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.

Sorry about the absence. Bad internet at the last hotel left us with not enough bandwidth to upload pictures or update the blog.

On Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed up and checked out of the NYC hotel in Times Square. We’d originally planed on staying longer, but we did a lot more on Saturday than we’d originally planned, and ended up seeing just about everything we wanted to see. Sunday morning, we drove south to the tip of Manhattan, called Battery Park, and boarded a boat for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Before we did, though, we walked a few blocks over to the former site of the WTC, and Ground Zero. While they weren’t getting much attention from visitors like us, they were still impressive to see. We could recognize several landmarks we’d seen in the news reports, and answered a lot of questions about 9/11 from the kids.

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were fun, and riding around on the boat for a few minutes was somewhat relaxing. We spent about half of the day there, looking like tourists in our “I love NY” t-shirts.

After that, we were ready to say goodbye to NY and headed toward Providence. We decided to spend a couple of nights there, relaxing and recharging before the final leg of our trip. We found a hotel with cheap rates, comfy beds, and a nice pool (the BIG 3 for the Moseley family). We spent the next couple of days/nights swimming (a lot), checking out the town and Brown University, and eating some good food. We even saw Disney’s new movie, Up, which we all really liked. Providence is a cool town, neat looking and smallish, but with some nice places to go. I told Dominique that if it didn’t get freezing cold 10 months of the year, I’d love to live there. Maybe Brown will offer me a summer job once I finish my PhD… Like Janitor, maybe?

We left Providence this morning in the rain, and drove to Boston, our final stop on the tour. On our way in we visited a friend from Pepperdine at his bookstore, the Blue Bunny. It was a great little shop in a cute little town outside Boston, and the staff there treated us like royalty. Later this week, we are planning to visit Paul’s other company, Fablevision, where he and his brother, and a very large staff, create children’s books, software, and other great stuff. I’m looking forward to it.

We drove around Boston a bit, checked into our hotel, and got in touch with a local swim club to see if Stanzi and Robby could work out with them. They were open to the idea, so this evening we all drove over to Harvard University, where they practice, and Stanzi and Robby had a great workout. It was really fun seeing Harvard’s pool – we’ll be back a couple more times this week before we go home. Thanks to the Bay and Ocean State Squid for letting us join them.

It was a good day, although I have to say I’d rather drive through downtown New York than through Boston. At least the NY streets make sense. My GPS is worse than useless here. I’m going to wrap up now and go study my map.

Tomorrow we drive about 1 hour north to Salem to visit the Witch Museum. Should be fun and the roads look pleasantly straight.

Ok – I know I’m behind on the blogging – I promise to catch up tonight.

We’re in Boston, our final stop on vacation. We’re about to head over to the Harvard University Pool so Stanzi and Robby can work out with one of the local swim teams. Will they still be able to swim? Will the Boston team be confused by California kids wearing North Baltimore Aquatics Club t-shirts? More later!