Summer 2014

On Friday, August 1st, I thought to myself, “Whew.  I made it.”  Months in advance, I have to plan out the summer, arranging for camps and activities for the kids.  We are on the home stretch now, as the last week of summer is Mom Camp.  More on that later.

We started the summer with the Balloon Glow.

balloon

And some dress up from the favorite new movie.

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We’ve done A LOT of this:

Spool

In fact, Samantha learned how to jump off the diving board this summer.  It’s about time.

This one, on the other hand, has been doing it (with her float) for a while:

Epool

She has had a few lessons this summer, and might be a fish, just like Samantha.

 

We haven’t done enough of this:

lake

We’ve also seen most of the children’s shows at the library.  Samantha got picked to be a volunteer in every show that made requests. This one was Billy Jonas.  It was a new show for the library, and what a wonderful surprise!

billyjonas

And we couldn’t miss Roger Day!
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The girls have spent lots of time on this:

ferriswheel

 

And even got to ride on one of these:

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And because we didn’t already have enough going on, we scraped the popcorn ceiling off in 4 rooms.

ceiling

 

I think that about sums it up.  I didn’t intend to let the whole summer go by and not post.  Hopefully, this summer in pictures captures it all.  School starts next week!

Swimming

We’ve been doing a lot of swimming this summer.  There is a community pool about a mile from our house, so getting there is easy.  We have been going to this pool for several years because it was the babysitter’s pool, and they offer lessons even if you are not a member.

This year, I tried all summer to get lessons, but it hasn’t worked out so far.  However, since we go 3 or 4 times each week to the pool, the girls are doing great!  Sam has learned to swim underwater, jump in, and tread.  Ellie jumps in (she did it before Sam), is a great kicker and uses her arms a good bit too.  She still uses a float, but likes to practice with a kick board.

What’s funny about Sam jumping in is that she stands at the edge of the pool and holds her nose.  As she jumps in, she lets go of her nose.  She only jumps in at the shallow end, so her head is not going underwater.  We’ll see what happens if she gets water up her nose.

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We’ve had a great time at the pool all summer even though we’ve had a record amount of rain.  Like I said, it’s so close to our house that we can easily come and go if it rains.