Future Gold Medalist

Clare had another amazing swim season, it continues to inspire me to watch her strecth herself in everyway. She is stronger and faster than she has ever been and she's only 10! I wish I could bottle up every ounce of self confidence so that she can use it in junior high when things go a little south of center for girls!

Although her hormones are starting to rage, she is as bright and witty as ever and her smile brightens everyone she encounters.

So as we prepare for Fall season, here is a quick recap of the finals in Winona in July.

Clare qualifed for 5 events, compared to the Fall/Winter season that is a huge accomplishment. Watching all the swimmers on the team improve in leaps and bounds is just so neat - as is the friendships that we're forming through the club!

Road Trips

We've been fortunate this summer to go on several 'road trip' theme vacations! My poor Acura is now reaching 85K miles and I've only had it 1 year. Our first trip of the summer was to California for the launch of the new Audi A4.

Car trip fun in the back seat with 4 monkey's and over 5,000 miles logged!

Me and the kids at the San Francisco Zoo

Auntie Kate, Liam, Morgan and Cody the morning we left Park City, UT

Getting ready to hop on the trolley from downtown San Francisco to Fisherman's Warf

What a trip, the first stop was to see Kate, Mike's sister in Park City, Utah ... 18 hours after leaving Minneapolis, we pulled into Utah. That's is a long haul! Then we were off to Lake Tahoe and then to San Francisco. I think out of all 6 of us, Liam and I were the only two that had never seen mountains - wow!

A little adventure to a peak near the Golden Gate bridge (kind of looks small from this height)

Mike and the little boys at a small cafe in San Rafael, CA before our trip to the city

The last night in San Francisco - a hole in the wall Italian restaruant with the best food ever!

The beach at Point Reyes National Sea Shore where the beach stretches over 50 miles

Poolside fun!

Our next trip was to the Serpent Lake over the 4th of July, the shortest of all the trips but certainly not lacking in fun! We spent a long weekend at the lake with friends and family. I always value the time we spend with my parents friends and their children, it never seems to be often enough.

In late July, we hit the road again. This time, just my mom and I off to Indiana. We pushed ourselves after a full day of work, we left Minneapolis at 7:30 PM and drove through the night to arrive at Francie and Tom's by 9 am the next day. Yikes! The kids always seem to do well, but Mom and I were ready to crash by about noon.

Climbing the silo at Uncle Donald's farm in Winchester, IN

Kids at the farm, in the background is a barn built in 1870



In August, our last trip, I was in Tucson Arizona for work (which in itself was both productive and fun). Touring a 2 million square foot Distribution Center and a few other Target facilities. A few trips down a crazy water slide, the lazy river and 12 holes of golf - ahh, it did indeed feel a little bit like a vacation. Then I hopped a flight to Houston for Michael Love's wedding (Mike's aunt Mary's son).






I am telling everyone, that is was the celebrity wedding of the year! Puffy Combs and Lawrence Fishburne look alikes and all!


Now that summer is ending, it is always fun to reflect back on all the memories we've made the great times that we got to spend enjoying the summer sun and life with Mike and the kids along with extended family and friends.

I LOVE TARGET

Every year at this time Target assembles leadership from every store in the company along with the more senior members of the Headquarters team for a fourth quarter RA-RA. I am continued to be amazed at the enormity of the company and what they are able to do in partnership with government, fashion design greats, celebrities and ordinary people doing awesome things for others.

In the last three years I've been able to hear a motivational speech by Colin Powell, listen to amazing pianist and vocals by the likes of Maroon 5, Tony Bennett, Michael Bouble, KD Lang, Elvis Costello and this year, Christina Aguilera and John Legend (go check his music out if you haven't).

I celebrated 9 years at Target this August, on Clare's 10th birthday and feel fortunate to have held several positions of varying responsibility and challenge. Target has provided a foundation for me to learn so much about corporate america and life in general.

Swimming memories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAPgWj5zgvY
You have to click on this link to gain an understanding for the oustanding effort and drive that it takes for our little babies to get in the pool day after day and pour their heart into swimming.

Tammy Gallagher, mother of the kids best friends Maddie and Will that live across the street) pulled this stream of music and photos together from the season. Pretty awesome! As a footnote; it made me cry too- and I am sitting in Caribou coffee, people are probably wondering what I am up to!

