Weekend Swim Meet

We have been busy here lately. Ally seems to be getting a little better...at least if I keep track of her complaints about belly pain. She was complaining all of the time, numerous times a day. Now she has mentioned it only once in the last couple of days. Regardless, she will go in Friday to get some liver blood tests done. Bummer for her because they have to take that blood out of her arm. Usually if we are just doing a CBC (which she does ALL the time) they just do a finger prick. She is pretty brave about it though and I am praying for some good numbers to come back.

After struggling a bit with swimming last week, she went to her first "away" meet this weekend down in Middletown. She did FANTASTIC. She took several seconds off both her 50 yd backstroke time and also her 50 free. She had been working on her flip turns with Coach Rob and I think the work paid off. She was EXTRA excited about this meet because both her teacher and her grandparents were coming to watch her race. I think she got 4th in her heat for back and 3rd for freestyle...we are not in it to win any races though. I just tell her to keep improving her time. She has worked really hard on her swimming, and honestly with three days a week of practice she is ready for it to be over. However, I will attest that it could possibly be the best decision that we have made throughout the process because it strengthened her and also helped her to keep her steroid weight down (most of the kids suffer from weight gain):
Here she is doing the freestyle:


Here she is with Grandma and Grandpa: (they also babysat that night so we could go out for Bob Winger's 40th birthday celebration. Thank you!)


And here she is with Mrs. Torbeck. Seriously, how many teachers go to their students swim meets? Ally was super excited and we were super grateful. She is a lucky girl.


We have also been busy working on the science fair, going to birthday parties, and playing in the snow. We are always mindful of how perfect a "regular" schedule can be...never forgetting the lack of schedule that we suffered with for a year. We also had Evan come down with a fever, but thankfully Ally has been spared so far from it. It still necessitates a trip to the hospital for us, so we try really hard to avoid all illnesses. Although I have kinda learned that if she is gonna get it, she will get it, so I don't go too crazy with isolation tactics and/or cleaning.

We have also had some fun playing in the snow. I LOVE SNOW! However I am kinda ready to be done with all of these snow days already. Dad has a big sledding hill up at Fox Hill that we love. Also, wanted to say that Dad is doing much better these days. He is home from Cleveland and has been feeling better. We can only hope that it will stay this way for him.
I think we have almost this same picture from last winter. Setting up a self timer shot in the snow = not easy.





I love this shot of my girl. Snow makes for the most perfect backdrop and light reflector!


One small thing that I failed to mention last week, but it was a huge deal to us! Our WSU Raiders beat the Butler Bulldogs. Remember the Bulldogs who were in the (ahem) National Championship last March?? We beat them. We love the Raiders. They have always supported Ally and she supports them right back. Check out these signs that her and Madison created:





And again, sorry Mrs Torbeck about your Bulldogs. (We've been seeing a lot of her lately.) She was still smiling here because it was halftime.


At the end of the game the students had stormed the court and I had lost my voice.



Fun times.


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