Camden Waves

Well, to be honest, I never thought any of my children would ever do/be on a swim team. End of story! Well, was I wrong or what? A good friend of mine asked if my boys wanted to do swim team this year with her boys and I instantly said, we don't swim, much less we won't ever do swim team. (I had heard how long the meets were and how early practices were in the summer) So, I asked Mason and Buie and I got an instant NO from Buie and Mason said sure. He had no idea what he was getting into. (I had an inkling, but no one can prepare you for swim team) So bless his heart, I took him to his first practice, where knew not a sole(the boys he knew weren't there until after the first meet), didn't know what a lap consisted of and had never done, much less heard of any of the 4 strokes. Sure enough he did what he was told to do every day at practice and learned mostly by watching what the other kids did. So in his first meet, I threw him to the wolves, he had 5 events and one of them was the butterfly! I mean, how cruel was this? Other than admitting he was a little nervous before his meet, you would never had known he had never done it before and he did awesome. He actually had to swim up in the 9-10 year old 100 medley relay and he did the freestyle to finish up the race and their relay team won first place. Those older boys hoot and hollered at how awesome Mason were giving him high fives. Well, that was all it took for Mason to be in love with this sport. He tried his best in every race that he did and over 4 meets he won 20 ribbons in a variety of colors. He was so excited to go to practice and counted down the days until the next meet. He received the Most Improved swimmer for his age group and was oh so proud of that award. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of you Mason Crawford. Getting out there in a sport you knew nothing about and never once complained about all the tough races you had to do in a place where you knew hardly anyone out there. 

Grandma got him the cap so she could pick out which one was Mason in the water. 

 Hanging with the Waves

 Getting ready for his part of the relay

 Breast stroke was one of his better strokes once he figured out was taught how to properly do it with out getting DQ'd.

 The other one was the butterfly that he improved on so much (don't have a pic of that one)

 He even learned how to dive off the platform and do a sit dive

 He looks serious

 He was very into cheering on his team. 

 Having a serious talk with Grandpa. 

Can you see how proud he was? (He also thought is was so cool to have the races written on his arm)