Just like Artemis

We've started our new rounds of winter activities.  True to form, there is way more cool stuff going on at the YMCA than I would care to admit and have probably signed the kids up for too much crap.  Oh well.  Someday, I'll learn.

Soccer continues for Jacob.  I think it would be nice if the coaches could indicate that their teams are either (1) developmental/competitive or (2) recreational and therefore the teams could first play the others in their category before playing teams from the other category.  I watched the team who played before us lose 10-0, followed by our loss of 11-1.  Then realized that since there are more teams than weeks, we never get to play that no-scoring team, but we do get to play the team that won.  It's too bad, as it would be nice to play another younger and less competitive team, and I think they'd probably appreciate playing us too!

Jacob also starts basketball, which he's a little iffy about.  Most of his friends signed up for this tournament program at the local high school.  So that the HS is sure to get good bball players, they start their developmental program in 3rd grade.  There was an article in the paper about how players who do not do the developmental program rarely even make the JV team.  But, we didn't do that - mostly because bball ranks pretty low for Jacob on his list of favorite sports and because they play only these weekend-long tournaments and I'm not thrilled to give up my whole weekend to watching youth basketball games (though considering how many swim meets my own parents had to sit through - there is probably some karma waiting for me sometime).  Anyway - we signed up at the YMCA, but not our local YMCA because we were too late.  But this is a nice middle ground of one practice and one game per week.  He's on the Mav's, which the poor YMCA girl who called the first night pronounced the Mave's.

Finally, Jacob was forced back into YMCA swimming lessons until he can swim front crawl down and back without stopping.  He's not thrilled, but admittedly he did not complain this week like he did last week.  Heaven forbid he be accused of "liking" it.

Allison also went back to swimming lessons, though at a different place with smaller class sizes (read: much more expensive).  In a very surprising turn of events, she loved the swimming lessons.  It was unexpected because she was in the group that swam back and forth in the back lane.  Definitely more work and less play - but she was in an extremely good mood after the first lesson and was happy to go back for week 2.

Allison is also trying something new - Archery.  The YMCA (see the trend....) started offering a Special Needs archery class and Allison and her friend Melanie signed up.  They were, in fact, the only people to sign up.  They had their first lesson yesterday.  These are not Hunger Games girls, though.  Melanie was excited to shoot like Meridith (from Brave) and Allison wants to be like Artemis (Goddess of the Hunt).  Because I know nothing about archery, it was interesting to watch.  They shot real arrows with real bows in the gym of the YMCA.  They were both really good at hitting the target.