Last weekend we won the OK Red Conference Championship. All six schools are competing in a final meet and the winner of the most meets over the season gets the final award. We won the last meet with 426 poinst and 60 points lead to 2nd place. I also had something to be happy about. I improved my 100free time from 57.63 to 57.26 and broke my 25 with 24.84 in the 50free. In my 100back I dropped about 3 seconds from the last time, but I was still about 1 second off from my time I swam in Zeeland. It was probably the pool, because Zeeland has a much faster and better pool than Grand Haven, where our last meet was.

The last week of the second trimester in school was really relaxing, bc I had more time and I was less tired without long practices. We had another snow day on wednesday and the final exams went very well. At the side of the streets is so much snow now, that I built a huge face out of a snowpile. It looks kind of creepy, when you drive by it at night, but I really like it. On Friday Fiddler on the Roof at the Civic theater started. Amanda is working in the Crew and Andrew is part of the Cast. The show was so awesome and got a great Review from the Grand Rapids Press. It is a really long show with 3 hours and one intermission, but with a lot of jokes and a ton of action. The Choreography and the dancers are just amazing!

This saturday was so awesome too. I finally cooked the first German things over here. I had help from Andrew and Phyllis, who is Robyn´s mum. She was in Germany before with her deceased husband and has a spätzle press. We had onion tarte, Cordon bleu with messed up Spätzle, and for dessert Kaiserschmarrn. The dough for the Spätzle was unfortunately not of the right consistency, so they mostly clotted together or they fell apart. But the onion tarte was great and the Kaiserschmarrn was just awesome.

In just 2 days the swimming season is over. Right now we are in the final phase of taper, in which we train much less and just get ready for the final meet. I like it much better than regular season, because I don’t get soar muscles all the time and we get out of practice much earlier. Another thing of preparation is shaving. Girls love it and boys hate it. Before the Conference meet all swimmers have to shave their legs, arms and upper body. It helps one to feel the water better and so to swim better. I just did it. Right now it feels super weird and I´m sad, because several years of growing are gone now :/.

Anyway our last practice was super easy and we only swam about 1400yards. As well our second trimester is almost over. The final exams are next week thursday and friday. A little update on Basketball and other sports. State destroyed Michigan a few days ago with over 25 points lead. Unfortunately Spartans just lost by 4 points against number one Indiana. Hockey is still going and almost every night there is a interesting game going on. Unfortunately there are no new pictures in the album, but I hope, there will be some good ones from the Conference meet. The winter is still here with 8inches of snow and we just had an day off, because of icy roads. And there is another storm coming from the south, with snow and icy roads.

It has been quite a long time, since I wrote the last entry. Swimming apperently takes up a lot of time. The weather is still unstable and changes between 40 degrees and 15 and clear and snowing. Just the typical Michigan weather. Swimming is going great. Our last four meets weren´t always easy and we lost another one against Zeeland High. Parks was putting pressure on us yesterday, because we swam against Hudsonville. They are team number two in Conference and have some really good swimmers. Over all we won, but it was much tighter, than our usual results. Anyway, we have our last meet before the big Conference and we start tapering next week. Tapering is a short period of time before the last and big meet, in which we train less harder and get more rest. After this one can swim much faster. It´s a common technique to boost the results at the end of the season.

Another big thing was our last home meet three weeks ago. It is called senior night, because all seniors on the team get honored. We got pizza, cake and a lot of candy after it. It was an awesome night! School is doing great too. No failed classes and no complains from my teachers. Last week I had an orientation from YFU. It was about our goals and how we can still change things and it was really interesting. At night we went to a Grand Rapids Griffins Hockey game. It was the same great atmosphere as in Hamburg about 2 years ago. There is now finally the NHL playing and College Basketball. A lot of TV time is occupied by sport. I love it! 🙂 There is still nothing big going on in politics and the news are unfortunately still only local crimes and the newest forecasts. I try to find new topics to talk about, but I´m kind of stuck. Suggestions are welcome 😉 .

The first week of school went pretty good. It was not really easy to get back the routine of waking up at 5:40, but meeting friends again was great. We had two swimming meets this week at home. The first was a home meet with West Ottawa and we literally destroyed them. The final score was 69 for WO and 219 for us. This Saturday we had our invitational swimming. There were four other teams from west Michigan. It went great for us. We made first place and had a lead if almost 200 points to second place. A little update on my times. My fastest hundred is now a 0:58.15, in the 200 free is with 2:10 about 3 seconds faster than before break, and my 50 free time dropped to 0:25.58. After the long days with four hours of practice during break, the after school practices seem much shorter.

Unfortunately here we don’t get snow again after new year. A bit more about recent sport events and games. After the end of College Football season, which ended with an awful defeat of Notre Dame in the Championship game from Alabama, now there is almost every day one or more Basketball games on tv. In high school is now basketball season, too. The Games are very exciting and Rockford is pretty good. We just defeated Forest Hills with about 20 points in lead. The only thing, that is recent and interesting too, is the weather. This is already the second season with a winter, which doesn´t really feel like a winter. We just had 50 degrees again and it rained. Almost like home.