State Swim Meet

Good Morning to Everyone!  I hope everyone is doing well!  We had an amazing weekend in Butte/Missoula.  First of all, the State swim meet was supposed to be in Butte Fri-Sun, well when the teams showed up for warm ups on Friday morning, the temp was between 69-72 degrees and the water was so cloudy you could not see the bottom or the wall.  After a few hours of making calls around the state we ended up driving to Missoul and cramming the events from Friday into Saturday and Sunday.  What a day!

Boy the cards did not fall into Haylea's favor.  She had 6 events to swim on Friday...hard ones!  But to say the least...I was SO proud of her!  She dropped 8 secs EACH in the 200IM and 200 Back and taking 8th and 3rd place, dropped a whole second in the 50 back and took 4th, their relay smoked Bozeman and got a Sectionals time in the 4x100 relay taking 1st place, 7th in the 50 free (at the end of the day barely taking any time off, .01) so hard to do after racing so many races and at the end of the evening swimming the 500 Free shaving 13 secs off with a race with the girl next to her the last 150...Haylea edged her out at the end.  All of this on Friday..I was exhausted.  The pool was jammed packed with people and extremely loud!  So to swim that hard with all those races I don't think I could be anymore proud of her.

Sunday was so much better only 4 races 100 free and 100IM and 2 relays.  They were trying for another sectional time in the relays....we got it in 1 of the other relays...but to take 2nd place to Bozeman (boo).  The 100 free (4th place) Haylea took another half second off and to finish off her individual events she took 1.3 secs - off her 100IM-3rd Place...The girls team took 1st overall and the Team took first!  Great job BAC!

We are hoping to head out to Seattle in a few weeks to swim at Sectionals.  We are waiting to see if the other girls parents wishes are.  They are allowed to swim in a Time Trial on Friday and Saturday also.  So they could swim in the 2 relays and 1 event on Friday and Saturday each.  Just the experience would be a blast!

When I get the results from swim connection I will fwd those on.

Love, Heather

Where did the summer go?

Wow!  I cannot believe we are 1/2 way through Sept.!  I am so behind on pics and keeping people updated on what is going on in our world.   I am going to do my best to catch up in small doses.  I apologize if I go out of order of our events over the last 5 months or so.

To start out Haylea is in 7th grade this year at Will James Jr. High and Tate is in 4th grade at Arrowhead Elementary.  They are doing very well - so far.  Haylea is running cross country and Tate is playing football...oh yes, he started swimming this week too!  It is mainly to give him something to do during the winter months.  Haylea will start swimming in December after cross country and Jr. High basketball.

Tate has played in 2 football games so far and has scored 3 TD's for the Hill Masonry Blockers.  They are a team of "the only place you can go is up"!  They are working very hard and it is exciting and fun to watch.  I have a couple videos on here of Tate running the ball in one of his games.  I am hoping to get the full game film so I can cut plays that are fun to watch.  Tate has surprised me in football.  He literally takes on the defense HEAD ON!  Not in a good way either...we are hoping he can use his competitiveness to keep his head up when he runs...but anyway say your prayers for those little guys out there as we do not ever want anyone getting hurt!

Ty and I are getting ready for probably our final year in officiating.  We have had a time frame in the back of our minds for the last few years and I believe this is the last year.  With both kids becoming very active, we will be spending our weekends chasing them around.  I feel very blessed to have experienced the life of officiating NCAA Women's Basketball the past 7 years or so. It has enabled us to still be a part of basketball at many different levels and are very lucky we have been able to do what we have.   We are looking to complete our basement this winter and once that is complete, our officiating days will put on hold or terminated. 

That is all for now...I will bring everyone up to date on pics in the next week or so.


Take care all and God bless!

April-May!

We have been very busy!  I thought after basketball season things would slow down...well not even close!  Haylea turned 12 on April 3rd and has been busy with Long Course Swimming.  Tate has had baseball 3 nights a week (unless it rained!) which it has done quite a bit lately!  But all in all, we have stayed quite busy 6 nights/days of the week.   We took a trip to Denver Memorial Day weekend for the Denver Zoo and 2 Rockies games.  You will see some  pics of the zoo and Haylea and her friend Janae at the Rockies games.   Also, Tate brought his friend Blake and the 3 boys (Ty, Tate and Blake) are showing off their Rockies shirts!  On Sunday, after the game...Haylea stubbed her toe on the walk back to the hotel...boy you would have thought her foot was cut off!  There was a lot of blood, I do have to admit, it does hurt when you stub your toe and this was a pretty bad cut on her toe.  Sorry about how the pics are laid out on here...I got tired of trying to move them around!  I also participated in a triathlon in Missoula in April.  Ty and I (and another friend Mike) ran in Peaks to Prairie and the picture of the trees with snow on them was in Red Lodge on the way up to the Beartooth Pass. 

Tate is doing great in baseball.  He plays a lot of 1st base and outfield.  He is one of the best 1st baseman on the team.  He gets on base over 50 % of the time and is having a lot of fun.  His tournament starts in a week or so, we will keep you up to date on how that goes!

