This was actually on the last Tuesday of July, but Abby and I had already made plans to see Elisabeth, Lucy and their moms for dinner and catch-up, so we postponed until later in the week. Thursday seemed like a good night to celebrate and we have a glorious cheese plate, rosé, and shirley temples for the kids:
We thought we were done for the season, but the powers-that-be decided that we should try to make up the Green Hills meet that was canceled earlier in the season for weather. It was an abbreviated meet with only events that swimmers needed a qualifying time for before Champs. Benji swam the free (anchor) leg of the medley relay, long free (100m), breast and fly. The relay ended up being the most exciting event of the whole night, with Benji coming from behind on the last leg to overtake the Green Hills swimmer and bring home the win for City. Everyone was on their feet screaming as he hit the wall (he said he couldn't hear it because his ears were underwater):
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| Timers |
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| Benji poised to dive in as Shay pulls to the wall from his Fly leg. You can see the swimmer in the other lane has already taken off (and is not even in this picture - the Green Hills butterfly swimmer is chilling waiting to exit the pool after Benji takes off) |
This was one of our last remaining July bucket list items. We decided to hit Wendy's for frosties and fries, Burger King for Impossible Whoppers (Abby and Kevin) and Taco Bell (for Ruth and Benji). It was not healthy, but it was tasty:
For Father's Day, we gave Kevin tickets to see The Lion King at the Kennedy Center over his birthday weekend. We left it open whether we would turn it into a whole weekend, but as it approached we all decided that we wanted to do it as a day trip. Kevin decided he did want to spend more of the day there, though, and also booked a tour of the capitol, which we had not seen since the new visitor's center was built (and the children had never seen). We left late morning and parked our van at the theater, riding the metro around DC (much to Benji's delight):
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| ceiling in the old house chamber |
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| Every state sends two statues - many of these were on display in the rooms we saw |
They ended up having an abbreviated Monday make-up meet scheduled after this, but Benji's last full meet of the season was while Kevin was in Florida. Abby and I served as timers on his lane, which let me snap this picture before his last race (long free):
We got home from the beach Sunday and turned it around to have a birthday dinner with Gammy before Kevin left for Orlando on Monday for a conference. Kevin made pop-pop's pasta (for an encore) and Abby and I picked out a carrot cake from Kroger. since she only got one candle at the beach, we gave her the full complement of 20 here:
