Crazy Week

This week is right up there with the craziest weeks we have had. So much going on! Thomas left for University of Texas swim camp last Sunday and was there all week. Super stressful for me because he had to fly alone and change planes in Denver. He did a great job and made it to Texas and had a great time at camp. He was able to be coached by Ian Crocker, Brenden Hansen, and Aaron Piersol. His favorite this year was Ian Crocker. He also met one of the Olympic women swimmers named Karlee Bispo. She found out he was from Utah and asked if he was LDS and she said she was too so now she is his favorite.He had some weird dorm mates but met a lot of other people he hung out with during camp. He was spoiled by grandparents with some new University of Texas gear and made it safely home after having to change planes in Phoenix this time. He was given ideas for scouting out colleges and what he needs to do. Crazy that we have to think about that already, but the next 2 years will go by fast I am sure. He has to be registered with the NCAA his Junior year and start contacting coaches. Yikes!
I have been busy getting ready for girls camp and left on Monday for the week. We fed over 300 girls. It was lots and lots and lots of work and I feel like I could sleep for a week. It was weird to be at camp without Maddi but we had a lot of fun and the other ladies that were there were so fun and amazing and we stayed up until the wee hours laughing until we cried. Heber Valley camp is really nice. I love the girls of our Stake and especially our ward. What a sweet group of girls.
While I was at camp Kevin and Maddi stayed home and ran the show here. Jake had the first All Stars tournament so he and Coach Kevin were busy with practices and games. I was so sad to miss the first 2 games because of camp but I made it back to watch them win Saturday. He had 3 at bats and hit all 3 times. 9 at bats no strike outs. Their uniforms are very different this year. It has taken me a while but I think I really like them now and Jake looks pretty cute in it, Coach Kevin looks pretty cute in his too. Jacob also has been trying out for a comp soccer team and we just found out last night that he made the team so for the next couple of weeks we will be juggling 2 sports.
Maddi decided that playing mom wasn't the funnest thing she has ever done. I did pile on a few extra duties like putting together goodie bags for the end of year dinner for the Rivercats. But she did great and took him to do a few fun things so he loved it.
Another thing I missed while at camp was our 22nd anniversary. We usually are busy on our anniversary with baseball so we are used to having to celebrate it on another date. It seems crazy to think it has been that long that we have been married. Crazy to think I have been married longer than I lived with my parents. I look back at the way Kevin and I met and think how bad I would freak out if one of my kids came home and told me 2 weeks after meeting on a blind date that they were getting married. But 22 years and 4 kids later here we are and I am the luckiest girl on the planet to have such a fun, hard working hubby who is my best friend and THE best dad for my kids. My mom told me she knew I would marry him the first time she met him and I am so glad I did! Hopefully we will be able to go to dinner to celebrate soon.
So now we have another week of baseball Wahoo!!! I love it! Hopefully we do well in the next tournament and can go on to State. I will be busy cleaning the house after the girls camp explosion and getting Mitchell's room ready since he will be home in 53 days! I will be going to garage sales to find a dresser to put in Thomas' new room and moving all of the rest of his stuff out of Mitchell's room. I am getting tired just thinking about it. I love summer!

DOS!

Wow, I can hardly believe we are down to only 2 months! Only 4 weeks! Only 60 days! I am SO excited I can hardly stand it! 60 more days and Elder Mitch will be home, I can't wait to hug him and see his cute face and make him chocolate chip cookies! More details to come but he will be giving his homecoming talk on Aug. 19th for sure ( great birthday present for Maddi) . Wahoo!

Tough Loss

Jakes little team played their last game tonight. It was a heartbreaker. We finished the season in first place, We had an awesome season, winning most games by a lot. The end of year tournament started this week and tonight they lost, it was a hard loss because we went in first and were expected to win it all, but what a fun season this has been.
Jacob had an awesome home run, had great plays in the field and missed hitting the ball over the outfield fence by a few inches. He had the chance to play every position and even caught a bit this year. The kids on the team improved so much and the coach was awesome (Kevin) and the assistant coached were awesome too. It was also so much fun for Jake to have a few of his best buddies on the team and to make a few new ones.
I would be sad right now to see it all end but luckily we move on to All Stars. Since our team finished first this season, Coach Kevin got to choose if he wanted to coach All Stars and of course he does! So tomorrow we start fresh with a brand new team and brand new uniforms and another month of baseball. I love it!

