Jump in, the water's fine

This is a small portion of the pool at Downey High School Aquatic Center on Brookshire Blvd. It is home to the Downey High School swim team and water polo team and the Downey Dolphins swim club. It is also the pool that the city uses for summer swim time that is open to the public.



They just happened to be having a swim meet at the same time I came by to take a shot of the pool.

It's official—it's summer

The summer solstice is so many things. It's the longest day of the year, and the shortest night. It marks the official start of summer. School is out. Our traditional overcast "June gloom" mornings are pretty much over and the pool becomes a refreshing afternoon choice.

But I always feel a touch of melancholy while I enjoy this day. For the rest of the summer, each day will start a little later, and end a little bit earlier, until once again, the nights become longer than the days, and summer is over.

Backyard splash

Don't get me wrong, I love the rain. But on days like this, when it feels I've somehow teleported to Seattle, I miss the summer. I went back in my pictures and found this one of my cousin jumping in the pool trying to perfect his cannon ball. My brother's underwater camera was the hit of the 4th of July party.

Underwater fun

During the summer, the pools around Downey are full of splashing, playing and fun. On the 4th, we had a pool party to celebrate our Independence Day and I brought an underwater camera to the festivities.

Swim meeting

Many activities happened at the USA Swimming meets this past weekend. Swimmers like Olivia Aguirre, pictured here, swam to have minimum time requirements for other swim meets. Olivia enjoys the sprint lengths of 100-meter freestyle and breaststroke but will swim longer lengths if her team needs her.

Also at the meet were concession stands of energy drinks and the latest in swimwear among others.



It takes a lot of volunteers to put on a meet this size and the ones in the administration tent were very helpful in giving me a background of the meet and making sure I was legitimate before letting me take pictures of the activities. If you are interested in having your children be involved in organized swimming, contact our local swim club, the Downey Dolphins.

Guest Blogger, Steven Mansell

USA Swimming comes to Downey

Imagine, 2 days, 1500 meters of water, parents behind you screaming to "focus and stick to the right and watch the girl on the left", swimmers ages 5-18 all waiting for their turn to show what they can do.

This is the USA Swimming meet and Downey High School is holding it this time. For more information, click here.

Is it really the first of October?

We've had an unusually cool summer this year—until last week when we had a record-breaking heat wave and the temperature reached 109°F. (A typical Downey summer day is in the 90s, and most of this summer we rarely got to the 80s.)

The payoff for suffering through this heat wave (I know, it was only two days) is the opportunity to enjoy a pool party on the first day of October.