Each year our swim club has an awards banquet this time of year. All the families are invited and the swimmers all get a chance to win awards and be recognized for various accomplishments throughout the year, both long course and short course seasons.
This was our last banquet...after 12 years, our very last one. I only cried a little. I had big plans to get all sorts of photos of everyone and wanted to make sure to capture the moments one last time. "Had" being the operative word as one of us left the camera on all night, did not notice it until we got to the banquet and had a mere whisper of battery life left so I only have a few photos and I will need to go begging for photos other parents took today. Here's what I do have...our yearly photo of Matt and Ali:
Our yearly photo of Buddy, Ali, and Laurie...Ali is heading out to Boston University for college next year so Buddy is going to need to head down to IU to watch Matt swim if he wants to continue to cheer for the other half of his favorite swimmers, i.e. Ali is not going to swim in college.
I tried to round up as many of the seniors as I could, but still missed a few key ones...the ones I managed to snag: Lauren (going to IU next year), Kiernan (going to Xavier next year), Elizabeth (going to Dennison next year), Matt (going to IU next year), Rhiannon (going to Purdue next year), Devon (going to IU next year but not swimming in college), and John (going to the Naval Academy next year).
And, before the battery died, one quick shot of Matt on the podium giving an inspirational talk to the club about all that swimming has meant to him over the years...the bottom line: "Was it all worth it? Oh, yeah, it was definitely all worth it!" We agree, we have gotten way more out of swimming than we ever dreamed possible. That first year my thoughts were running something like this: "Great, we have an activity that will allow them to be safe around water, gives them a nice little practice/workout, and they are clean afterward!" It's turned out to be a whole lot more, yes, it has.
