Jun 27
Everyone,
This year for summer, we decided to skip joining the aquarium again and use that money to create our own aquarium. We joined a pool! So now we can go whenever we want!
We spent Saturday there. As in, SATURDAY. First, I took Butterfly to her swim lessons (not at this pool) and then we came home and took everyone else there. We stayed until nap time. Which is big for us.
By the end of that pool trip, Pirate was letting go and getting around the pool (with his floaty) on his own. Professor discovered a kick board and was in heaven. And Butterfly (the fish) thrashed around wonderfully.
She even jumped off the diving board by herself. And got herself back to the wall all by herself. I was not in the pool at all.
Wow she is growing up!
So the first thing she said this morning was, “Let’s go to the pool!” The boys piped up after her, “Pool!” So that’s what we did when Daddy came home. We went until it closed. It was awesome. This is going to be so much fun!
What’s not so fun? All the wet towels. And wet swim suits hanging over every door.
Safire
Safireswimming Pool 2011, swimming
Jul 29
Everyone,
Hey look at us on our hand picked (by Flower) adventure of the week. Since we had no power earlier this week, we kind of missed out on a few adventures planned out. This one was not to be missed though. We did this last year and it’s been on the top of our to-do list since Flower joined us in June. Sadly, it’s one of our last things to do with her!
Boy it’s bright out here in the water.
Struggling with 2 boys, their life jackets, and their sister.
Help! The ship is sinking!
And what we did the rest of the day: Butterfly swimming and doing amazingly well, Pirate chasing her, and Flower chasing Pirate.
Where is Professor? Attached to my side like a leech.
So my fingers fell asleep 2 times today with the grip that Professor had on my hands. He REALLY doesn’t want to be in the water by himself. I think he let go 3 times today, to just turn around and anxiously beg, “I got you?! I got you?!”
Pirate, on the other hand, is trying his dog gone best to keep up with Butterfly. He can basically swim all by himself in the life jacket. He can turn, go forward, go backwards and get away from you. When he gets stuck on his back in the life jacket (those jackets are meant to flip you to your back), he can flip himself over and keep on going. Truly amazing, let me tell you.
On the way to the lake it stormed big time. Thunder, lightning, hail, the works. Luckily, the storm broke right before we got to the lake and we had a swimmingly good time.
Safire
PS- Thanks to Lolli for the loan of her camera! I thought maybe I’d be able to handle not having this waterproof camera in my life anymore. But I just can’t. I’m now in the market for a newer version, a Pentax Optio W80 or W90. Donations towards the cause are welcome.
SafireCunningham Falls, swimming lake, Maryland sites, swimming
Jul 22
Everyone,
5 things about today. Ready? Go.
1. My back itches. Seriously I want to rub up and down on a tree like bears do. Itch itch itch itch! Guess that means my sunburn from the beach is healing. Itch!
2. We took the boys swimming at Lolli‘s pool today and they did SO good. So did Butterfly! Pirate can get himself around the pool by himself (and his floaty) and turn right side up when he lists to the side. Professor by the end of the hour or so that we were there, would at least let go of your hands and try to propel himself forward. Pretty awesome for their first time in a big pool. Ever. AND! Butterfly went off the diving board and swam to the side all by herself. I was one proud mommy!
3. I got to hold a new baby today and it felt just SO good. I love babies.
4. I forgot how awesome it is to commute in traffic here. It’s awesome, let me tell you!
5. My underwater camera is dead dead dead. Unfix-able dead. It’s so horribly sad I can’t think about it. But you can check out Lolli‘s blog today and see the cute pictures she took of the boys with her camera that WAS just like mine. Did I mention mine is dead?
Safire
SafireLolli, swimming camera, Lolli, swimming
Aug 01
Everyone,
This is the social event of the year for our ward. We have so much fun swimming in our bishop’s pool and playing with all of his camp equipment. It’s like a mini ward camp. Check out last years visit here. We have gone every year we’ve lived here and I couldn’t find any other time I wrote about it. Huh.
This year I was really excited about taking all the kids there because we always have so much fun. I was worried the night before that we wouldn’t be able to go because of Butterfly’s fever. It was basically gone so we planned on going. Besides we couldn’t miss out on our yearly picture on the alligator!
During the boys’ first nap we cleaned another section of my room. I now have a scrap booking table available to use every day. I’m so excited! I also threw out a big trash bag of garbage, found a bunch of unopened mail (oops) and put more things into the attic. Gotta love this cleaning I’m doing. I hope to have this all done by this weekend.
