Live Laugh Love...with The Souza's: Coaching…and a bit more.

Last week was just a regular week…but for me it was a great week. I now have a lot more time to enough “stuff” again, Swim Season is OVER! Before Owen was born, Yosh and I were coaching 3 different sports together (Boys polo, Girls polo and Swimming) while teaching and trying to have social lives. In the summers we were at Roosevelt from 9am until 8pm Monday-Thursday coaching water polo. We were actually at the pool SO much, we would bring our “baby” Ando to the pool, gate him in the office so he wouldn’t be lonely…it was like a second home to us. It was so tough starting a program from scratch, but it was super awesome to get to do it by my hubbys side. Yes he can be a scatter-brain at times, but his patience, determination and passion for the sport has truly paid off!!! A lot of people don’t realize how hard it is to open a brand new high school and start an aquatic program from nothing. I get anxiety even thinking about all the stuff we had to do back then…Thank GOD that part is all over with now. We definitely would not have been able to make the Mustangs Aquatics successful without Ann Diamond. She is the woman behind the scenes and we would be SO lost without her. But anyway.. don’t get me wrong, I love coaching and being with the kids…but this season was a tough one after coming out of “coaching retirement” to help out with the JV swim team. I felt so nervous and “rusty” at the beginning of the season. I hadn’t coached swimming in 2 years. But of course, it was like riding a bike…once I got to know the kids, everything was great!!! I wasn’t able to commit to full-time coaching…I can’t handle being away from Owen every single day and evening…just can’t do it. So thankfully Tim Martindale stepped in to co-coach the Boys and Girls JV teams with me. But last week was the JV’s last meet of the year. Was bittersweet. I feel like the kids were just starting to get into it, wanting to break season records and just be better and it was all over. I hope we challenged the kids enough and they found a 2nd love, of swimming!!!

The Souza Family…at the pool, as usual…but we’re together!

I said in our Spring Break Week 2 blog that our boat was having some difficulties and we thought it was the starter. Since we have never really worked on the boat ourselves, Yosh and Kris Gerke thought it would be a great idea to bring the boat to our house, park it on the side of the house and work on it themselves on the weekends. Pulling the boat took Kris’ “big truck” (and $370 in gas one way!). Once the boat was in front of the house, I panicked a bit…TOTALLY not sure if that boat even would fit on the side of the house…and if it did fit how the heck were they gonna get it over there. BUT Kris Gerke impressed me once again…got it there on the first trY!! Good JOB GERKE!