would count towards a 100 yard letter time.  He asked the coach, Matt challenged him that he would only move him if he was going to "go for it".  Connor went off first and swam a 53.93 and made coaches, parents and teammates proud.

Kid update

 Annelise finished out her Freshman year of field hockey and had a nice season with some good contributions to the team and the fun of being part of a high school level team.  We went to the banquet and it sounds like this team has a bright future ahead of them.   Annelise and her coaches are pictured below as well as her defending on our new turf field stadium.  Her other strong interests are music where One Direction is a big hit for her and her sister.  

Isabelle also played field hockey this fall and it seems her year round love is equestrian.  She is riding for Park Place Equestrian Interscholastic Equestrian Association team as well as continuing with Chagrin Valley Farms.  In IEA they blind draw horses they have never been on and then ride against riders in their class to be judged.  She is quite good at it and great with the horses.  It makes the sport more affordable as you don't have to own a prize horse to win in competition.

Heidi and our friends Dave and Cordula Faiman at the Alumni meet held Friday of Thanksgiving weekend each year.  HS swim meets take about two hours and you know most of the kids so it is actually quite fun to be there.

Connor is a sophomore now in high school and swimming 18 hours a week and on varsity.  He is lifting and conditioning and working hard on school work to make it all happen.  Amazing what kind of fitness levels you can achieve with that much effort.  We have seen big time drops in his second year swimming at this level.  He does a 50 meter swim in about half the time it takes his dad.  He also has his drivers permit and has mastered stick shift driving on his Subaru Forester.

Too long since last post

I guess it has been a busy summer because we are now in fall. I have a new video of Isabelle to share from her first Interscholastic Equestrian Association team competition today.

Isabelle Horse Show

Paris Trip

We got the chance to go to Paris as a family a couple weeks ago.  We borrowed an apartment from a friend with a view of the Eiffel Tower.  It is amazing how you can just stair out the 7th floor window of this apartment and look at the tower.  Maybe it was time spent catching your breath from the walk up the 7 flights of stairs.  No matter, those stairs were in Paris!  We tried to do as much as possible in the 6 days we had their.  Louvre, Versailles, Pompidou Center, Cluny Museum, Arc de Triumph, Montmartre, Notre Dame, Latin quarter.   The kids were the right age to appreciate it all.  15, 14, and 12.  Annelise celebrated her birthday there.  Working on the photo and video for youtube, look for a link here when it is done.  I credit Heidi with making this happen.  We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary over there and it was very special.  She is an excellent planner.

Isabelle wins series Grand Champion at Chagrin Valley Farms 18" jump divisionClick here to see the 2:30 film