Good bye from Montreal!!

We ended the meet with our team dinner so here are some pics to finish off the trip.
Betty-Ann and I decided we deserved a special treat after the week...

The girls presented Cindy and Neil with some little gifts and the kids all signed a shirt for Neil as this is his last swim meet.

The kids are having their last hour with each other before they part for the summer and then they are off to bed to be up for an early cab ride to the airport.
It has been a great trip and we both had a blast working with your swimmers.

I would like to give a personal thanks to Neil for being such an integral part of our family's experience with swimming. It has been wonderful traveling with you to different meets and seeing you work with all the kids throughout the years. Thank you very much from the Bradleys!

I will sign off now, I hope you have enjoyed keeping apprised of our adventures here in la belle province!
Now hopefully we can corral the kids and get them into their own rooms!

That is it!!!

PICS: The chaperones...
Cindy, Heidi and Karen
The group in the tent tonight.
Luke getting his GOLD.
Heidi with the subway police
Peter and his 400 bronze.



Wow, last night of the meet and our finalists tore it up. Every swimmer improved their their time!
First up we had Heidi in the IM, she moved up from 10th to 7th and dropped her best time. Then Peter was up, also in the IM, he came out with the silver with a great time. Heidi jumped in again for the 50 fly and went from 8th to 6th with another best time. Then the crazy swim of the night had Luke in lane 2 for his 400 free, he took off like a rocket and raced his way to the GOLD!!! Our last race of the night saw Peter in a battle in the middle of the pool for the medal, the 3 guys went back and forth and he ended up with the bronze!! 3 medals on the last night was a pretty sweet way to end the year!!!!! Just found out that the little girls medley relay came 4th, big girls 11th and the little boys 16th.

We are now off to Baton Rouge for dinner and then who knows what they will get up to tonight. We are in cabe tom

Day 5...or what we are calling 'Finally'

Here is our BIG girl relay team, they all swam both the free and the medley. Then we have the team just hangin' out in the tent. Oh yeah, and Finn the trucker!



It's another beautiful day in Montreal, this is the first year that we have not had a least one day of hellishly bad weather!!

With this being the 5th day of the meet, you might think that our kids would start to slow down in the pool...not the case! It looks like most of them are stepping up and digging in for some best times.

For finals tonight, we will have 6 swims. Heidi in the 200IM and 50 fly, Peter B. in the IM and 400 free, Luke in the free and Finn squeaking into the free too!

DAY 4

A few more action shots of our adventures...
Some of the kids after they all stuffed their faces on a huge Greek feast.
Noah really enjoyed the dinner tonight and couldn't get enough of the greek rice we made. Peter won the silver medal in the 100 back, Cindy and Sarah finally stood still long enough to get a shot of them together and Taylor just wanted a picture of her in here so I had to put in the last one.


The end of day 4...well, that didn't go as planned. We were just getting the kids tucked in and the fire alarm went off. We all proceeded down the stairs in an orderly fashion and congregated on the vast lawns in front of the hotel. In came the fire trucks, all 4 of them, and an ambulance. Of course the trucks all held your run of the mill fire fighters...all of whom were calendar worthy, they grabbed their axes and ran to check out the problem. After sitting outside for an hour we got to come back inside. We have a number of different versions of what may or may not have happened but what we do know is that the kids got back to their rooms and settled right down.

We have a big day tomorrow with the 200IM, 50 fly, medley relay and the 400 free. All but Lisa have at least one event and some(Noah, Heidi,
Maddie, Egor and Peter B) have 3!

Finals tonight went very well with Island having 4 swims. Peter won silver in the 100 back, Cassandra and Finn both had best times and moved up spots in the breast and Luke finished it off with another best time and rose up a couple of spots.

One more day of fast racing and then we are on our way home!!

A few more pics to keep you going. Here is JO, Lisa and Chantal by our team tent, then we have Heidi and Noah after her 100 fly gold. In the third pic, Rebecca and Chantal are dressed for their cat dance...we still haven't seen it yet but we have heard all about it. Finally we have Neil with his parasol. I bought it as an umbrella but we have not had to use it.

If you are wondering how I have so much time to blog, it is all thanks to Betty-Ann, while she washes dishes and does general cleanup I get to lie on the couch and fill you all in on the day's events...that's the life!!

