The kids had a great meet, and finished in the top 3 in every event. Both Stanzi and Robby ended up with second place in the high points running, and had some really great time drops. Stanzi is also qualified for 5 events at the Senior Qualifying level, which means we’ll be traveling to Fresno in 3 weeks to compete at her first senior level meet. Looking forward to watching my 93 pound 11 year old girl race against college age swimmers.

Here are the specific results, by race:

Stanzi:

500 Free – 1st
100 Fly – 1st
100 IM – 3rd
50 Free – 2nd
200 IM – 3rd
100 Free – 2nd
50 Fly – 2nd

Robby:

100 Back – 2nd
50 Back – 1st
100 Breast – 2nd
50 Breast – 3rd
100 Fly – 2nd
50 Fly – 1st
100 IM – 2nd

We had a great meet – Both of the kids are looking forward to a couple more short course meets before we go into long course where they can drop more time. Gabbi is starting to pick up speed as well, and we’re hoping to get her qualified for an event or two by long course JO’s in July.

Stanz1:

100 Fly – 1st Place
100 IM – 3rd Place

Robby:

100 Fly – 2nd Place
50 Back – 1st Place
100 IM – 2nd Place

I have videos of every race, plus cool relay shots of Gabbi and Julian.  However, we were out at the meet for a solid 12 hours today, and I have to be back out there in 8.5 hours.  Not going to post anything tonight.  Tomorrow, Stanzi swims the 50 free, and Robby swims the 100 Back and the 50 Breast.  Time for bed!

This is really, really not good. Google has been bouncing, but mostly down all afternoon. I would love to know what is capable of bringing these guys down.

We’re 3/4 of the way through Junior Olympics, and it’s been a tough one. The kids are holding up pretty well (Stanzi a little better than Robby). Summer JOs is always a marathon meet. One teenage girl was taken out on a stretcher by paramedics today, suffering from what looked like heat exhaustion. We’re working hard to get the nutrition and recovery parts of the competition right, so the kids can focus on their swimming. I can see why Dara Torres requires a whole staff to keep her going.

Stanzi’s only swim this afternoon was the 200 IM. She swam a 2:47.80 (qual time was 2:52:12), and finished convincingly in 2nd place behid a very talented 12 year old from Santa Maria. Stanzi’s split for the Fly part of the race was just 34.80 – Faster than her 50 Fly time coming into the meet. (Although Stanzi was DQd from the 50 free, we did watch the race. Her time from prelims would have earned her third place.)

Robby battled through 3 events (6 swims for the day), finishing 2nd in the 100 Back, 7th in the 50 Free, and 4th in the 200 IM where he also made his AAA time.

Tomorrow Stanzi has the 50 back, 100 fly and 100 free. Robby has the 50 back and the 100 fly.

Stanzi swam the second fastest 50 Free of the meet in prelims today (30.25). Unfortunately, she twitched on the starting blocks and got DQ’d for a false start. She came right back and dropped 2 seconds in the 200 IM for a 2:50.xx.


Robby swam well today, but still has room to drop time in finals. He qualified 2nd in the 100 Back, 7th in the 50 Free, and 4th in the 200 I’M.

More great swims today. Still blogging from my phone, so bear with me.

Stanzi had an amazing 100 Breast that took her within .2 seconds of second place. She dropped a ton of time overall for the day. She also took 7th in the 200 free, and dropped a lot of time there as well.

Robby also took 3rd in the 100 Breast and finished 5th in the 200 Free. He’s swimming some very fast boys and doing really well in the meet so far.

Tomorrow Robby swims the 100 Back, 50 Free and 200 IM, while Stanzi has the 50 Free and 200 I’M. It should be an interesting day.

Tough day today. 100 Breast and 200 Free. Stanzi dropped time in both. Qualified 4th in breast and 7th in free. Robby dropped time in both, and qualified 4th in both.

Today was phenomenal, but I will be short since I’m blogging from my phone. Stanzi took first in the 50 fly with a huge swim, and then 7th in the 50 breast (tired). Robby had great swims and took 3rd in both events. Tomorrow is 100 breast and 200 free.

Stanzi and Robby had great swims to start out the meet. Stanzi goes into finals ranked 3rd in the 50 Fly and 5th in the 50 Breast. Robby is ranked 2nd in the Fly and 3rd in the Breast. They both had some good time drops in every swim.

Finals should be exciting.

I’m writing this final blog from 20,000 feet up. I’ll post it using the wireless connection that is now available (for a small fee) on the airplane.

The last few days in Boston (the home stretch, as it will be known) were quite a lot of work, but still fun. I did come away with one solid piece of learning, though: I would rather drive almost anywhere than in Boston. Let me spell it out to you, using our friend, the SAT Analogy:

CA Driving:Rules::New York Driving:Honking::Boston Driving:What The ?!…

one more:

CA Roads:Simple::New York Roads:Grid::Boston Roads:Spaghetti

I think that pretty much spells it out. Even traffic on the 405 at the 101 will be a welcome change from what I’ve been driving around in.

In Boston, we visited the Salem Witch Museum – It was a little cheesy, but we had a good time.

We also walked the Freedom Trail, which is a trail that is marked through downtown Boston using read paint and bricks on the sidewalk. It winds past several historical sites, including old houses, public buildings and the site of the Boston Massacre. It was cool throughout this trip to kind of get a feel for the whole scope of where American history occurred. Both Dominique and I admit it, though – we are history’d out for now.

We also took the kids to the Boston Children’s Museum — It’s a great space, with lots of really open ended hands-on stuff. They could really run around and just try things out. Perfect. Julian had a blast, and says it was one of his favorite parts of the trip.

That same day, we got to visit Fablevision, which is a company that is owned and run by twin brothers Peter and Paul Reynolds, who both graduated from the OMET program (they also own the Blue Bunny book shop that we visited two days before). Fablevision produces all kinds of outstanding media and children’s books. We got to tour their office/studio, interact with some of their super-talented designers and illustrators, and even take a peek at a book / interactive web site combo that is in production. It was really interesting, and the whole group was extremely hospitable.

Yesterday, we went to the MIT Media Lab to meet with Eric Rosenbaum, to tour the Lego Learning Lab and the area occupied by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group – It was a really big treat for me to get to wander around the Media Lab and see that environment. It really has to be the coolest learning and research space I have ever seen. Stanzi and Robby joined us, as he demoed some of his research projects – I think they had almost as much fun as I did.

We ended our vacation with a fun dinner at the Rainforest Cafe – We make a point of eating at them wherever we go, and have visited almost every one in California, plus a couple out of state. It was a fun end to an amazing vacation.

So now we have said goodbye to the trusty Silver Bullet (our rental van), discarded two very well-used umbrella strollers, and we’re almost halfway through our 6 hour flight. It’s been an amazing adventure for all of us. We’ll now get back into the rest of our summer – Stanzi and Robby will resume a tough training schedule getting ready for Junior olympics, I’ll start prepping for VirtCamp at Pepperdine, and everyone else will work on learing and refining their strokes. Dominique, as usual, will make sure that we’re all getting it done, and we’ll all be waiting to see when the next Moseley will come along. There’s still a lot to look forward to this summer.

I’ll try to keep posting about our adventures.