Cudas Win!!

The anticipation was so great coming into this day. Divisionals is a huge meet in which all teams compete for the top scores of the day. Six teams, a huge pool and excited swimmers. We barely slept the night before. Too many wonderful thoughts. Bear and I started painting Cuda's on the car the night before.We knew that the right amount of cheer would help our team, have fun at least!We loved the way that it turned out. Go Cudas! We all finished the car the next morning and headed to the pep rally. Everyone met at the local high school in the parking lot. We lined up the cars and cheered. We then drove to the pool in a huge Cuda Caravan. It was very cool watching all the cars in front of us and those behind us with all of their Cuda paintings. Our Cuda Car was filled with cheers and songs. The children were all very happy and enjoyed the process. Win or loose, today would be a day that they would all remember with joy and excitement.
Look at all my swimmers. Here they were all set to cheer each other on and take home the prize.
We have said before that Dad takes the meets very seriously. You would think that he was a former Olympic Swimmer. No, he just gets competitive when they get near the water. There is little talk the rest of the week but the kiddos all look forward to meet time. They know dad will have some words of wisdom for them before they get into the water. Pooker did comment elsewhere that this picture looks less like a pep talk and more like a discussion about Princess and Driving.
This is the Cuda's biggest fan! He took his job of cheering very seriously. His smile and giggle were contagious.
This was a wonderful opportunity for the Cudas to swim in such a state of the art swimming facility. The little ones complained that the blocks were high but loved seeing their names in lights on the boards.
One of the screens would often show a view from an underwater camera. In this picture of that shot is one with Pickle swimming by. I know you can't tell it is him but I can. Go Pickle, Go!

In the end this pool proved to be good for our swimmers. Each one took time off. You will need to see J about specifics of their times. I don't follow that as closely as he does. He just lets me know if they improve and each one did in almost every stroke. Yeah Cuda Kiddos!

Even the fans had a good day. We got to sit in the air conditioning. That does make it all better! With two pools back to back I often found I had a swimmer in each pool at one time. The little ones made sure that everyone was cheered for.

By the end of the day we all felt like this. Little Jumba was able to rest while the fans were still screaming and his siblings were swimming. It was a long day for him. As always though he was so very good. I am very proud of him. He goes where we take him, he doesn't complain, he rejoices when he sees his siblings and he is a delight to have sitting on my lap. I loved the sticky faced kisses, watching him wave his pom pom and hearing him yell, "Go UUDAS!" The "C" sound is still a little tricky. So cute!
This is what it looks like waiting for the counting of all the points. We waited and waited to find out who came out on top. The entire team didn't stick around but many of us did. Then the word came and there was much rejoicing. Our Cudas pulled ahead and took 1st place out of the 6 teams. It was a great moment for all those that stuck around to hear. As soon as we got home the girls started posting on FaceBook and the rest of the team got the good news. This was Pooker's last swim with the team. She has been invited to the invitational event of All-Stars next weekend but this was her last team swim. I wrote about how proud I am of her in her swimming career last week after her last meet. Here she is with one of the other seniors. It was very cool that Pooker's event 15-18 woman relay was the last event of the day. She was the last one in her relay. Then to find out it was a win was a great way to end her Cuda swim career.
Our little cuties are a team with in a team. I am very proud of them. They all did their best. They all made it a great day. This is the message that the kiddos wanted to be the last message for their coaches. I didn't get it until it was explained to me later. One of their previous and favorite coaches would often end practice with a game of "baseball". It was played with him hitting tennis balls into the pool off of kick boards. The swimmers would all scramble to search for the balls. They loved doing this. The new coach hates those games and will never play them with the swimmers. Apparently they ask everyday in honor of Coach Steve. Everyday they are told that they can't "play games" until they win something. So now the kiddos want to know if they can finally play some Pool Baseball.