Just Keep Swimming

 Since the girls got to have so much fun with the bridal shower-- it was only fitting that the boys got an afternoon adventure.  They got lunch and went to check out Black Ridge Reservoir.  

I do not enjoy swimming in non-chlorinated bodies of water.  But such is not the case for Abe.  He completely LOVES lake swimming.  

The boys had such a great time adventuring, that they decided to take it up a notch...

... even as I write this they are do an overnight backpack trip in the Unitas-- Long Lake to be specific.  Faith got in on this outing.  I'm sure they are having the time of their lives!  I am quite enjoying the one-on-one time I've had with little Greta.

We celebrated Peter's 6th birthday this week!  Our celebration was rather low key, but he was quite happy. 

He got a remote control car and geodes.  I recognize it's lame to buy geodes rather than going out into nature to find them, but you know, you do what you can do when you can do it:)

Fancy, huh? 

Blessed, blessed perler beads!  They get all over the house and are kind of pain to clean up, but they are so worth it because they entertain for endless hours.

 Faith is quite prolific with the perler beads.

Fun for all ages.  Greta has fully entered into the posing phase of picture taking:)

It's like she has older sisters or something.

Oh my.

One of my favorite moments of the week was when we finished reading aloud The Magician's Nephew.  Spoiler alert:  At the end of the book we find out why the wardrobe is magical in the following book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  George's reaction was awesome.  He kept saying, "My mind is blown!"

These kiddos and I had a so much fun going swimming several days this week.  Today Elinor and I took Greta.  You can only go for a 2 hour session, but that's really just about the perfect amount of time.  You leave still totally enjoying it. 

One without masks because it's nice to see faces.

 Peter and Greta made tremendous swimming progress.  Peter was jumping off the high dive and swimming across the pool by himself.  Greta is officially a swimmer!  It's not pretty and it makes the lifeguards nervous-- but she makes it and she loves it!

She does an adorable inchworm, bum scoot kind of kick.  So her little bum keeps popping up out of the water. Elinor, our resident swim teacher said she had never seen that kind of kick so effectively executed:)

Here is the video of her swimming half-way across the pool to Faith

 

Here is George in slow-motion doing his front/side flip.

And here is Peter off the high dive.  Fun fact: Bethany is the lifeguard on duty.

It's pretty sweet right now, because they can only have 100 people at the pool.  Normally capacity is up to 450!  Which seems like an absurdly high number.  I don't think they usually have that many, but it does get really crowded in the summer.  So this is heavenly to have so much space.  Also it was great fun because Bethany worked every day we were there and we know lots of the lifeguards and they know the kids.  So there are fun back and forth teasings between the kids and the lifeguards.  Cannon-- obnoxious 12 year old that he is, systematically went through all the posted rules by the diving boards-- ever-so-slightly breaking each one.  I'm so proud.

Also, may I just give a shout out to all the moms with lots of young children.  Dude.  I HATED taking all my littles to pool.  So overwhelming and stressful.  Nowadays it's a completely different experience.  I have lots of big kids to help.  My youngest is 4 and a decent, albeit scary to watch, swimmer.  Different ball game now than it was ten years ago.