state swim and dive

What an experience! Yesterday, we drove from our beautiful Cambria Hotel to the Natatorium at UW Madison campus. On the way, I realized we could stop for lunch at an interesting Madison spot. Thankfully my phone navigated us to a restaurant called Manna in a humble strip mall near the isthmus of Lake Monona in Madison. It was packed! Retired people, Mom's with small children, university aged students; the audience was varied.

Brad and I split a Chicken Shawarma plate and a bowl of carrot, sweet potato coconut milk soup, Katie had a grilled cheese and Osten ordered an oat pancake with chocolate chips and fruit. I ordered a cafe au lait and Brad had an octane filled espresso. Amazing food and company:

The moment we decided to leave, a couple quickly swept in and helped us bus our table so they could sit in our spot. Very popular place and now we know why!

Then we drove to the Natatorium--parked and found our spot in the venue. We all were so excited to show the new posters we made and signed the poster the Baar family made:

We hung out with Connor's family including his fun grandpa Waco who took a fun photo of Osten and Anders:

Then the diving began. Anders dove 8th of 16 divers. He looked strong and athletic in his performance. When they started diving in order of last place to first place--Anders was diving third. He kept his position when they announced the final scores--Anders placed 13th of 16 and once the scores are published, I will share. I was yelling loudly when they announced yesterday, so I didn't hear the official score.

After the meet, we tried to meet up with Anders, but there was a huge rush of people who arrived to see the swimming portion so we exited while we could. On our drive home, we stopped at a Pizza Ranch near the Dells and I slept pretty much the entire ride home.

Thank you to Brad for being our chauffeur and to the kids for being great sports on our adventure.
Biggest Thank You goes to Anders for his achievement of making it to state. It was a thrill of a lifetime.