swim – mauter.com

Entering the world of swimming

Samantha loves to swim. I’m not sure how that happened because she was terrified of the water for several years. We had some good lifeguard swim instructors from ages 3-5, and she slowly began to enjoy the water. I had no idea just how much she would enjoy it.

At the end of summer 2014, she was so sad to say goodbye to our neighborhood pool. We had been bouncing around at sports, so we decided the next sport would be swimming. After calling around and ending up at the Y, we started in this weird world of swimming.

We go back to our neighborhood pool during the summer, but we have been swimming twice a week for 2 years now. It’s great exercise and she enjoys it. I finally convinced her to try a swim meet. She loves being timed, but was afraid of the competition from some reason. After much convincing, we finally made it.

She had a blast. She only swam in four races (a 25 m of each of the strokes) but she did come in 1st in her heat during two of those races. Lots of fun. She wants to try more of the smaller meets. What an interesting world.

Swim Team

I try to encourage an active lifestyle for the girls, although I don’t do a good job myself. We have been trying to find a sport for Samantha since she was 2.9. We’ve tried 3 sports so far, but none have really been her thing. However, each summer, we swim and swim and swim. Lots. She loves it. Because she has become so confident this summer, I decided to give swim team a go for the fall. We are already doing soccer, but I keep telling myself that soccer is only 8 weeks…

So, off we go to the pool two or three times per week. She likes it so far, but she is in the lowest group while she is working on perfecting her strokes. She can’t wait until she gets her swim cap.

Meanwhile, her sister is a trouper while being drug around to all these after school activities. She can find the best of most situations. She, on the other hand, discovered gymnastics at a very early age, and has been smitten. She would probably be smitten with dance too, but I don’t have the courage to let her do more activities yet. We still need to add piano lessons to the list.

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.

annaelsa

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!
rogerday

The girls have spent lots of time on this:

ferriswheel

And even got to ride on one of these:

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 Lessons

Samantha is deeply afraid of getting her ears wet. In the bath tub and, now that it is summer, in the pool, this presents a problem.

We started swimming lessons last week, and she made significant progress in the 3 days of lessons. We will continue this week in hopes of solidifying her independence in the water. Let’s just hope the weather holds out.