In case you are wondering what we have been feeding them, here is a little sampling: BBQ ribs (thank you Byron Powell) and Parisian potatoes, rotini and sauce, chili and baguettes, BBQ chicken/rice/caesar salad wraps, chicken souvlaki, greek rice and greek salad. Tomorrow night we are going out for a team dinner.

I missed some of the top 10's last night, the younger boys swam their 800's in the morning so here are their results: Luke, 5th, Finn, 7th and Peter B. 4th. Nicely done boys!!

Just a quick addition for those of you who aren't friends of Island Swimming on Facebook...which you really should be because Andrea updates stuff about our club/swimmers about every 10 minutes so you would never miss a thing.
Here is our team(minus Alec), they are an excellent group of kids and Betty-Ann and I are having a great time watching over them.
I just added a couple more of the group so you can maybe see your child in there somewhere and realize they are actually here, in case I haven't mentioned them specifically in here. I can assure you that we haven't lost any of them yet and they all survived traveling on the subway yesterday with the huge crowds swarming onto the island to see Eminem and whatever other crazy bands were playing.
Just a little sidebar...for those of you in Victoria who think we have a lot of homeless people, come to Montreal, it is unbelievable how many are on the streets and in the subway stations asking for money.
We are now off to shop for more food when the store opens and then to the pool to watch our kids swim. The greatest part about this trip is that Betty-Ann finally gets to see her boys swim at a pool other than SCP, where she is volunteering on deck the whole time! Her boys have both stepped up and are giving her an amazing show, way to go Pages!!

Day 3-Finals

Here are our twin towers getting ready for their 50 frees!!!!!































Well, after realizing that Eminem was out of the equation, the kids got right back to the pool in time to see the girls swim their 50 free's. Cindy and Neil say they do not remember Island Swimming ever having any swimmers in the 50 free final at this meet, so it is pretty cool that we had 2 tonight. Maddie started things off with another best time, from 28.87 to 28.76, and moved from 10th to 9th. Heidi came up next with a move from 6th to 5th with another huge best time, from 27.89 to 27.47.
Next up was the fastest heats of the 800's. Taylor took off and had a battle for a medal with a girl from Cascade, it was back and forth for the whole race then Taylor waved bye-bye and raced in to grab the silver medal with a huge 6 second best time from her time at Senior's last week.
The boys were up next in lanes 3, 4 and 5,(Alec, Keegan and Will) and that is how they ended up with Alec getting the gold and Keegan the silver in the 17-18 age group. Will was 3 rd in the race but won the 16 yr age group. It was another pretty great night with 5 of 6 swims being best times and grabbing 4 medals!!
That's 3 down and 2 to go...we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.
-Thanks to Neil for the great podium pics!!

Day 3-Prelims

Today we had 100 breast, 200 fly, 50 free and 800 free. It started off fairly slowly with no one making finals through the breast and fly...during which time Cindy and Neil decided we would give the kids the night off and we wouldn't have them return tonight. Then came the 50 free!!! Out of nowhere, along came Maddie, she swam a best time and grabbed the last spot in the final!!!! Heidi went in 23rd, swam a best time and is going in 6th tonight. There went the idea of not returning tonight! We also have Taylor, Will, Keegan and Alec in the 800 at the end of the night so it will be great for everyone to go back and cheer. The other kids don't have to get in the pool tonight so they are just there to cheer, that will be a nice break too. If we are lucky, the meet will run long and we can catch a bit of the Eminem concert that is happening 300 metres away!! This place is really hopping, tomorrow there is the Gay Pride parade running just outside our Metro station...let's see if we can catch some of it!
That's all for now, Betty-Ann and I are going to have a little rest before we have to start cooking/shopping/yelling at your kids! Just kidding, they have all been wonderfully thoughtful, considerate and polite.

