Elizabeth's Activities

We have one busy kindergartner! She gets on the bus at 7:50 and arrives home by 3:50, except when I have to pick her up on gymnastics day, because that starts at 4.  She swims twice a week.  That was from 5:00-5:30 but she needed to move up to the next level to be challenged (coaches words, not mine: "she has talent!") so we now do swimming from 5:30-6:30.  This means three nights in a row of sitting for an hour watching big sister swim/tumble.  Grant is getting much better at packing his own activity bag!  She really wanted to be a Daisy too, but there is only so much time in a day and we still need a day to come home and just play outside and let her be a kid!

This is the first year for gymnastics.  She loves it.  I love that it is 1 minute from our house.  They do all of the apparatus.  She hasn't mastered the splits but I told her that will come in time as she gets more flexible and that maybe it was harder for her because she has more leg to split!  I could never do the splits either, so I know she will survive ;) I have been pleased with the program and she always looks forward to going.  Plus it is really good exercise and she is getting stronger.

Speaking of strength....I can't say enough good things about what swimming does for her stamina and strength.  I try each time to count how many times she swims the length of the pool and I lose count every time!  One time 45 minutes in, they started their butterfly stroke lap - holy cow I was tired just watching her.  By the end, her swimming looks tired, but she pops out of the pool and if you ask her if she is tired she always says "NO!"  Her freestyle has improved tremendously.  Her backstroke still looks really good for a 6 year old.  She has the right movements up front for the breast stroke but she doesn't move very far forward so I am guessing the legs might not be doing exactly what they are suppose to do, or maybe just aren't strong enough yet to really push her body forward.  In the last few weeks they have starting working on the wall flips.  She thinks that is really fun, but they get really close to the wall before they have to actually flip - it's a little scary to watch.  I don't think she will compete this year, but we may look into doing a summer swim team where she could compete.  They have just starting competing a little in practice and she seems to get the idea to turn up the speed when she is racing.  Otherwise,  she isn't horribly fast because I believe she is working on really perfecting the stroke movements (mother's opinion!).  We are really proud of her.

Tonight they worked pretty hard on entry dives.  After the first one I saw her climb onto the platform! She literally crawled up and looked like she was hanging on for dear life, but she did it more than once! She is pretty brave!

Swimming Video Links: (pink swim cap and suit, far end of pool)
low dive: http://youtu.be/np1eTKeNCi0
platform dive - http://youtu.be/sURKGen_oI8
(in all of the slow motion glory!)

This is Grant at swimming...