John's Pictures

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Swim Team Awards Banquet





The swim season wrapped up with an awards banquet. Caroline proudly claimed her particiation trophy - you have to swim in a meet to get one. Catherine got her Divisional plaque for 6'th place in the butterfly, and her Points Trophy. Debbie was recognized for her work coordinating the potluck dinners and all the hard work on concessions. It was a really good season!

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Divisional Swim Meet



Catherine swam the butterfly in the girls 9-10 Division 7 swim meet. Each pool sends their fastest seeded swimmers. She won her heat, with her second best time of the year 22.11, and placed 6'th overall! We celebrated with lunch at Fudruckers. Its been a good season, and now its done.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Caroline's Freestyle







After kick boarding all year, Caroline wanted to do the freestyle. So today on the hottest day of the year, on the last regular meet - she did it! She's sat in the staging area, walked up, and dove in at the starting whistle! you'll see her coach in the lane with her - she was only there for safety, she never had to helped her - just encourage her. It seemed like the entire swim team was chanting for Caroline at the finish - she was proud when she was finished! She immediately went back to the play yard and ate a hotdog - true satisfaction. Catherine swam also, placing second in the 50M breast stroke! and picking up the tailend on the 25M fly - there was only 10 minutes between the breast and her fly heat - so she just didn't have time to recover. All in all its been a good year.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Swim Meet







Its the last regular "A" meet of the season - Catherine swam the Fly in 24 seconds and got 3'rd place. It was a nice pool, and a really nice day to be outside - we all enjoyed it. Caroline played all over the place.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Trip to Deer Island

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Catherine and I were lucky enough to go to Deer Island for a visit with Charles & Lina's family. It’s in the middle of Upper Saranac lake in the Adirondacks. Deer Island is the summer vacation spot for Lina's extended family - its been in their family since the early 1900's. I'll take an hour to walk around the shoreline of the island - it’s big! There is only one other cabin on the island. Most of the island is unspoiled wild forest. I took a bunch of pictures, but they don't do it justice. Deer Island has a complex of about 7 buildings. We stayed in Bircholm - its the main two story building with the wrap around porch. It gets its name from the Birch Bark Wall paper lining the stair case in the entry way - which I forgot to photograph - its beautiful. The fireplace mantle has an artist conch decoration. Its a fungus that grows on dead trees. The drawing is scribed onto the surface and it turns brown.

The weather was nice; the water was warm for upstate NY. We spent allot of time swimming, sailing, fishing, kayaking, and boating. The kids swam between the 2 docks to the floating slide, and enjoyed going back and forth to the small island about 50 yards off of the shore called Mink Island. I spent allot of time on the porch of the boat house overlooking lake, and on the porch of Bircholm. You'll occasionally see some beautiful wooden boats cruise by. A fancy resort around the bend, The Point, has a lovely HackerCraft that frequently made the rounds. Deer Island has its on Old Woodie, the To 'n Fro. It draws lots of looks when its one the water. Its a 75 year old wooden Richardson Cruiser. When you arrive at the mainland dock - the To 'n Fro comes to pick you up. Its the only way to load up 20 people and see the sights on the water.

We had a really nice group of people, all connected through Charles and Lina. The kids enjoyed playing together, and the adults enjoyed visiting and playing too. We had a very interesting cook, Chris, who frequently crewed on large boats. He kept us well feed, in between paddling the kids around on a wind surfer board. He surfs all over the world - so paddling on the lake was not a problem. He's the fit, tan guy in some of the pictures.

One night Carroll fired up a movie projector - we saw several movies filmed on Deer Island in the 30's. The only thing that’s changed is the people dressed allot better! The place is virtually the same. Catherine's observation was everything in the houses is an antique - and still works! We had a full moon and a clear sky several nights in a way. You'll see several pictures where I was trying to capture the moon. We had a delightful time!

VBS



Caroline and Debbie had a good time at VBS while I and Catherine were in NY. We made it back just in time for their performance. The youth put on a play, and the kids sang about 5 songs. Caroline was very much into it, she sang each song and did every gesture. It was a nice program, and I know Debbie worked hard to do the 2 sections that she taught.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Catherine's Fast Butterfly






Catherine had a great time at the last swim meet in the Fly. 25 meeters in 21.4 seconds! I don't walk that fast!

Sunday, July 10, 2005

More swimming pictures






We spent alot of time at swim meets this week. Wednesday, Catherine swam in a IM carnival that our pool puts on - its 100M race in which you do all 4 strokes. She did well at 2:00.3; She has never swam 100M in a race before.

On Saturday's "A" swim meet Catherine ended up swimming with the 11-12 girls since all of the 9-10's slots were filled. Catherine got an award from her coaches this week for all of her had work - Gator of the week, she was proud. Caroline had a good time playing, no kickboarding events this week. Then we tried a new resturant, 4 Sisters Vietnamise - we liked it. The kids swam last night. I made up for all of the playing by doing yard work, scrubbing the front of the house, while i smoked some pork ribs. Time to eat now!

Monday, July 04, 2005

4'th of July Fireworks





One day I'll go to the Capitol Mall for the fireworks. But its so nice to go down to Beach 2 and watch them over the lake, and be home in 2 minutes. Catherine, Caroline, and I took our chairs down and watched with the rest of the neighborhood. Debbie stayed home cleaning up from the BBQ mess I made! The fireworks lasted about 45 minutes, and were excellent as always. I think as many people watched from the water as from the beach. There were 100 or so pontoon boats right off the beach. Caroline watched the fireworks while playing in the sand.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Weekend pictures

We had 2 swim meets this week, one monday, and one saturday. Everyone swam well and the weather was nice. Then we went to the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival for a little while, I didn't feel good so we didn't stay long.