We have a teenager....!

Claire is officially a teenager! Yesterday she turned 13 and I cannot believe how fast the years have gone. She had told us she didn't want to have a party or do anything for her birthday this year. We gave her the option to redo her bedroom and make it more teen-friendly and she jumped on that idea. Claire and her dad repainted, hung rope lighting, and moved furniture around. All we have left to do is pick out some decorations for the walls. The night before her big day, she said "you got me a cake at least, right?". We lead her to believe we had not and told her she can get dessert when we go out to dinner.

She woke to her favorite donuts with one candle in and she said "well, I guess this is my cake". Off to keyboarding class she went (the only time she has ever been in school for her birthday).

Little did she know, I was busy at home decorating for her when she returned!

I also had a big cookie cake waiting for her arrival!

The look on her face when she walked in from school was priceless! She was completely surprised and very grateful for the effort!

Leave it to Claire to turn around the numbers and show me 31 instead of 13 and enjoy the horrific look on my face!

Claire chose to go to Olive Garden for her birthday. I convinced her to wear contacts and put on a little mascara...I tried my best to convince her to wear her beautiful hair down, but lost that battle. It is tough to wear thick hair down when it is 103 degrees outside! She looks so grown up!

Claire wasted no time digging into the salad and breadsticks and ordered spaghetti for dinner (of which she hardly ate because she had 4 big plates of salad!)

When we got home, she was showered with many phone calls from family and dear friends who took their time out of the day to make Claire feel special...thank you all!

Claire got a new stopwatch from the Fink family!

She got some clothing for camp and was very excited about that, along with some new crocs since her feet are growing, and the second half of a book series she is enjoying right now. She also got some money to use toward school clothes for the fall. We finished the day with some cookie cake and looking at her baby book, reliving some of the early years! Claire grew 3.25 inches in the past year and we expect even more growth this coming year! Pretty soon I will be looking up to her! She was very happy with how the day turned out and was super sweet and grateful. I love this young lady's big, kind heart and pray we stay close in the years to come! God sure has blessed us with one amazing daughter!

 

Stingrays take first place in divisionals!

Claire's summer swim team took first place in divisionals this past Saturday! The team worked so hard this summer and it was wonderful to come out on top! The party on Monday celebrated their accomplishment! Unfortunately, it started to thunder about 10 minutes before the family/friend relay which caused the relay to be cancelled. We were all disappointed because the girls and their dads worked so hard to prepare. We will have to find another way to get them to do the relay...!

Claire, Caroline, Annalee, and Abigail...the four of them will be heading to camp together in only a few weeks! What a wonderful, God-loving group of young ladies!

 

The Dads get swim lessons!

Meet Coach Claire and Coach Abigail...their mission was to train their fathers how to swim in preparation for the family/friend relay for the Stingrays summer swim team party.

After watching each Dad demonstrate their abilities in backstroke, breast stroke, and freestyle, the girls determined Jeff would swim backstroke and Andy would swim freestyle. They would take care of butterfly and breast stroke! Below the coaches are watching underwater while Jeff shows them his freestyle moves!

Here Coach Abigail is holding her Dad in place while Coach Claire watches his arms in the freestyle. Andy did almost drown, but only once!

Since the dads were not getting the technique, the coaches decided to demonstrate what they were wanting to see from their fathers!

More work on freestyle arms!

Next it was time to work on the core! These Dads were such great sports and probably still have sore backs and abs from laying on the pool deck in superman pose! The girls enjoyed the torture I think!

After a very tough workout, this relay team is confident they will come in first place at the party!

We ended the swim lesson with a little game of chicken in the pool! I was super impressed at all that the Dads put up with and how willing they were to learn new moves! Let the racing begin!

 

Making finals in the Summer Splash meet!

This past weekend was FULL of swim, swim, and more swim! We had a Fleet meet on Friday from noon until 7:30pm and Claire qualified for finals in all three events. She came away in 6th place in the 50 breast stroke! Then Saturday we had our summer league divisional meet from 6am until 3:30pm. Sunday was back to a Fleet meet from noon until 6:30pm where Claire qualified for finals in the 200 backstroke! What makes it hard is that the temps were over 100 degrees all three days and all three days the meets were outdoors. By Sunday night we were all completely wiped and ready to be done with the heat! We are super proud of how well Claire swam and managed to drop time in all of her events for the two days of Fleet meets!

The best Father's Day picture these two crazies would give me!

 

All in a weekend!

The fun started on Thursday afternoon with a trip to the dentist. Claire and I made a deal...no cavities and I would buy her Smoothie King, cavities and she had to buy. Well, she won so I had to pay! I was pretty happy about that though!

Saturday we had our last summer league swim meet before divisionals. The girls swam great and Claire managed to qualify for Ponderosa in all 6 events! We are super proud of her effort and hard work to make it to the championship finals! As if swimming all morning and most of the afternoon wasn't enough, the Fink family came over to enjoy pool time all evening! We had a great time!

The girls and their dads!

Ending the weekend with painting Claire's room. Jeff spent time teaching Claire how to paint. Excited to see how it all turns out once we get her room all back in order!

 

Claire and Abigail- swimming buddies!

Try to sneak in as many pictures as these two girls will allow! They have such a fun relationship and really support each other in swim!

 

Our trip to Florida- Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios was our first stop on our vacation. Claire was most excited to ride the Slinky Dog Dash roller coaster! The props in Toy Story land were so amazing!

Got to get in some Star Wars rides which were pretty cool! Too bad we don't know much about Star Wars!

This might have been Jeff's highlight at Hollywood Studios...The Frozen show!

I have always been a sucker for the big soft pretzel and had to get one that looked like Mickey Mouse...too bad it didn't taste as good as it looked!

It rained for a little bit before the sun came back out. On our way out of the park, God blessed us with a beautiful full rainbow!

 

Our trip to Florida- Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was the second park we went to and we all loved it! Our first ride was Kilimanjaro Safari (thanks to a tip from a person we met at Hollywood Studios to hit the safari first thing). There were so many animals out and super close to our vehicle!

We even had to wait for a while as this rhino decided to cross right in front of our vehicle!

Of course we had to get a family photo in front of the big tree!

Expedition Everest....Claire was not too sure about this ride but conquered her fear and tackled it not once, but twice!

Here Claire is looking at Expedition Everest and contemplating if she can survive the ride!

For some reason, Claire still loves lots of the kiddie rides so we had to go on this flying dino ride!

It's a bugs life was a fun 3D ride that even made it feel like roaches were crawling where you were sitting at the end! It made us all jump a little when we felt them beneath our butt!

Avatar...probably the coolest ride we went on in all the parks combined! It was well worth the almost 2.5 hour wait!

The Mickey ice cream sandwiches always helped to put a smile on Claire's face when she was getting frustrated with the lines or the heat.

The Lion King show was wonderful! So much talent and so fun to watch! It was a great day at Animal Kingdom!