The party was a lot of fun. We did a lot of swimming. The boys really loved wading around in the baby pool. Butterfly and her BFF Vinny stuck together like glue until his family had to go home. I’m sad he’s going to be going to school this year! We’re going to miss him. I think the highlight of the day was finding a grey tree frog. It was so cute! It had yellow legs and curled up in Juice’s hand. We both wanted to keep him but figured having another creature in the house was just asking for trouble.
Butterfly and I went down the slide again. And she told me again that she didn’t ever want to go down it again. Crazy girl. I had a good time with it! The boys were done walking around the pool a lot sooner than Butterfly was done playing in it.
We enjoyed eating bbq and Butterfly and the boys spent about an hour playing in the sand box. I was able to help out another mom rinse out her little boy’s eye (he is about a month older than my boys) because another kid threw sand in his face. It was nice to help out a little. And it was nice that the boys were so entertained with the sand!
While I helped with the other mom and the kids played in the sand with Flower watching out for them, Juice played street hockey with all the other guys in the ward. You aren’t really a part of our ward until you’ve bled at this game. It’s a serious thing. Juice plays goalie a lot, and this year was no exception. He could also barely walk after the game.
Everyone had baths when we got home to rinse the sand off. That’s when I noticed both of the boys seem to be sporting fevers as well. Looks like our house is sick!
Safire
Safireanimals, Lala and Vinny, swimming, ward activities
Jul 21
Everyone,
We spent the day at Cunningham Falls State park. HOW FUN!
Safire
Safiresights around DC, swimming
May 20
Everyone,
Tonight was Butterfly’s very last swim lesson. The one that they encourage the parents to come and watch (they kick us out otherwise…important I think). So Juice came home from work early and we packed up the boys and our sweet Butterfly to swim lessons.
Guess what I forgot to pack? MY CAMERA.
I was annoyed. And a little sad. I could have taken video of her jumping up and down on the side of the wall! I could have shown you that she is by far the biggest kid in the class. I could have shown you how utterly fearless she is in the water. Instead, you’ll have to use your imagination.
So one of the things that her teacher has them do is jump while holding onto the wall. She jumps as high as she can and makes an impressive splash coming down. The poor tiny kids next to her have no chance. She is completely oblivious to them though and just was to jump “the highest biggest fastest that I can!” (Someone let her see the Incredibles and now she wants to be Dash. Sigh.)
They play ring around the rosy and have the kids blow bubbles at the end or put their face in the water. Butterfly dunks herself every time instead. She comes up sputtering water and looking a little shocked but happy. She even put her face in the water and walked 2 or 3 steps to her teacher today. It was truly amazing.
Juice leaned over and asked if I was hiding some kind of mermaid genes because she suddenly turned into a fish. She really did. She passed everything on her report card (except for 2 things related to floating on backs…I don’t think they even went over that.) and she is cleared to advance to the next class: strokers! We aren’t putting her in that class this summer because I think we are going to try and get her into swim lessons at my mom’s pool. It would give us something to do and it runs every week we are there. She’ll do strokers maybe in the fall or next spring.
She even jumped into the pool without her teachers help and came right back up to the surface. I’m so proud of her. And I can’t wait to go swimming with her!
Safire
SafireButterfly, swim lessons, swimming
Apr 29
Everyone,
This morning, instead of staying home and doing laundry like a good girl should, I went out with my friend Lolli and her son AJ. I thought Butterfly could use some play time so we made plans to go to the resource center. It is so much fun there! They have play dough, paints, toys we don’t have, gravel, lots of blocks, games, puzzles…you name it they have it.
Before we went to the resource center though, we stopped off at the pizza place for free pasta in a bread bowl. Yeah, it’s just what it sounds like. Pasta wrapped in a pizza dough like bowl. It was pretty good. I enjoyed mine. Butterfly wouldn’t touch it but I liked it.
After some good play dough play (Butterfly built a forest with animals in it, very convincing too) and some dot painting, we came home with tired kids. Butterfly’s swim lessons were going to start in a little over an hour so I decided to not make her have a nap. I knew she would nap if I put her in her room and she is cross when she wakes up under 1 hour. So no nap for her.
But, she was good enough to get ready for swimming lessons and very happy to be in the pool. As I was picking her up after her class, her teacher was letting the kids “jump” in the pool. The teacher would tell the kids to get ready, and then basically lift them high and bring them down into the pool. Butterfly surprised her teacher by doing a mini cannon ball into the water all by herself. She actually went all the way under and popped back up by herself. Way to go Butterfly!
I wanted to go take advantage of baskin Robbins 31 cent ice cream today but our local baskin Robbins has closed. I couldn’t think of another one close by so we went with our old stand by, Bruster’s. Plus it was raining so we got our second scoop for free. Yum!
