outside stuff

Hope everyone had a great Independence Day weekend!

As for June...
Did I mention that we've been going to swimming lessons for four weeks at the Aquatic Center in town? We had never even been there until the housing party there last summer, and didn't realize we could do free lessons until all of our neighbors told us about it this year. (No, they're not free for everyone, just us special people who are poor, sorry.)

We should have done this years ago, because it took most of the first week just to get Josh to stop crying at having to be in the water, and he wouldn't put his face in the water or try to float until the second week of the second session. Now he'll probably forget it all, since class is over and it costs too much to go there and free swim.

The only way his instructors could get him to come in the water and be happy, was to give him one of the baby squirt toys...and let him squirt his teachers in the face. Repeatedly.


The one day I had Joseph bring the camera, there happened to be a substitute teaching his class. She actually got him to try a lot of things, but still had to endure his maniacal squirtings! But look- he's letting her lay him on his back in the water! Really, this was the last week of class, and the first time this had happened.



Elora had absolutely no problems. She kind of pretended that she was afraid to jump in the water (a lot) but she loved it. She was so proud that she could dunk her head completely underwater and move around too! This was her teacher for the second session. All the classes were about this size, three to five kids.




A funny story about Elora's class. There was a boy named Jackson in her class. The first week, he asked her to be his friend but she said "no" because she was embarrassed. When she told me this story a week later, she said he had looked down and acted very sad when she didn't say she'd be his friend. I suggested that she should ask him to be her friend, and she was worried about this for days, before she finally did it.
She was soooo excited to tell me that he had answered her query, "Will you be my friend?" with, "Sure!"
After that, she often stood in front of him grinning and not saying anything. I told his mom this story on the last day of class, and she said he hadn't told her that story, but he had said he " liked Elora in his class because she was cool and not mean."
Four-year-olds are so funny.

Jonah got to have swimming lessons too! We did the waterbabies class together. The first session there were only three moms, but the second class had about ten. He loved scooting off the edge of the pool into my arms, and while he didn't like dunking, he didn't usually cry either! What a big boy!


The first two weeks, he wouldn't kick his feet no matter how I held him. He would just hold perfectly still while I moved him through the water, kind of like he was superman gliding through the sky. But the second session, he suddenly caught on and was kicking like mad! He liked swimming after a toy, but his very favorite day was when daddy came in the water with us because we were learning to pass the baby underwater. He was kicking his legs like mad, "swimming" between his mommy and daddy and squealing with delight.


So we went swimming almost every morning throughout June. I think July will be pretty boring without it! Here are some other fun things we did in June.

Josh got a kite for his birthday, and we got that to fly finally, after I figured out the string was coming through the wrong side of the kite (it only took me an hour).


We also made some kites at a housing activity. They were fun to make, but keep falling apart and the tempura paint is flaking off everywhere, so I'm discretely throwing them away one by one. Hey, at least we flew them once first, right?

Elora roasted her first marshmallow all by herself this month. We had some of our own, but she preferred the gigantic pink marshmallows provided by our neighbors for her first foray into roasting. Yum!



Josh and Elora tried out their first slip-and-slide, a birthday gift our neighbor friends were kind enough to share. What's funny about this picture is that Josh had his swimming suit on earlier. He got soaking wet and wanted to go in and change. As expected, after he was fully dressed, it wasn't too long before he was sliding again and even wetter than before! This isn't Elora with him, its his favorite friend, Audra.



Jonah has enjoyed some time in the swing set out back...



and wanted out a few times too.



Elora has enjoyed walking Jonah around (as well as carrying him) even though she's told not to do so every five minutes or so. He can take 3-4 steps on his own now, but Elora still insists that he needs her help to get anywhere. Doesn't she look so big next to him?


Summer is just going by so quickly at our house!