This summer, both Riley and Kaiya have been participating in swim team. In past years, I have tried to convince the kids to sign up for the more challenging (and therefore less popular) swim events. (Being a statistician, I figured if less kids signed up for an event, that improved the odds that my kid would get a place ribbon.) All my attempts at persuasion were totally unsuccessful. This year, the rules for signing up for events was a little different. The swimmer was allowed to choose two events and then the coach would select the third event. The very first week, the coach picked Riley to swim the individual medley event---one lap in each of the four strokes. To my surprise, he LOVED it and has signed up for the IM every single week since. I decided the coach was a genius, since I know he would not have loved it if I had made him sign up for it! Every week he has been improving a little bit, but this week, he actually beat his previous time by 13 seconds and took home the first place ribbon!
Yay Riley!!
Diving off the block (in the team medley, not the IM)
Riley in the final leg of the IM---not only did he win, but no one else was even close! (it helped that there were only four people competing...)
Kaiya also got her first heat-winner ribbon of the season at the meet
Kaiya diving off the block
Even though swim team is very time consuming, I think it is so great for the kids---good exercise and it helps them really learn how to swim well. I am hoping that the quints will be able to be on the team next year!
Every year, the PTA sponsors a "Reflections" contest where kids of all ages can submit artistic entries relating to the theme. The categories are: Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Literature, Photography, and Film Production. This year, the theme for the PTA Reflections contest was "Together We Can". Both Kaiya and Riley submitted entries---Kaiya in photography and Riley in Film Production. Last night was the awards ceremony for the school and they both got the Award of Excellence! Their entries will go on to the school district level competition.
I am so proud of them....I think they both did a great job! Of course it helped that they entered in categories that few people pick...This year there were 117 Visual Arts entries, 2 Music entries, 1 Film Production entry, 6 Photography entries and 1 Literature entry. Of course, being a statistician, I encourage them to enter categories where the odds are in their favor, but I think they would have won no matter how many entries there were :-)
Here are Kaiya's two photography entries. Both received the Award of Excellence:
Entry 1, entitled: "Together We Can Accomplish Anything"
Entry 2, entitled: "Together We Can Do Hard Stuff"
This is Riley's Film Production Entry. This is the third video he has done for Reflections contests and I think it is by far the best! He had to write, direct, shoot, and edit the film by himself!
Riley and Kaiya have really been into making their own videos lately. I think it is cute that they are trying to be like their dad, and they have a really great time doing it. It will be a while before either of them is the next Steven Spielberg, but their videos are improving over time and I thought their most recent video actually turned out pretty great. Their latest creation is a parody of the Old Spice Commercial (The man your man could smell like). Riley and Kaiya wrote, acted, filmed, edited and even posted the video to YouTube entirely by themselves! You can check it out below:
If you haven't seen the Old Spice Commercial it is mimicking, you can watch it below (if you watch this one first, Riley and Kaiya's video will make more sense).
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