Day 2 finals

Another great night at the pool tonight!! The night started off with Luke in the 100 free, he went in 7th and came out 6th improving his time by almost a second! Then we had Finn and Peter in the 400 IM, Finn went in 10th and came out 8th...he broke the 5 minute mark for the first time too!! Peter came out with the silver medal with another best time of over 3 seconds. Will was next and also came out with the silver...another best time!! Then we finished the IM's off with Alec SMASHING Alex Baumann's 30 year old record to win the BIG BOY race!!! Next up was the 50 back, Heidi went in 4th and swam ANOTHER best time and won the GOLD. The cheering at the Island bench was fantastic and the performances in the pool were awe inspiring. The competition tank is incredibly fast and if the kids can get a lane they are almost guaranteed a great time.
Now we are looking forward to day 3...we aren't even half way done yet. Hopefully we can get some more kids into finals over the next 3 days.
That's all for now, good night from Montreal!

Day 2!! Here is some of our swimmers on their way to the pool, just waiting for the subway. I forgot to mention that the subway carries over 1 million people a day!! Yesterday Rebecca refused to touch the handrail on the escalator saying that it was disgusting, I then offered her $10 to put her tongue on it...weirdly, she refused! Caroline thought it was a great deal and wanted me to extend the offer to her!
These are the starts of the 100 free in the girls' pool. We have: Sarah(lane 7), Caroline(2) and Maddie(2).
The kids are on their way back to the pool for finals where we have 8 swims. Luke and Keegan in the 100 free, Alec, Finn, Will and Peter Brothers in the 400IM and Heidi and Peter B in the 50 back.!! GO ISLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's it for now, off to prep for dinner so we can watch all the racing and still feed the kids at a reasonable time tonight!

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of seeing the pool where our swimmers are competing, here is a couple of pictures of it from the stands. This was during finals tonight. The next picture is of Heidi with her bronze medal for the 100 fly, we let Cindy get in there too...no it is not photo shopped, that is really how beautiful the place is. Heidi also achieved her senior time with that swim. Okay, it might seem a little biased that I only have a picture of Heidi but Neil forgot to bring his cord to download his photos and he has all of the podium ones...there are a lot from there as we got 4 medals from our swims today. Luke is our first National champion after winning the 1500 free for 13 and under boys. Peter Brothers won the bronze medal in the 1500 free and the silver in the 200 back for 14 yr. boys. Heidi's bronze rounded out the night's haul. Peter Inches ended up 4th in the 200 back for 15 yr. boys and Cassandra grabbed 5th in the 50 breast for 13 yr. girls. Our finals swims were all best times by the kids. We had a great cheering squad with all the Island swimmers up at the fence during the races.
That's it for now.

Well the meet has finally started...Day 1!!! Both coaches are happy with howtheir groups swam their first session.
We have 4 kids in finals tonight: Heidi in the 100 fly, the Peters in the 200 back and Cassandra in the 50 breast. It will be a quick trip to the pool tonight with our races starting at 5:30 and finishing by 6:20. I have a quick little shout out to Ian, who in his first national level meet went a 2.5 second best time and ended up 17th in the 200 back!!!!
I will take some pictures tonight and try to post them.
Hopefully someone is reading this so I know I should keep doing this.

Today we got the kids to the pool for a swim and so they could have a look at the venue. Luckily, they got a couple of lanes to get themselves a good swim in. After having lunch they rested and then went for walk around and a little shopping, some of them caught a movie. Tonight we are having ribs for dinner and then they will have an early night since some of them have to be at the pool at 7am tomorrow.
The weather has been pretty ridiculous today...the morning was cloudy with very light spits of rain then this afternoon we had torrential rain with thunder and lightning. Betty-Ann and I got stuck in old Montreal for quite awhile waiting for it all to stop. Now it is beautiful and sunny so we are hoping that sticks around. The temperature is very nice too, maybe 20 degrees.
I hope we can still update once the meet starts but I can't guarantee anything!

On our way!

We are on our way to Montreal, the first leg of the trip is over and now we have a wait of 2.5 hours in Calgary...this is with a 48 minute delay! Most of the team is on this flight and we will meet up with the rest of the crew tonight.
Traveling today we have: Cassandra Purdon, Maddie Powell, Sarah Mabee-Hall, Heidi Bradley, Emily Choi, Egor Peshkov, Jessie Ogden, Ian Schoeddert, Lisa Su, Peter Inches, Noah Charlton, Finn Page and Luke Polson. We also have Neil, Cindy and Betty-Ann with us.
After arriving, the kids have all scattered to eat a nice breakfast of high quality foods...Subway, A&W and Timmy's.
Now all we need to do is find them all again before we load...