Olympics 2016 here we come!

So Jay has practically booked flights to Brazil for the 2016 Olympics since Gabriela started swimming competitively in March of this year. OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but we're very proud and excited about our little girl swimming. At first she thought it'd be a lot of splashing around in the pool since she loooves the water but after a couple of weeks of practice 3 times a week she wasn't so excited any more... "this is too much work."

We wanted to find a good fit for her for an extra curricular activity that she can hang onto for a while. Sicne she's so active, loves swimming and is super competitive we figured we'd give swimming a try. She had her first meet a mere month after she started (April 19, 2010) and these kids are very serious about the sport.  She did great! She was so nervous and my heart was in my hands while she was competing because I know how  important winning is to her. But we made sure we told her that she was only competing against her own time, and how proud we were and what a great job she did in the pool.

The whole competition was really cute though. The 6 & Under heats were by far the best. The little ones would be all over that lane, going in zig-zag. One little boy would swim and swim and swim really hard, come up for air and look around and he would still be in the same spot. The face was precious!

The club has sent many kids to the Olympics' trials and one of the 12 year-old  boys was named the best swimmer in his age category country-wide. So we're excited that she's in a healthy, active community (and that we found a way to tire her out a couple of nights a week ;-) ).

At the end of this month we go to her first swim meet away from home! It's going to be in Tampa and she'll be swimming free style and back stroke. Very exciting!