Hannah had a fabulous freshman year of high school! She started the year off in August when practices started for swim team. The girls swim team had won their conference championship eight years in a row, and going into the season, they knew this would be the hardest year to claim the title. It was a goal for all the girls to make it "9 in '09" and they worked their tails off. Their biggest rival is Kalamazoo Central and last year that school ended the season with some not-so-nice remarks in the paper. That's also how they began the year this year and it really fired PC up! Although they lost to K Central in the regular season at the dual meet, they came back for the biggest win at conference!
It was inspiring to watch these girls swim like they did. It is such a sport of heart and dedication and they had a ton of both those two days. Preliminaries were on friday and performances were not what everyone was hoping for. Going into saturday, the tension and stress was really high. Everything came down to the last relay, literally. It was that close. Coach told the girls that if they won the race, they won conference. If not, it was second place. They went nine seconds faster in the 400 free relay that day than they did the day before and WON!!! PC~ 330.5 K Central~ 328.5! I love this picture of the relay team, every girl's face is priceless!Hannah filled the year going to sporting events, building the homecoming float and walking in the parade, dances and swim practice. She opted to not do high school water polo (we were kinda sad about that) to focus on training for swimming. She also set a goal to get a 4.0 for all four marking periods. All the stress of honors classes, semester exams, and the homework (I think she had only about six nights the entrie school year without any) certainly took its toll. Well, her hard work paid off and she did it! She ended the year with a 4.36 :) We'd call this year a huge success! On to sophomore year...
Nathy started third grade this fall in Mrs. Byington's classroom. She is a great teacher that decided to retire this year. We are so glad we got to have Nathan in her room before she left! Nathan did really, really well in third grade. He made huge improvements in his math and is a very strong reader. One day while we were trying to convince him to work a bit harder on math and not give us so much grief when we had him do some extra work, he said, "I already read at a sixth grade level, why do I have to be good at reading AND math?" It was pretty funny. Whether he likes it or not, he did improve and now does well at both :) Nathan did alot of projects this year. The biggest was a report they had to do on a vertibrate of their choice. He chose the blue whale. They had to prepare not only a written report but a powerpoint presentation to go along with it. They then had to give this presentation to the class. He worked so hard on this and earned a well deserved 100%! He felt so proud. Throughout the year, they learned about the differ
ent regions of the country and had the final big test the last week of school. Knowing all 50 states and their location was required but the capitals were extra credit. He was the only one to get a 100% + 50 extra credit points. That was so cool! They took only one field trip this year. It was to the Delano Homestead and Kalamazoo Nature Center. He was in a group with all his best buddies and Mike went as a chaperone. He had alot of fun. Nath spent the year doing swimming (then decided it was time for a break), playing with friends, and boy scouts. He is so excited to be a fourth grader next year and has decided he's not above paying the principal off to get the teacher he wants. Keep your fingers crossed for Mr. Storteboom!
