CCL Swim Team ~ June 2021

This past June, Madilyn and Aiden participated on the Moon Valley Country Club swim team. Moon Valley is one of several country clubs in the Valley that have joined together in a swim team league for kids. The kids practiced their strokes every week day morning. And then, on Thursday evenings, they competed in a swim meet against all of the other country clubs' kids by age group. The league awarded ribbons to all of the kids at the end of each heat. Some of the age categories had several heats. And then, after all of the heats were tallied, then the top five kids in each race would be awarded a medal. Throughout the month, Madilyn (no picture) earned one medal and Aiden earned two (see below). From my vantage point, the kids seemed to have a good time. As a spectator and first time family, we really enjoyed the whole program and were a little disappointed that we didn't engage our kids in this program earlier in their lives. The meets were really fun and well run. They never lasted more than a couple of hours and since the country clubs hosted the meets we were able to use our member numbers for food and beverages. Not too shabby.

As for the swimming, the kids did just fine. Madilyn was one of younger kids in her age group, so she didn't always place. But, she worked hard and was proud to represent her team in some of the longer distance (100 yd free) races. One of my favorite stories from this swim meets is that Madilyn after one of her races was handed a 1st place ribbon by one of the volunteers even though she had not earn said ribbon. Madilyn approached me upset and in tears that she was given this ribbon. She wanted the ribbon that she deserved, which was 5th place. Luckily, my friend was the ribbon volunteer, so I walked up with Madilyn to exchange her ribbon. My friend was so impressed that Madilyn only wanted the ribbon that she earned, not the erroneous one. This mama was proud of her for having integrity and being proud of her own accomplishments.

Aiden really strengthened as a swimmer this summer. Swimming has never been one of his favorite sports, but wasn't really given the option this summer as we enrolled him on the team since Madilyn really wanted to try it. There were several kids on the team from his school, so that made the experience a little more fun. In fact, Aiden was selected to be on the relay teams with these boys. It was exciting to watch them at the meets compete. Hopefully, we can convince him to do again next summer. I think he could be a thrill to watch.