I know there's a week left of school, but seems summer has started.

Thursday night Rebecca had her choral concert. It's the only concert they had all year due to a teacher change in December and that both teachers this year were strings teachers, not choral teachers, though they are assigned both classes. Becca wasn't pleased with the performance but it's done and now she can move on to 8th grade chorus. We missed swim practice and completely forgot Katherine's flute lesson. Friday, Katherine was gone from 6:45 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. due to school and then graduation while we spent the time at practice. Katherine didn't graduate but the band played all the way at the Patriot Center and, then was late getting back.

Today we were up at 6:45 a.m. to get to the pool for Time Trials. These are the baseline times used to arrange the heats in each stroke at meets. You don't want a kid that can barely finish to swim against someone with an A or B time, so the kids are grouped within their Time Trial times, unless they have a faster time from the same stroke last year. Ian and I are timers which is usually done in shifts at regular meets but with today just being our team and a very short "meet" at that (no relays, no IMs) it was scheduled to start at 8 and finish by 11 a.m.

Katherine's recital for her flute teacher (who also teaches piano) along with a couple other teachers was scheduled at the Border's to begin at 11. Quandary. I'd informed the meet organizers that we'd be leaving at 10:30 but at 10 a.m. the heavens opened and the rain poured down. No thunder or lightning, that would have shut the whole operation down immediately, but heavy enough that the lifeguards couldn't see the bottom of the pool for all the ripples. The meet was delayed, we handed off our stopwatches as the kids changed and packed up the swim supplies, and we left the pool. The swimming continued once the rain passed 15 minutes later but we had other places to be.

I don't feel too bad, the trials were running late. Very late. By the time we left at 10:30 we'd finished 2 of the four strokes, Freestyle and Backstroke, and the Frogs only had the pool until 11 a.m. It opens for public use at noon and needs to be cleared of lane lines, flags, and equipment before then. They might have gotten through Breaststroke, but I don't know. All I know is my kids were bummed... Katherine is a Breaststroker, Rebecca does Butterfly. I guess they'll have to wait until next Saturday's meet to see what their new times are.

Some of the kids on the team do year-round swimming with the Amberjax or QDD or one of the other year-round clubs. Some do swimming with their high schools. My kids haven't been in the pool since last July so they are due some major catching up. Rebecca was nearly an A time in Freestyle, now she's not only added 3 seconds but by moving up an age category the A time is even further away.

There's work to be done.

We scurried, sodden, to the recital held at the Border's Seattle's Best cafe' which had a very poet's corner vibe to it.

Isn't she gorgeous? So grown up. The teachers provided coffee and cookies and brownies and other treats so lunch was put off. We picked up Nicholas's fall football gear then the three girls dropped the three boys off at home before heading back out to get hair cuts.

Then next door to Target, one of our very favorite stores. Rebecca splurged on some summer dresses and Katherine agreed to a pair of khakis for her volunteer job at the hospital. Target's shoes options are pretty sad so we made our way to Kohls and got a pair of Doc Marten's to replace her falling apart shoes and a pair of white tennis shoes, also for her volunteer position.

My plan was to get church done this evening but as we drove home another storm was rolling in and once we did get home Ian was crashed, fast asleep. Guess we're due for an evening of n-o-t-h-i-n-g. About time.