Reed's Week: Wild Waves, Music Monday, Swim Meets, and Iron Shark Pentathlon

 While Edison and Charlotte were in Idaho at the Iron Wood Throw Camp, Reed and I had a nice week in town doing fun stuff. The highlight was taking Reed and three friends to Wild Waves on Monday. We got home in time for me to meet Amy and Jess at the Sheridan Beach Music Monday and enjoy an absolutely stunning sunset while listening to good tunes. We swam against Sheridan Beach on Tuesday which was fun because Reed has a number of school friends who swim on that team and they got to race each other. Thursday was the Blue Ridge meet and finally a win for Aqua Club this season. Edison and Charlotte got home late Thursday and were up bright and early for the Iron Shark Pentathlon and team picture Friday morning. They even finished the morning with a Phillips Family v. King Family relay. I'm just glad they didn't make the moms swim! LOL!

Spokane Weekend - Region 13 Track Champs and College Visits to WSU and EWU

We set the alarm for 4:30 AM Saturday and drove across the state to Spokane for the USATF Region 13 Junior Olympics Track Champs. This is not an easy wake up the morning after the 4th oF July, doh! Charlotte competed Saturday and earned 2nd place at the meet with her second best throw ever of 35.34 meters (115'11")! Edison competed Sunday on a very hot afternoon and had a couple solid throws in the series, finishing in 3rd place overall for 17-18 boys discus with a throw of 46.84 meters (153'8"). I am so impressed by their level of dedication to throwing and the results they are getting. This qualifies both of them for the Junior Olympic National Meet in Savannah, Georgia in a couple weeks! They are still trying to decide if they want to travel for it.

After Charlotte threw, we had the rest of Saturday afternoon off, so we drove 90-minutes south to explore the WSU campus in Pullman - a place none of us had ever seen before. I must have raised some great Huskies because it was Dubs Up for the kids in almost all their photographs. I wanted for us to see the campus once so the kids have a better sense of what it would be like to go to university here - on a lovely campus in a very rural college town which is completely different than UW or other universities located in big cities. A surprise was that the track and field complex was open and Edison got to practice the discus there in a great discus ring. However, it is too bad that WSU just cut their entire throws and jumps program after the NCAA ruling on D1 scholarships that limits track and field program rosters and will likely result in more scholarship money going to football and basketball athletes and away from "Olympic" sport college athletes now that universities have more ability to direct scholarships and no caps on how many athletes can be scholarshipped on each team.

We had a great dinner at Applebee's - it was the kids' first time and Edison took full advantage of the All-You-Can-Eat Wings special. We finished up with a movie at the hotel before bed.

Sunday morning the kids got up early to watch the F1 race and enjoy hotel breakfast. Then we drove out to Eastern Washington University in the town of Cheney, about 20 minutes SW of Spokane. We are in college visit mode and figured we should stop. I'm also now an instructor at EWU for ‘college in the high school,’ so I also thought it was worth a visit. EWU is a lot smaller than UW and WSU and Cheney is a tiny town. We were impressed by how nice the campus at Eastern is and how it felt really welcoming.