I’m off!  For 8 months…or so.  Off to sail the seas, to work hard, and to hopefully make a few friends and have some great new memories.

In the meantime, enjoy a video of Isak playing my absolute favorite song ever that he’s played…Red Rose Rendevouz, a jazz waltz that is just incredible.  I’m very proud especially since he’s on summer break from lessons and has done this completely on his own.  He has worked very hard to get it put together before I leave and it has left me in tears several times because he plays with such beautiful feeling.

{click on any photo for a larger version}

We got back today from a very exciting trip to Berlin, Germany that Anja qualified to compete in with the European Forces Swim League Championship meet.

I will certainly blog again soon about the rest of the trip, after my cholesterol levels go back down after the obscene amounts of bratwurst I consumed over the last 5 days.  For now, though, it’s all about Anja!

As I mentioned briefly a few posts ago, Anja qualified for Champs during the meet she swam in in Naples, Italy.  She qualified on her own for two events, the 50 meter freestyle (she had to swim it in under 49.55 seconds) and the 50 meter backstroke (she had to swim that in under 59.89 seconds).  A third event, the 100 meter freestyle, she missed by something like 2 seconds but was pulled up to participate in (1:55.99), so she had 3 individual events to compete in for this meet.

For the first time since she’s been competing in these meets, she said she got nervous before her first 2 events, both freestyles.  This was also her first time competing in a 50 meter pool which is considerably different than the 25 meter pools she’s swum in throughout the season.  As she waited for the 100m free to start, she was being a dork and swinging her arms and whoops, wouldn’t you know my daughter fell in while they were on the blocks.  Fortunately, they’re allowed one false start so she wasn’t disqualified.

Going to the blocks for her first event - Anja was in lane 3 (the lanes were numbered incorrectly, she’s in the actual lane 3 which was marked lane 2).

Swimmers, take your mark…

Go!

She ended up tied for 8th place in her heat, which was 16th or 17th overall, but the most important part for us was that she improved on her personal best time - the achievement we’ve always told her to strive for.

There’s video, too!

It’s kind of hard to ensure good coverage when you’re trying to watch the race out of one eye, but B did a better job than I did on the 100m free, huh?  I have no pictures but he has video!

You must pay attention to the announcer at the :36 mark…we all got a good laugh out of that.

Next was her 50 meter backstroke, her final - and favorite - event.  This time, unlike the previous 2 events, she finally had her familiar look of concentration and I could tell she was in The Zone.

For this event, she was in lane 4 (marked as lane 3 below).

She got a good, solid start which was a big improvement from her last couple of meets where her arms were already flailing well before she got into the right position to start using them.

She was looking strong, but the girl in lane 6 was stronger and had about a body’s length lead on her to start.

But she never gave up, and her stamina stayed with her to the end and she ended up first in her heat!  When combined with the 2nd heat (the faster of the 2 heats), she ended up 7th.  7th in all of the girls in the league aged 8 & under - which is quite a lot considering there were 18 teams competing - was so much better than we ever hoped for.  Even better was that she cut off almost 6 seconds from her personal best time

And that video…

There was an article in Stars & Stripes newspaper about the meet that you (but not we) can read here: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=123&article=60589&source=rss

All in all, it was a fantastic meet and we couldn’t be any prouder of how well she has done this season.  Now she gets some well-deserved time off and we will see if she wants to continue until we leave here…assuming, of course, we actually get our orders to leave here…