Swimming....

This was a very fun meet, in fact this is the girls' favorite meet, it is fast, there are lots of relays, and very little pressure. Emily has won her age division 3 years running including this year.

Kelly has always made the top five, unfortunately this year she earned second place by 00:00.02, two-one hundredths of a second! To think how many of those I have wasted in a life time!

Emily with a smirk and Kelly with a smile, why is it so hard for them to BOTH smile?

Swim Awards April 9 2011

These are the 4 swimmers who earned team towels, Kelly earned one for being a great cheerleader, she got the Spirit Award. Last year Neil gave out 15 towels for the Seniors/Junior team. Coach Neil, Ethan, Lauren. Kelly and Ciara.

These are all the swimmers who earned team records for the 2010-2011 season! Take a look both Kelly and Emily are there! Well done

Lucas, Jerrin, Ciara, Ethan, Kelly, Laura, Emily, Taliah, and Josh. 9 out of 156 team members earned team records, 2 0f 9 were Huffers! Very exciting, Emily has set her eyes on a few more for the long coarse meter swims this summer.

Who would want to SWIM a mile?????

Kelly really wanted to swim the mile, since she has never swam it before at a meet. Sure at practice she has swam 4000 meters!!!!! But she was determined to get this event under her list of accomplishments. She swam great she ended up #15 out of 38 swimmers for 10 and up category. Her time was 20:28.39, that is really great for her first mile.

Ugh, only lap number 43, Emily still has over twenty left. She ended up number 5 of 36, and improved on her time by about 3 seconds, not really great but she has been sick and is a little out of shape since she didn't swim any long distances while we were in Mexico.

This is why I think that the girls really like swim... hanging out with friends and being silly. Both of our girls are very social with many friends and swim meets have a lot of down time to just "hang and chill." Of course they do have to keep track of the time or they will miss their event!

Bruce, Kelly and Molly, they got in trouble from the life guard right after I took this photo, the three of them can really be silly. :)

Have a great Tuesday! ***Happy Birthday to Katy!!!***

I hope to post some more Mexico photos in the up coming days but I am still trying to get my house back to a normal feeling and semi clean state!

Super swimmer... Kelly

Kelly also rocked in the second day of the three day State swim meet. She was ranked 9th in the 200 backstroke coming into the meet and really wanted to move up to at least 8th so she could swim in the "A" Finals. She was 7th coming into finals and swam her heart out and made 3rd. She was thrilled all the hard work paid off. Seeing your name in lights is always exciting, there are swimmers on our team who have never had the experience and it happens 3 times a year for our girls. They have been blessed with swimming skills, and their hard work paid off on this day.

Super Swimmer... Emily

Emily earned 4th place in state in the 100 backstroke, she was also given her medal by current record holder in the 100 and 200 backstroke Aaron Peirsol.

Aaron Peirsol and Emily between prelims and finals break.

Super peer coaching....

Emily usually does not swim the same time Kelly does so she often ends up helping the coach with warm up and does some peer coaching. The younger swimmers really like her and usually will listen to what she has to say. I am thankful that she has learned to be humble with the gift of swimming God has given her. She has learned to be patient with others, which some adults have still not learned!

Emily (and Lauren) in action!

Breaking 30!

Kelly did it this weekend she broke 30 seconds in the 50 yard free! She was excited but of course had to tell me that Ethan got a 29.-- and was just a little faster than she was!!!!

Kelly and Em both have this intense start..... really focused, ready to swim.

Lane 4 29.73 she broke 30! I can't believe I had a photo to prove it too! Yeah me! :)

Posers.....

One of the best benefits to being on the swim team other than being in almost perfect physical condition of an athlete, is making friends that you would have never met before! Emily has made friends with some nice girls who are many years older than her. One of them is Tori (girl on Em's left)

Tori has been so kind to both Kelly and Emily. She is a senior this year, so Em is disappointed that she will never get to swim with her on the High School team but they have had many good times on NWAC. Tori is even thoughtful enough to give Em all her old (but hardly worn) clothes, which has been great! Every big meet Tori asks me to take a photo of her and Emily and others always join in. I must have about 10 different ones (all Em & Tori plus others) from over the last two years. It took 8 shots to get a good one, silly Rosie didn't want her cap on, and then she had to make faces in the other shots... ugh! I always get even with her and take a stupid photo of her and send it to her on face book.

