And more swim meet

Since Benjamin passed his "ENF3" level last month, that means he can now compete in "real" competitions, rather than only the in-house ones organized by his club.

Can you imagine trying to practice in this? I told Frédéric it looks like a fish farm. Kids were everywhere!

Benjamin swam the 100m medley (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and crawl), the 25m backstroke, and the 25m crawl.

He didn't win anything, so he was a little disappointed, but he figured out that he's going to have work harder to place in the top three, and learn to take some constructive criticism. So he's been working harder on his technique since the competition.

He did beat his own time in the 100m medley from the in-house swim meet, which was great!

Swim Meet

Noah joined the swim team in January after he completed his last round of lessons, so this was his first swim meet. He got a swim team towel along with his medal, because he had the distinction of being the team's youngest swimmer this time around.

Even with different-colored goggles, they are kind of hard to tell apart at the pool. Maybe we need to find more distinctive swim caps.

What do tornadoes look like at night?

Have you ever wondered what becomes of a tornado once it's all spun out? Wonder no longer:

 

Gymnastics and Montataire

Benjamin had a gymnastics competition in the town of Montataire. He did a great job, and his coach was happy with his performance. We love watching all the progress he's made!


In between his part of the competition and the awards, we had time for a walk around town. We saw the Jubilee Fountain, the church, and the cemetery.

Is this what they call a fixer-upper in France?

And we were treated to this lovely moon on the way home.

Vocabulary Lessons

The boys are great at inventing words... here are three of my latest favorites:

Homme à bulle :

[literally, bubble man] Benjamin's pronunciation of "somnambule," a sleepwalker. When he figured out we were laughing at his pronunciation, he corrected it to "homme à boule" [literally, ball man]

Eparpouillé :

From the verb "éparpiller", "to scatter", comes Noah's latest favorite, which seems to mean the same as the original, but it can apply to "scattered" behavior as well.

Contagionner :

[the act of being contagious] Like when Benjamin tells Noah, "Ne me touche pas, tu vas me contagionner !" [Don't touch me, you will contagious me!]