Last meet of the Summer Swim Season!

AH, the Lancer's summer swim season drew to a close today. I will *not* miss getting up at 5 am, and sitting out by the pool in the 1 million degree humidity. But I *will* miss watching Gryphon swim! She did really, really well this season. For those that didn't get to catch a meet (everyone but Mom, I guess!) here is the photo play-by-play of the 100 metre IM (individual medley) race today.

IM is all 4 strokes, 25 metres (one length of the pool) each. It starts off with butterfly, in my opinion the hardest stroke. Also, I can't do it, so I think its pretty cool Gryphon could at 7! Off the wall the girls (Gryphon is the 9-10 age group) are all pretty much together. Because Gryphon had the fastest seed time (time in the event from the last race) she is in the middle lane.Next comes backstroke- switching from butterfly to backstroke while still legally touching the wall, etc is tough and its easy to get disqualified here! As they move into the backstroke, Gryphon pulls into the lead.They touch the wall, flip over and its onto the breaststroke- another stroke it is easy to get disqualified in! No DQ's here, and Gryphon increases her lead! Go Gryphon!One more touch and turn, and its into the race for the home stretch with freestyle. Gryphon pours it on, and wins by a lot! Yeah Gryphon!A thing the kids do on the summer swim team is draw on their backs- ostensibly for the other swimmers behind them to see as they pull away. ;) Gryphon's says "Eat my bubbles!".

We're a little sad to see our last season of summer swim end, but...excited to sleep in! Summer swim is *so* intense- practice every morning, a meet each Saturday. But its lots of fun, too, with spirit weeks and cheers, Lancer Buddies and silly games. We'll miss the Lancers!

Scrapbook pages

Jackie (http://explorecreatelearn.typepad.com/) often posts her scrapbook pages after we scrap together via webcam using Skype. I never do, but I *do* scrapbook when we Skype, so I thought for once I'd post some of my recent Skypey-scrapping pages.

If you haven't heard of Skype, its awesome and *free*. And when we move halfway around the world next year (knock on wood) its a great way to keep on touch. Just don't set your Skype settings to run your video automatically, because once a friend (hi Erin!) Skyped me and poor Mark was in front of the computer in his bathrobe. He answered, not realizing the webcam would automatically start up, too. (I'll bet he'll be thrilled to read this!)

And the big news is...

...we aren't in England!

We aren't going to England after all, and will be staying right here until May. The girls were thrilled with the extension to their lives in our great neighborhood; Mark and I are disappointed. But, not totally, because when we *do* get to move, we pick up and move to:

Guess we'll be dropping Spanish class this year!

So you can find us at our old address, same phone number, the works. Sorry to take SO long to let anyone know where were moving or when, but we were clueless ourselves. And given the experience we had with the UK move, I won't believe it until we step foot on Kimpo airport, myself.

So stay tuned, but for now, the plan is Seoul in the spring!

Bhutan and Grandma

Grandma is here visiting from Seattle, and we headed downtown to the Folklife Festival today. They have presentations from different cultures, and the one I most wanted to see was Bhutan.

I heard they had yak butter tea somewhere, but we didn't find it. Instead, the rest of the family had hot dogs and I had Bhutan's national dish of cheese, rice and chillies. It was really yummy!

Then we saw some of the exhibits, and since of none of us had the faintest clue about Bhutanese culture, it was all new and exciting! Gryphon talked the ear off of everyone, of course. Above are some beautiful paints in the art tent.
The girls had their names written in the calligraphy of Bhutan- looks sort of like Sanskrit. Or not.

Then we took grandma to the National Gallery for some nice air conditioning. Are these Little Dancer's cute or what??

Stay tuned for some big news...