- Fiona enjoys the ride down from the top of the wall
Fiona had a great time Saturday at her classmate’s birthday party at the Doylestown Rock Gym. As usual, she was fearless and shot right up the wall.
She seemed to really like working her way up the wall using the “rocks,” as she especially liked the ride back down to the ground. They also climbed rope ladders and rope nets.
The gym offers a day camp and Fiona said she’d like to try it, so maybe we’ll add that to her summer schedule.
(Oh yeah, we’ll just squeeze it in along with gymnastics camp, baseball camp, a solo visit to Aunt Jo & Uncle Keban’s, a few weeks at CEC, a visit to Quebec City.)
CLICK HERE for more photos of Fiona rock climbing.
Owen (on left) charges to score a point.
Owen had another fencing tournament this weekend. A couple of months ago, he fenced generally the same group of kids and finished third. He improved to finish second in this tournament, knocking off the #1 seed in the semi-finals.
CLICK HERE for more photos of Owen’s fencing tournament.
In between birthday parties and fencing, there were baseball games. And then there were more baseball games. And, I think after that, we went to MORE baseball games.
Fiona is a stand-out slugger in t-ball, although she sometimes spaces out when she’s supposed to be catching the ball at first and insists on throwing it back to the catcher softball-style; Owen is a legendary hitter in minors and has developed into an outstanding catcher (one of his best attributes as a catcher is his ability to manage the pitchers and get them to throw strikes) and Jack did it all this weekend in rec and travel: catcher, pitcher, third base and I lost count of the number of hits.
CLICK HERE for a collection of the weekend’s baseball photos.
Fiona is down and ready to field the next hit
I love how Owen digs in at the plate; no one is brushing him back
Great play! Jack gets the runner out at third
Fiona soars during free swim
For the past six weeks, Fiona’s PreK class at Germantown Academy has been doing swimming lessons twice a week at the GA pool. She’s been VERY lucky to have the legendary Coach Dick Shoulberg and the champion swimmer and Olympian-in-training Fran Krippen as her swim teachers.
In the first session, the asked if anyone already knew how to swim, and of course Fiona said yes. That made her a “deep-ender.” The deep-enders (at first there were only two, but by the end of the six weeks, there were four or five) would do their warm-ups with the rest of the class on the platform in the shallow end, and then go down to the deep end for their lessons with Coach Krippen in the water and Coach Shoulberg watching from the pool deck.
The deep-enders worked on crawl and backstroke and did laps across the width of the pool. Sometimes they did races (Fiona claims to have ALWAYS won. That hasn’t been independently confirmed.) Sometimes they used kickboards or floats and they seemed to really like that, but Fiona’s favorite part was toward the end of class when they got to jump off the diving board.
I helped out a couple of times in the shallow end with the less experienced swimmers, so I didn’t get to see too much of what Fiona was doing. One day, Coach Shoulberg came down to the shallow end and asked if I was Fiona’s mother. When I said yes, he said something along the lines of, “I don’t care what sport Fiona wants to do, but she’s going to be swimming with me.” (I’m not sure, but I think Fiona just got recruited.)
The big news this week from swimming was that Coach Shoulberg told Fiona to do a flip off the diving board. She did.
When I got there today, to take photos of the last day of swimming, at least five children and three adults made it a point to tell me about Fiona’s flip off the board. Since today was the last day of class, they got extra free swim, so Fiona got to do many flips off the board. For the first time, they were also allowed to use the ropes. A couple of the deep enders were a bit hesitant and elected to just jump off the blocks into pool, but wild girl Fiona grab the rope, swung high in the air and flung herself into the pool over and over.
And to top off a great day of swimming, they got popsicles from Coach Shoulberg to celebrate the end of the session.
CLICK HERE for more photos of fishy Fiona
Fiona snuggles up to Coach Shoulberg after class
This morning, Fiona asked me two questions while I was brushing her hair.
1. Mommy, what are ovaries?
2. So, what are loafers?
Don’t you wish you knew what synapses in her brain were firing to connect those two questions?
Sorry. I don’t have time to make this all fancy and embed the video. Click on the link below to see Fiona’s part in the Pre-K “Mother Goose” play.
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ETA: Here’s a photo of Fiona and her class in their costumes. Too cute!!
PKW, Stars of the Mother Goose Play
Owen and Fiona are touching and smiling and NOT fighting. (Photo taken in Philly before the Nutcracker ballet. More to follow later.)
The big-deal Halloween parade at Germantown Academy was today. Everyone looked wonderful. The whole school, from pre-K to seniors comes out to the quad and parades around.
The PK teachers were famous GA athletes from the past, the 3rd grade teachers were Phillies “fans,” and the 5th grade teachers were bats in the belfry.
More photos are here.
… The Ghost Boy from Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Princess Amidala, Queen of Naboo.
Get those treats ready!
(You’ll have to wait until the Germantown Halloween parade on Friday to see Jack dressed up as Miley Cyrus.)
Fiona is on her first real team!! She’s playing kindergarten soccer at the Solebury Soccer Club.
(We were very hesitant about her being involved in the program after Jack was treated with a complete lack of integrity, but hopefully, those coaches won’t taint the kindergarten program. So far, so good.)
She’s very much enjoying each game. They play [click to read more]
