Photo: From the left: Daniel, Matt, John, Matt F., Kiernan, Jonathan, Nik, and Mike.
The CSC Spring Awards Banquet was this past Sunday. It's always a big deal. The swimmers look forward to it, the coaches get a chance to see and be seen in something other than pool togs, and we parents get a chance to see all the swimmers in one place at one time...dry and wearing actual clothes...400 swimmers strong this year.
We had a lot to celebrate...lots of firsts and new best times...lots of fun times and best of all, this year, for the very first time, Carmel Swim Club was named a USA Gold Medal Club, ranked 11th in the nation. Not bad, especially for a smaller community. We gladly forfeited our Silver ranking and got a brand new banner for the pool proclaiming the latest feat, the only Gold Medal Swim Club in the state of Indiana. The swimmers were thrilled with the news.
Matt recieved Most Improved Swimmer Award for his group, much deserved as Matt had a banner year himself, the best year he's ever had with swimming so far.
Through all the celebrating and joyful news bits, there is always, the sad bits...the saying goodbye to the seniors who will be heading off to college in the fall, and to those parents who will no longer be hangin' at the pool because their last swimmer is heading off to college. Nik and Daniel gave moving and inspiring speeches, so I didn't manage to be dry-eyed through the entire time...I caved when the little memories the two boys were sharing brought it all home that they are now almost grown...and almost gone...and that all these years of sharing so many times with them are almost gone as well. Yikes. How is a girl supposed to keep her hanky dry through all of that???
Matt also had a choir performance Sunday afternoon and had to skip out a little early...I kept saying, "Are you sure you have enough time to get both of these in today with the travel time and everything?" He kept assuring me he did. During the banquet, he realized for the first time that the venue for the choir performance was on the total opposite side of Indianapolis. He thought 89xx was by St. Luke's on the north side (near where we live), and then realized it was 89xx SOUTH, and had to do some quick calculations about the length of time that was going to take to get clear to the south side of Indy. He managed to arrive on time, barely. Ali had skipped the banquet thinking she didn't have time to do both, so she was worried when he didn't show up until the last minute. My hair is turning more gray by the day.
I only have a few shots from the banquet this year as the swimmers were spread all over the place and it took a bit just to get these guys all sitting in one place at one time. The girls were everywhere all at once...trying to nail Jello to the wall trying to get decent photos of them, but here's a cute one of Colleen and the guys. (Mike, Daniel, Matt, Matt F., John, and Colleen.)
