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We took lessons from the same place this year. An old swimming coach in the area has a team of college swimmers that meet up at someone’s pool and teach the kids to swim. It is everyday for a week. The first day, there are LOTS of tears. We went through that last year, but luckily no tears this year.

By the end of the week… every kid there is swimming. Its not always pretty, and its definitely lacking some coordination. But at least they could probably swim to the side if they fell in. In fact that is one of the first lessons they teach, if you fall in, turn around and swim to the side.

By the end of the week, Ava was swimming across the pool. She’s been a fish at our pool ever since. She’s now doing handstands on the bottom of the pool, diving for diving sticks, and just swimming her little heart out.

And Olivia did great too! This was her first year and I had to really push a little to get her in. They don’t like to start them until they are three. I explained that she really NEEDS swimming lessons because she thinks that she CAN already swim. She will walk right up to the edge of the pool, and jump in… only to promptly sink. Luckily, we know this and haven’t let her near the edge of water without us there. But if you have met this little spit fire, then you know that there needed to be another plan.

So, we convinced them and off she went. Her little doggie paddle swim under the water is about the cutest thing EVER, so I will have to get some video up for you.

She really lucked out since she was the youngest; she got the head coach to herself the whole week (pink hat). Since her lessons she jumps in and swims her little heart out at our pool. Finally, something that can wear her down!

Well, at least the heat brings summer gardening. We are doing MUCH better this year than we did last year. We have tomatoes, peppers, beans, lots of herbs, chinese spinach (which does great in the heat), and squash. The girls are really having fun picking stuff. In fact, a lot of it doesn’t make it inside… we just sit out there and eat it.

The Zoo is one of our favorite places to visit, and they recently added a nice new water pond and train. Add that to a new baby elephant, and an awesome dinosaur exhibit and it is hard to believe we haven’t been there in months. Even though it hit 99 degrees before noon, we managed to sneak in a quick visit before heat stroke set in.

Baby Baylor is a new attraction. Only a couple months old, he is so cute. The zoo has had a lot of trouble keeping baby elephants alive. They are very susceptible to an elephant specific form of the Herpes virus which is easily transmitted among the zoo elephant population, and still somewhat of a mystery. Our zoo has lost several baby elephants, and Baby Baylor was named after Baylor Hospital since they are working hard on a vaccine for the virus. In any case, he was just about a cute as a human baby.

The dinosaur exhibit was fun too. There were lots of life size dinosaurs that had some animatronics. It makes you realize just what a small feat we would be against these guys, a little snack really . Poor little Olivia was half frightened, but so intrigued that she couldn’t look away.

We took a long weekend recently and finally went to San Antonio, which we have talked about doing forever. We had a BLAST! SeaWorld was so hot, so crowded, and still so fun. I forgot how amazing that Shamu really is. And, the rest of the time we hung out at the hotel. Swimming, floating the “lazy river” and just being lazy ourselves. It was a really, really great time.

See this oh-so-grown-up ten year old lovely little lady on the left? Well, Dave and I moved into her old neighborhood located in the deep desolate heart of Eastern New Mexico on the day that she was born. It was one of our first moves as a young married couple. We were a little shell shocked for many reasons. Tiny little dessert town, one of our first assignments in the military life as a married couple, I had left my first “real” career job for our move, and we were far away from any resemblance of family and friends. And while Eastern New Mexico will never be near and dear to my heart, this little girl and her dear sweet family are.

Because, although it reminds me just how fast time is flying and just how much older Dave and I have become… it also reminds me of the wonderful power of good people and good friends, especially in those places you need them the most. We really became such great friends with her parents that they are still treasures to us today. We had BBQs and block parties, camp outs on front lawns, and lots of late nights hanging at each other’s houses watching football, cooking, eating, celebrating holidays, and just being each other’s family in a place where it was easy to feel lost. We went on ski trips and vacations, played huge practical jokes on each other (which should be the subject of another much longer post), and generally had a blast. I’ll never forget our long walks around the neighborhood, or watching the night sky for shooting stars and satellites.

We really enjoyed catching up with them recently in a trip to SanAntonio, where they are now stationed. Their family and ours has grown considerably since we were all together (yep, that would make SEVEN children between our families), and we didn’t get much time to catch up in between chasing offspring… but that’s OK. We just picked up right where we left off, like all great friends do. It was wonderful to see them, even if just for a day.

You know when something comes with a hardcover BOOK and a DVD of instructions (not to mention 5 enormous boxes of parts and pieces and one giant yellow slide that completely fills the bed of a Texas-sized pick-up truck) your weekend project has just turned into a month long project. And that’s what it was…for Dave.

I can honestly say that I didn’t really help out much on this one at all. I helped pick out the placement of the new swingset, and I helped hold some boards together a few times. But other than that, one parent had to keep the tiny screws and bolts out of Mia’s mouth and keep Olivia from trying to climb the new rock wall up onto our fence so she could scale the barricade to the neighbors. And really, Dave and I undertake projects in two TOTALLY different manners which is really not conducive to working together on major installations such as this. So, I just hung back and offered my support, constant encouragement, and distraction services to our kids to keep them out of his construction zone.

And clearly that was the right move, because in all honesty, I could not have built this thing if left to my own devices. I would have gotten frustrated by the 2,898,873 different parts and pieces and INSANE installation instructions that were meant for civil engineers. But Dave did great, hung in there, and built a damn good swingset.

We got out the swimsuits and the grill this weekend. It was HOT and humid, and my sisters were in town. What a fun day! The kids are still small enough to be thrilled with the inflatable backyard pool, which means we can kick it in the lawn chairs with cold beers. Here’s to summer!

While Helen and Michael were visiting, we decided to go strawberry picking. It was great fun, but we were a little over ambitious in our endeavour. 30 lbs later… I was making strawberry jam and strawberry waffles and strawberry smoothies. They were in anything I could possibly throw them into for awhile. So yummy… but so done with the strawberries!

We added some new friends to our garden. Ava and Olivia loved playing with them before we set them free. I thought that they might last a little while, but 1000 ladybugs actual disappear VERY quickly! House on fire, perhaps?

There are two main seasons here in Texas. A brief short winter that consists of one (or maybe two) months of rain and cold. And SUMMER… no description needed (sauna anyone?). Spring and fall are usually an afternoon or two in between the two extremes. But, they are lovely and we had to take advantage of our spring when we could!