Haylea finished up her last days as an elementary student on Friday...Here are some pics of her and her friends at the awards assembly last Wednesday.   Her music class also put on a "Top 40" music program a few weeks ago.  It was really good. 

I hope all is well and we love you all!

Love, Elkin's


BTW...I will be in Boise, ID Saturday June 12th 2pm start for 1/2 Ironman.  www.ironman.com is where you can follow me if you would like...I hope to have a better race this year than last! 

UPDATE!

It has been awhile since I have updated our blog..the last few months have been very busy with refereeing, Haylea's swimming/basketball and Tate's basketball.  It is all finally OVER!!  But boy does it make the winters fly by!  We finished up our very busy winter with Haylea's last basketball tournament last weekend in Columbus..They were champions.  Their team name is RUKUS! They are the shortest team in 6th grade but they are the scrappiest team.  They have improved so much from November and they actually looked like a basketball team, making game winning hook shots, free throws and fast break lay-ups!  Our biggest girl is probably 5'1" 105lbs and then there is Haylea...5'0" 85 lbs.  They had to guard 5'8 160lbs!!!  These girls were HUGE for 6th grade!!!  And the guards for our team are very short!  But boy did we make it difficult for the other team to get the ball down the court.  The Rukus will be very good once they all go through their growth spurts next year.  It will be exciting to watch them grow over the summer!

Haylea finished her swim season the first weekend in March at the State Short Course (25 yard pool) Swim Meet in Butte, MT.   She did very well!  She finished 9th 50 back, 9th 200IM, 8th 200 back, 4th 400IM, 6th 50 fly, 7th 100 back, 12th 100IM, and 1st in the 200 FR Relay!  She took time off all of her swims!  A very long weekend and the top 8 swam in the finals (except the 400IM).  She is on a break from swimming right now and will start back up in a few weeks.

Tate played basketball this winter too!  He has just started to play on a traveling basketball team.  They have practiced about 4 times together and will play tomorrow night in a tournament.  We will miss the games on Sat and Sun because we will be in Helena...I am taking on the challenge/embarrassment of swimming in the Montana Masters State Swim Meet this weekend.  It is more for fun, a couple of us from my swimming group that I swim with are going (and Ty and the kids) and we are just going to have fun...and swim in a relay or two together.  I know Haylea's times are going to be WAY faster than mine so it will be a weekend for her to feel good about beating me in something!

Tate has just started baseball this week too.  He made the 9-10 majors!  The 9 year olds have a chance to try out for majors and play with the 10 year olds...and Tate made it!  His first practice is tonight.  I think he is a little nervous, but I am sure he will do just fine.  I will have pics up from his games when they start!  I hope all is well with everyone and we love you all!

I have put some pics from the State Swim Meet in Butte on here...not very many of her swimming, but you get the idea of what a swim meet entails.  Enjoy the spring time weather...before you know it we will be complaining of how hot it is!

H

 

Haylea is the one in the rainbow swim cap...she swam her best time in the 50 fly...she took 1.4 secs off!  that is a lot in a 50!!  She won her heat in her age group....

Lane 3 Place 7:  100 back time-  1:16.61

Love, Elkin's

Happy 2010

Well I spent WAY  too much time trying to put these photos in order in which they happened!  I uploaded them in order and before you know it, they are all scrambled  up!  But to update you on what we have been doing the last 2 weeks here I go!

Dec 20th- Tate's "friend"birthday party at a bowling alley!  It was easy, fairly inexpensive and absolutely no clean up!  The kids were great and they all had fun!

Dec 23rd- Tate's 9th birthday!  Cam, Erik and Reece flew in on the 22nd from Seattle so we had a dual birthday celebration.  Reece's birthday is on Dec 17th!

Dec 25th- Christ's Birthday!  What a day we had!  Lots of family and friends came over and we spent the whole day opening of gifts and eating lots of food!  We had such a great time just hanging out!   For my birthday on Dec 5th - Ty bought me a plane ticket to Oklahoma to see my grandparents.  My grandpa turns 90 on Jan. 5th and I have a Papa who is very sick with cancer.  He surprised me with a ticket to go see ALL 4 of my grandparents.  Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of my visit with my Papa, it just didn't feel like the right time to be taking pictures.  He is on his way to be with Christ!  I was able to spend one of his last days with him, tell him I love him and give him a hug!  What a bittersweet experience the past weekend was.  What we all fear is death to some degree, but he was anxious and awaiting his arrival into Heaven!  I have been blessed with 2 sets of grandparents who follow Christ for a lifetime!  I was there to say good-bye to one and to wish a Happy 90th to another!

I have pictures of my Grandpa Rainwater who will be 90 tomorrow. His beautiful wife Lorene put together his party for him!  There is a picture of him (Paul) and his twin sister Pauline.  I do not know how old they are in this picture but boy was he a handsome young man!  I love him dearly and miss him more than my heart can explain.

I was also able to see my parents, Uncle Rob and Aunt Christy, cousin Billy his 4 kids (Kara pictured below with Kyle) and my sister Sarah (who are all pictured below).  Also in attendance my cousin Paul Allen.  Boy how time flies when you are having fun (I guess).  To all my family, I love and miss you very, very much!  Happy New Year to All!  

Love,  Heather