That kid stands just like her dad and Gpa Larry!

So while we are at the State Champs Swim Meet I take way too many photos, so of them make me laugh, others make me sad to see how quickly life has been going by! One thing I have really noticed lately are genetics... Kelly and Emily have great genes on both sides but sometimes I really see the Huffer side come out. This is one of these photos. This is Emily and "Rosie" AKA Laura (Super fast Swimmer) Rosen.

PNS Swimming....

So I can't find the photos of the actual meet but here is a photo of Kelly's relay. They earned 4th place out of 28 teams and missed the NWAC team record by less than 1/2 second.

??, Kelly, and Olivia

I am getting better at swim shots....

This is Emily, it was hard to finally get this shot, she has great form here, and I was able to catch the photo!

Emily & friends, I MADE them pose for this... these girls all take hundreds of photos of themselves but if you ask to take their photo they run from the camera! Teenagers!Emily Noelle, Emily Lyn, Lauren, Hannah, and Alyssa

WOW.... talk about perfect form.... her bottom is off the water and she has a great bend in her back. Coach Neil would be proud... I was so excited to get this photo! Kelly was so happy to see this too, she has been working hard on her back stroke starts, she BROKE two records at this meet of course one was in the backstoke!

Super Swimmers....

We attended a meet in Marysville a couple of weekends ago and I took about 400 pictures, mostly for the 10 and under swimmers since the regular photographer wasn't going to be there. I got some really good shots of the girls.

Olivia and Kelly super swimmers and great friends.

Kelly and Olivia, they are great swim buddies, it has been really great Kelly to have a friend that is actually a year younger than her but in the same grade. Kelly looks short in this photo but they are the same height, in fact I think Kelly is tad taller than Livi.

Super Swimmer .... Emily

Emily had a great weekend, she made finals twice, ending up 5th (100 back) 3rd (200 back). Don't ask me how I did it but I don't have any photos of finals.... I but I was there and saw it for myself!

This is one of my favorite photos of the weekend, I love the bubbles, the way her suit shines, and how she has great position in the water! It also really shows off her $150 suit we purchased for her! She promised it would last for the state meets in July and December!

This is almost the end, she really swam hard in this event, I could tell when she got out of the pool she had NOTHING left in her legs, she had a hard time getting her footing!

Happy Tuesday to you... we are headed to "Freedom Train" in Everett. Should be a great day!

Super Swimmer... Kelly

Kelly only got to swim one event on Friday, the first event of the meet the 100 yard backstroke, which happens to be her best event. She was very excited and swam a perfect swim. Setting beating her personal best by 2 seconds! She was stoked to find out that she had made PODIUM at AGS! It made the rest of the day perfect for her to just sit around and wait for her sister!

It is such a great experience for both of the girls to see their name in the lights.

L O N G Weekend...

Kelly Emily and I spent a very long weekend in Mukilteo (leaving OH at 0620 and returning at 2130)... of course it was swim meet the girls did great but it was WAY over booked and seating was miserable to say the least. Got only a few photos because it was so frustrating to take a picture and have some one walk in front of me!

When did this young lady grow up and where did she hide my baby!

Good Friends...

Kelly and Olivia are good swimming friends... they have this funny thing they do before some events, I just had to get a couple of photos to share....

Emily at PNS Champs ...

Here is Emily in the 100 backstroke were she qualified to swim in the Western Zones... she was the lead off for the 200 Medley Relay.

She was in lane eight with a time of 1:02.72 the fastest 13 - 14 year old female in that heat, it was very exciting for her, and a big accomplishment I think only the top 3% of swimmers make it to zones.I am not sure where or when Western Zones are this year, but both Kelly and Emily have qualified in two events and are close with 3 more! Last year it was in Hawaii, however PNS, did not attend, it was too expensive over 3K per swimmer!

Kelly at PNS Winter Champs...

So there it is... by now every one knows but I have not made time to upload this... Third place in Washington State in the girls 10 and under, 100 yards of butterfly... Kelly Huffer

Seeing your name in those lights is very exciting, I took lots of photos now to get them to scrapbook them is another thing.