Ali....the serenading swimmer

Ok, maybe she can't REALLY mix her two interests. However, she was in a swim meet this past Saturday, and also a guitar recital. She literally hopped out of the water from her last event, and ran into the dressing room to change for the music recital. We made it in time, thank goodness. She was nervous about the recital, as she doesn't like to play in front of people. However, once she started, you couldn't even tell. She did a great job. I will post some video clips at the end. She played a duet with her teacher. Her teacher considers her one of his "advanced" students...so after only playing for about 3 years, that isn't too bad. She really loves it.

As for the swim meet...we were blown away. She improved SO much from the last meet she was in. She shaved 30 seconds off of her best 200 freestyle time. That is awesome! Her second best improvement was shaving 24 seconds off of her best 100 backstroke time. We were so proud of her! As her coach said after one of her events, "if you can do this well at the meet...don't be farting around at practice." Hahahaha!!! Ali thought that was pretty funny. I must say, the girls can definitely do some talking at the practices. Ha!! (to be expected) As Peter Pan says, "girls talk too much." :)

Clark is coming right along. He began speech therapy a couple of weeks ago. His first actual therapy session was today. The last 2 weeks were evaluation. They are working on his hypernasal speech. The therapist is hopeful it can be correct. She said a little time will tell if it is actually a medical issue that doesn't allow him to cut his airway off when saying some sounds. Hopefully it is just a matter of retraining. We will wait and see. Each week we will have "homework" to work on prior to the next weeks session. He did just fine today...was a little distracted with some toys that were in the room. Of course, the boy lives to play!!! The therapist was impressed during his evaluation. She said he has a great grasp of the English language after only 1 1/2 years. We have been trying to do a little more schooling at home. He is doing so much better on writing his letters. He started out behind the curve, but we are hopeful that he will catch up. He would just much rather be riding his bike than sitting in front of some school books. (of course) Another funny I can add to the list...the other day Clark comes out of our bathroom holding MY toothbrush:
Clark: Someone left their toothbrush on MY sink
Rachel: Well actually that is OUR bathroom and that is MY sink...so I left my toothbrush by my sink
Clark: (with a confused look on his face) You need to put your toothbrush up.
hahaha!!!

swim meet and guitar recital