During the school year, “Sid the Science Kid” comes on at 8:30 am. At the exact time that we need to leave our house to go to school, Sid’s mom is taking him to school. They do a rap together in the car. Ryan and I do that rap together, and then head out the door for school. It is also a fun tradition.
When Ryan was four, five, and six, he LOVED “Veggie Tales: Jonah and the Big Whale.” In fact, we still chuckle at the way he used to say “the wayer with a wong tayer.” (For those of you who didn’t catch that, it would be “the whale with a long tail.”) There is a song toward the beginning of the movie about “Billy Joe McGuffery.” When Ryan started first grade, we changed the words a little bit. We would sing, “On the first day (*clap*) of the first grade (*clap*).” Interestingly, after just a few days of first grade, we moved Ryan to another school. We were able to sing the song again that year. It has continued every year since, with the appropriate grade change, of course.
Ryan’s school has a brief outdoor assembly the first day of school. Parents attend, take pictures, and then the kids are ushered to their classrooms. I really like it. It sure cuts down on the confusion and congestion of every single kid and parent trying to maneuver around inside on the first day of school.
Ryan is excited about his teacher this year. She is someone that Rara has known since they were young. They grew up in the same neighborhood. Rara has told her about Ryan the past couple of years, and his teacher has looked forward to him being in fourth grade, hoping that he’ll be in her class. Ryan knows that he has a reputation to live up to, and that he needs to be on his best behavior as to not disappoint everyone involved. I’m sure he will be. He always is.
He did pretty well in his first meet, especially considering that he had only been on the team for four days! There was a huge disappointment, though. As the swimmers’ names appeared on the scoreboard, Ryan’s name wasn’t listed! It wasn’t in any of his events. We were looking forward to seeing his name in lights! We found out after the meet that apparently the person who was in charge of submitting the registrations for the meet didn’t get everyone’s in! The coaches put Ryan in the slot of another kid who had signed up for the same events, but then didn’t come to the meet.
The other disappointing thing about that is that none of Ryan’s times will count for him. It is all computerized, and the programs even had each swimmer’s best times in each event. So, on Ryan’s next meet, technically his second, it will look like his first. That’s ok. This was a good experience for him. We think he MAY have placed third in Butterfly, but with so many heats, it was hard to tell. We’re going to see if the coaches can figure out his times (based on the “other kid’s” results). At least WE’LL know Ryan’s times, and we can see how much he improves.
On Wednesday, we met with the coach and Ryan's level 6 teacher. The coach asked a few questions about Ryan's swimming abilities, and his teacher confirmed that he not only has the technical abilities, but also the motivation needed to be a team member. The coach invited Ryan to swim with the team the next day so he could evaluate him.
The coach offered Ryan a spot on the team. We considered waiting until next summer. During the summer, all ages practice together from noon to 1. During the school year, they divide into a younger group and an older group. One group practices every day from 4 to 5, the other 5 to 6. The coach asked Ryan how old he is. Apparently about 10 years old is the division between the two groups. He said he'd have Ryan start with the younger group, but thought he might not be challenged enough, so he'd likely move him up to the older group. It was all so exciting that we decided not to wait. We'll go ahead and have him start now. He officially starts on Monday!
It is so much fun watching him develop into such a great little athlete. It will be fun to see how he does with the swim team this year.
Most of you know from 
We are now ¾ of the way through the class. Five kids have dropped out. Ryan is still going strong. Every day they swim between four and eight FOOTBALL FIELDS!
Ryan’s next goal is to try out for the competition swim team, the Tsunami. I’ll keep you posted.
I took this one of Ryan doing the Butterfly today. It's not very clear, so I need to take a better one. But he sure looks like a champion to me!
We went to the condo and unpacked, then immediately went to Merlin’s for burgers and raspberry shakes.
On Tuesday, we went to Minnetonka Cave. It was nice and cool, and was a welcome change from the heat.
We spent most of Wednesday at the beach and on the water. Papa rented a Waverunner, so we all had fun taking turns on that.
We also had a lot of fun on the beach. Ryan built a sandcastle, Claire and Alice sat in the sand, and Claire even sampled the sand!
Raspberry Days started on Thursday, so we spent a lot of the day enjoying the craft fair (where Ryan won some great prizes playing mini golf), pizza at Bear Lake Pizza, and the Raspberry Days parade. We found an AMAZING new favorite food – chocolate covered raspberries! I’m looking forward to Marc’s post on Frances’ blog about those!
Now, our Bountiful Handcart Days parade is known for the large amounts of candy thrown. But this parade far surpassed that prior candy record. As we lined up, we saw that all of the kids along the route were holding GROCERY BAGS! I grabbed one out of the car for Ryan, and he pretty much filled it during the parade. We have a year’s supply of Tootsie Rolls and salt water taffy! 
On Friday, we spent part of the day at the beach again. It was a little more windy, so it wasn’t quite as enjoyable as Wednesday had been. But we still had fun. We took Cheerios for Claire so she didn’t have to eat the sand.
Friday night, we went to the Raspberry Days rodeo. (Thanks to Ryan for taking such a great group picture!) We enjoyed the traditional barrel racing, bull riding, and bareback riding, but were particularly entertained by the “mutton bustin’” and a new event where all of the kids are put into the arena and chase a calf with a ribbon on its tail. The kid who gets the ribbon wins 10 bucks. It was hysterical!
As previously mentioned, the Ideal Beach resort has a lot of activities we enjoyed throughout the week. One of Ryan’s favorites is the daily craft project. He made a great wooden car model. We also enjoyed swimming at the pool, miniature golfing, and walking around the area. We had a great condo with a great view this stay.
We celebrated Marc’s birthday all week, with dinner out and a GREAT Nutella/banana/pudding pie that Frances made. Yum!
The best part of the week was just being together.