Great day at the pool!

Kevin took the results paper off the wall to keep for Thomas.




The U team. The one in the ball cap is the one he raced in the 2 IM

"That kid just beat our team mate! "

Captain of the U team. He was huge and fast! Check out the tattoo. Most of the men's team had them.

Everyone knows we are University of Utah fans. We always cheer for the U and always want them to win... until today.
We have been at swim meets for the past 3 weekends in a row. So when I drove Thomas to the pool last night I wasn't expecting much as he had done really well in the last 2 meets and he has been training to hard and is sore and tired. So I really thought this wasn't going to be a really great meet for him. Then we get there and the U of U swim team happens to be entered in this meet. Yikes!
Thomas swims in the last heat with the fast guys so every race he had one of these guys, or girls ( it was his first mixed meet , girls and guys swimming together) in his heat. It was pretty cool to see the U swim team there and the kids were all staring at them. They had all the cool gear, their speedos said Utah Man on the back, they had a U tattoo on most of their backs, they were big and intimidating.
Thomas swam last night against 2 different ones and they were amazing, Thomas finishing behind them both times.
So this morning I decide to sleep in and let Kevin take him so I don't have to drag Jake to the pool at 6:30 this morning and I missed one of his best races ever.
Once again he had to race against one of them in the 200 I.M. He was also racing against 2 of their women's team. The U swimmer was right next to him and in the lead by a little bit and then they hit the wall for the last length of the pool and Thomas caught up to him and out touched him by 3, one hundreths of a second and swam his best time by 2 seconds. The entire U swim team was watching at the end of the pool with their jaws dropped. Thomas finished first in the 200 I.M not only beating 2 Pac 12 women swimmers, which is pretty cool but out touching a men's University of Utah Pac 12 swimmer. Pretty dang amazing.
Kevin told me the entire place was going crazy and everyone was talking about the Tsunami swimmer that beat a U of U swimmer and pointing at him as he walked by. One of our moms said she didn't have a voice because she was screaming so loud.
I told Thomas he should have hopped out of the pool and found the U coach and given him a hand shake and said "Thomas Sheridan, see you in 3 years"
I know I blog about swimming a lot and sometimes he does great things and sometimes he doesn't have the best meet. He really works so hard and is so dedicated that it is fun to see him do big things like this. His Coach Steve tells me lately that he is just really starting to get fast and is working so hard. It will be so fun to see what is ahead for him in the next few years.
I ended up going out and watching his last 2 races today and I did get to see the kid he beat. He got out of the pool and dried off with his cool U of U towel, Thomas got out and dried off with his super hero towel. It was too funny. He cracks me up.

Going for the Gold

Thomas needed a new swim bag after the zipper in his old one broke. He is SUPER excited that we have an Aquaholics shop here now and he headed over there and bought a new bag. I am afraid that this is where most of his paychecks will be going from now on. Even though he is saving for a car the temptation of 3 levels of swim gear is going to be too much to for him to handle! He ended up buying the Olympic edition bag from Speedo, all black with huge gold zippers. Not too flashy at all Ha Ha! At least he didn't come home with the black speedo with gold stars all over it!

New Room

I guess it's now the Bat Cave???

The AWESOME trophy case my dad made for me where the old window was. I LOVE it!!!!


This is going to be a closet someday...hopefully soon!

With Elder Mitch coming home soon, we felt kinda bad for Thomas having to move back upstairs and share a room with Lego master Jake. Also we felt bad that Jake would have to hear Thomas' swimming alarm go off every morning at 5:30. So we decided to turn my old craft room/Kevin's office into a new room for Thomas. The room was once a kitchen so we had to tear out some cabinets, left some in for his bookcase and took out a sink and stove. We have been working on it for a while , doing a little at a time and we finally moved him into it yesterday! He is pretty excited. We are still trying to figure out how to make the closet and we are in need of a dresser but he is at least sleeping in there and most of his stuff is out of Mitch's room so I can start getting that ready for him to come home.
Thanks to my super incredible awesome dad for coming up from St. G to help out with the room. We could NEVER have done it without him!!!!