Everyone went to bed tired and happy, which is where I’m off to as well.
Safire
Safireice cream, resource center, swimming
Mar 30
Everyone,
I feel like lately I’ve done a lot of self sacrificing to get Butterfly to do cool things. Since I spent literally all day online to get Egg Roll tickets, I was a little annoyed with websites. Our local town has a website to sign up for recreational activities. It’s just as bad as the Easter Egg roll. But while that one wouldn’t let you in, this one wouldn’t let you do anything.
I made an account for us long ago in hopes that I might take advantage of the fun things our town has. Well, I thought I added Butterfly to the list but apparently I didn’t. And I could not find where to add a person. HOW ANNOYING! Because she was not on my account, I couldn’t pick any classes for her. I hate technology sometimes.
Today was swim lesson registration. I’d really like to get her into doing this because of a few things. 1- It gets her out of the house. 2- That whole safety in water thing. 3- I think she will have a blast! 4- I’d like to expose her to some teacher/class participation. Since she doesn’t go to preschool I think this is a good way for her to get some exposure to that.
Plus, Lala and Vinny are going to do it with us (he has a different class because he’s 5) and it will be fun to hang out with friends once a week. Swimming is always fun! I remember loving swim lessons as a kid and I hope that Butterfly will too.
So, after fighting with their website for over an hour, I gave up. I decided to get up super early this morning and go to their main office and register in person. Lala couldn’t figure out the website either and so we decided to go together. 6am is rough, but do able. I do love the morning air and the little birds singing. Lala on the other hand, hates it. Lala is not a morning person. I was trying to be pleasant to the lady behind the counter but Lala was not. Sigh…
Anyway, the lady at the counter said that they used to have people lined up the door in the old days. They used to start camping out around 3am just to get into these swim lessons. ACK! Why do we allow ourselves as parents to do these kinds of things?! I guess it’s because we want the best for our kids and if we can suffer through a little discomfort then it’s worth it.
Honestly, I don’t think getting up early, getting Butterfly into a class that works for us, and then having breakfast outside of the house without children is much of a discomfort. But I think Lala does.
And now, I have the correct account and won’t have to do this for the next round of lessons. Yay!
Safire
SafireLala and Vinny, swimming
Jul 28
Everyone,
Each year our bishop has a huge ward party at his kid camp. We swim, we eat, we talk, and the men play stick ball. We all look forward to it every year. This year we had another great time. We got there really early (because I thought it started an hour before it really did…otherwise we would have been an hour late) and Juice and Butterfly swam while I sat with the boys and talked to the ward ladies. 
Butterfly came dragging Juice about an hour later and said she was done playing with Daddy, she wanted to play with Mommy. So I went to the pool and sat and chatted with more friends while Butterfly splashed with best friend Vinny. She wanted to play in the big pool so I convinced her to slide down the big slide with me. (My camera battery was dead or I would have a picture…these pictures are from my friend Laura.) So we climbed up 3 layers of webbing and got to the top. I sat her on my lap, told her to be prepared to go under the water and take a big breath and hold it. And down we went! As we hit the water I heard her say, “Ohhh!” as all the air she was holding rushed out. Down in the water we went and she starts to flail. I got her out of the water before I got my head out and she’s trying so hard to get to the edge of the pool. She climbed out as fast as she could and I asked if she wanted to do it again. “No!” We played in the kiddie pool the rest of the time.
I think I ate probably 5 hot dogs. The boys were a hit (as always) and Butterfly played some more in the pool with Daddy after dinner. Then the men played stick ball (in which Juice was a goalie and totally blocked the bishop which was the talk of church on Sunday) and Butterfly played in the playground. I sat and fed/held the boys and talked some more. I talked a lot at this thing and it was so much fun!
We are looking forward to next year’s party!
Safire
Safireswimming, ward activities
Jun 12
Everyone,
My ward (okay, me…I organized it) had a tot pool takeover at our bishop’s kiddie pool. We had so much fun! It was a scorcher day (over 90 degrees with the heat index putting us over 100 that day) but the water was deliciously cool and the kids ran and splashed and jumped and threw things and dug water and played with bath toys, etc. It was a great time.
Butterfly was so happy that bff Vinny was there. And Andrew and Rachel too. I spent most of the time at the pool nursing poor hot little boys who didn’t enjoy the water on their feet. (Those blankets in the picture are just purely for shade purposes.) But I was able to have a few hands free moments. I also dumped Flower off of the big foam alligator they have anchored in their pool. It was a fun time!
PS- Thanks to my friend Laura who took these pictures with her camera that is exactly like mine. 
Safiresummer activies, swimming
