Summer of Swim

Summer = Swim here in the Koplan household (and most households with elementary school aged children in Lamorinda).  Gwen made amazing strides this summer, perfecting her track dive and improving her seed time to 25.17 seconds in the 25 yard freestyle.  She went back and forth on earning the 4th spot on her team's A relay team (but ultimately lost it in the end due to 2 weeks of vacation right before OMPA).  But, most importantly, she had SO much fun every day during practice, free swim, the many social events and of course, the twice weekly swim meets.

Here are some scenes of our 1st official swim summer with a 6 & under.

Fly, Breast and Free of Gwen's first ever medley relay early in season (Gwen
migrated to swimming fee on this relay later in the season).

Taking the girls to ice cream to celebrate a great meet with lots of pops!

The free relay team from the LMYA/Miramonte Tri-Meet

Buddy Night!

Whitney could often be found hanging on Clare
during meets and practices.  And she got to be Clare's
buddy on buddy night!

Cup of Noodles - dinner of champions!

The girls right before going after a 38 year old record in the free relay.
Their seed time beat it, but they came in just 2 seconds short.  So close!

Private lessons with Coach Chris, working on her dive.

Little buddies.

Whitney was less enthusiastic about all things swimming in her 2nd year as a Mini Marlin.  She loves to play in the water, but isn't a huge fan of lessons and one day after minis, came out of the water declaring "I'm not doing mini marlins anymore!"  After telling her "yes, you are", she replied "Fine!  But I'm not doing side breaths!" 

As much as she fights it, Whitney has natural athletic ability, being called out for her strong kicks.  She is now officially water safe, can swim 25 meters of doggie paddle in about a minute and a half and is showing some serious promise in backstroke.

WInner of "Best Goggles"

And then there was OMPA!