Here is an email that I got from Clare's Coach (Michelle) - it will melt your heart the way it did mine. I can't think of any other words that would sound any better to me.
===========================================
[From COACH MICHELLE 2/21]
OMG…Clare is so stinkin cute! Last week I had a few kids stay after to work on Underwater pulls in Breaststroke. She LOVED every minute of it and did a great job. So today she asks me if she can stay late…I said we had to wait and see how many older kids there were to see if we could get an extra lane or not. About 5 minutes goes by and of course I am doing a million different things, then I look down and realize she is still standing there…Huge smile on her face. I said Clare what do you need sweetie…and she said I am wondering if I can stay after! I started laughing and said …geez I got side tracked, and sorry but there is too many older kids so we don’t have an extra lane. Then I asked her what is it that she wants to learn and she looks up at me with the BIGGEST SMILE and said “EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING YOU WANT TO TEACH ME”!!!!!! Oh my gosh……..Melt my heart! What an awesome kid and how cool that she is so driven and so COACHABLE!!! Love it!!!

With her attitude she will have success in everything she does!

Just thought I’d share….
Cheers!
Michelle

Mike, if you're checking the blog, I will keep you up to date on our happenings until you get back home on Wednesday. Have a great time in California and by the way, who has such a cool job that they get to drive Audi's on the race track in Sonoma for 2 days?!?!! You rock!

Bring me some good wine honey!

p.s. Liam in recounting the story of when the bird flew into the house and how daddy the hero grabbed a fish net to capture the bird and get it back outside. The end of the story, then that bird couldn't fly and it died.

Tale of the lost boy

Every parent's nightmare is to lose their child- I share this same fear but today, only one single flash of it because I didn't know Liam was lost at all until I saw my friend Tammy with panic look on her face and Brendan at her side.

To set the scene, we were at the swim meet all morning, camped out on a sleeping bag with all of our stuff in the cafeteria, me in the hallway with Liam watching a movie and going in between to check on the kids. At one point, I ran to get a Diet Coke and when I came back Liam was gone. It didn't register at the time because he too had been going in between the cafeteria and the hallway (where I was) and I knew I would catch him if he ran by.

Randomly, a stranger struck up a conversation with me, completely distracting me from my task at hand. So, long story short, Tammy was running by to go get Liam- he was at the announcers table because he had been lost from me.

As soon as I scooped Liam up and knew that he was ok, the story started to unravel. I was laying on the couch this afternoon and Liam said "mom, there was a bald eagle at the pool today", I reponded with a, "what"? Then he elaborates by saying the Clare and her friend said that there was a bald eagle at the pool and that was how he got lost. In the words of a 3 year old, it is diffucult to unwind the facts from fiction. But as he retells what happened, Clare and her friend were trying to ditch him, so they decided to tell a little story about an eagle, which resulted in Liam going for a hunt of sorts and then realized he was lost. In his words, "the eagle was not in the pool, I didn't see it cause they were teasing me about that eagle.....then me just started to cry to see what was the matter and to just help me."

Good to know my wonderful, loveable, creative little Liam is safe and happy- when I found him he was drawing pictures of a fish next to one of the announcers with a big smile on his face. He said- there's my Mom, header!" (aka- Heather)

Go Swimmers Go!

Brendan asked that I shave his head the night before the C finals to increase speed...almost, but not quite! 

To be overwhelmed with pride understates what I felt last weekend as I watched the kids swim in the C Final events at St. Catherine's pool.  This past season (their first season of swimming) has been a great testament to how humility, hard work and perseverance pays off even at this stage in their lives.  Clare, who is full of mite and energy pushed herself through the last 6 months going from an adequate swimmer to an excellent backstroke. She struggled in the early meets to get make it through 100 meters and now is excelling in a multiple strokes. 

Brendan on his way to meeting his 100m breaststroke to achieve a 'B' time  

Brendan, who has always been my 'daisy-picker' in sports, sort of floating through the motions in soccer, football and wrestling is now motivated and excited to achieve his goals.  He cut 9 seconds off his personal best in the 100 breast stroke to make it to the B final competition.  

Clare won her heat in the 50m backstroke

For all of you asking yourself 'what does C or B' time mean, in the simplest sense, it is the goal time set for each age bracket and stroke that the swimmers try to achieve.  At the end of the season, if they are able to achieve a minimum of a C time, they can attend finals for that event.  Clare swam the 50m backstroke and Brendan swam (5 events all told) 100m Freestyle, 50 Freestyle, 100 breast stroke, 50m breast stroke and the 50m backstroke. 

Brendan has always been a little fish, in fact I told him he was born to swim! Clare is a fighter and will always succeed in anything she does because of her will. 

Enjoy the pictures!