Vacation Snapshots #3

Without any actual planning on our part, we unintentionally planned our family get-away to coincide with the Olympic trials for swimming and gymnastics.  Two of our family's favorite sports.

I swam as a kid and I love watching the swimmers defy the odds - whittling down world records, a tenth of a second at a time.  And as you know, our girls live and breath gymnastics and so to have an opportunity to see the best of the US go head-to-head was a treat.

The big screen TV at the condo was in the master bedroom, and so it was inevitable that we six fans would tumble onto the king-sized bed to watch the events unfold.

The kids brought the pillows from their beds and piled criss-crossed and scallywag across our bed.  They were focused on the wet and wild races between Phelps and Lochte.  They were riveted on the suspense building at the HP arena between Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber.  And they were barely containing themselves in their desire to reenact every back-flip and flip-turn.

Before our very eyes, our kids were transformed into Olympic hopefuls:

Norah found the springy-ness of the king-sized mattress almost too much to resist.  She front rolled off the edge of the bed into a handstand and let her legs thump back onto the comforter.  She bonked Aaron with her legs as she practiced her straddle splits from end table to end table.  She slid off the bed backwards and back-walk-overed through the bedroom door.  She also thought this was a great location for some balance work ... we discouraged her from doing this in the saddle:

Ashley was enamored with the spiral staircase that twisted up to the second-story loft.  She practiced her iron-cross on the handrails.  She perfected her hip swing: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth ... while suspending herself between the railings.  She flew through the air (and over the bottom four stairs) to land in a perfect 10 salute.

Not to be out done, Lydia enjoyed (and repeatedly requested) time on the jungle gym.  She climbed, swung and clambered over every surface.  She loved to monkey up the "rock wall" and shimmy down the ladders.  

And then, there was Aaron.  Our Aaron-boy morphed into a water-wannabe.  Every moment in the pool was spent practicing his free-style, pooching out his stomach to stay afloat on his back and perfecting his flip-turn.  But his very most favorite reenactment occurred before he even got wet.  Standing on the deck, he swung his arms around and around, windmill-style - just like Phelps.  The he swung them back and forth, criss-crossing them in front and behind himself - just like Phelps.  He shook his head from side to side - just like Phelps.  He shook out his legs, keeping them loose - just like Phelps.  All he was missing was the warm-up parka and the huge headphones.

Watch out 2020 Olympics ... we've got a couple of athletes who are just getting warmed up!