Swimming in the Summertime!

Swimming lessons are a great part of childhood. The warm sun and cool pool, the fun teachers and classmates, and finding a love for the water make summertime the best.

I knew I wanted to get Logan and Samantha started in swimming lessons this year for a few reasons. One, it's a good skill for the kids to have just for safety reasons alone and it also makes the water more fun to play in. And two, I knew I needed to do some kind of structured activity with them this summer just to get us out of the house! I am admittedly a homebody, but don't want my kids memories of summertime to be watching movies all day with the fans blowing. Not so much fun for them...

We started lessons on July 6th and finally ended 6 long weeks later on August 14th. (I say long weeks, but truly, summer has flown by in so many other ways -- as usual!) The first session was the roughest for me because I could only get Samantha into one time slot and Logan into another. So we were there from 11:15 AM to 12:20 PM. Thankfully the next two sessions they had classes at the same time!

Rebecca and Luke came with us every day and I transported them around in the double stroller we've been borrowing from my sister-in-law Kathy. What a blessing that was! Luke and Rebecca didn't really like staying in it the entire time (especially the first session) so I let them out often enough. I had to make sure I had a fully stocked diaper bag and lots of snacks (despite the no outside food rule the pool has) to keep them entertained.

Of course, on more than one occasion, my rambunctious not-quite-three-year-old would make a break for it if I took him out of the stroller and looked away from him for more than two seconds. It's not always fun to look like the idiot mother scrambling after her child, but oh well. Rebecca escaped once or twice too. I do my best with them, I swear.

I also brought chaos upon myself a few days. One day during the first session we got out of the house without the diaper bag! I freaked out and then remembered that the Lord had blessed me enough to make sure that my bishop and his wife just happened to be there with their son for his lessons. I asked them to watch Logan while I dashed home and to make the transition from Samantha's lesson to Logan's. They did and I was beyond grateful!

Another day Logan left the house without his towel, so after I got the kids safely to their teachers, Luke, Rebecca, and I zipped to Kmart for a lovely new striped beach towel. It is so huge that little Logan is swallowed up by it. It will be great for the beach when we get back to California someday though, so I'll forgive him for forgetting. :o)

Grandma and Grandpa Wilkins came and visited us here in Montana during the kids' third session of lessons. Grandma came with us three times and Grandpa got to come once, too. It was fun to share this with them and I appreciated the help!!!

When next summer comes I'm sure I'll try to get them going in lessons again. Luke will be old enough next year and that will help! For now though, I'm glad we did it, but so glad it's over.

Samantha loving the water

The kids often played a game called "Mr. Shark! Mr. Shark! What time is it?" Mr. Shark says a number like "3 o'clock". Then everyone circles their arms forward into the water and steps forward 3 times. Pretty basic, but fun for the kids. Here's Samantha's turn.

My darling water boy

Logan was a fish and loved his lessons!

Luke at the pool on a day Ross got to come with me so I was actually able to take all these pictures!

Rebecca was a sweetheart at the pool most of the time. The time I wasn't paying attention she was trying to back into the pool like she'd go backwards down the stairs. Whoops!

Logan going down.....

down........

down the slide!

Whee! Let's do that again!





This little video isn't the best quality, but amusing to me. It's hard to tell, but the teacher was being "Mr. Shark" and Samantha and the little boy in her class kept wanting to run away from Mr. Shark instead of doing "shark arms" toward their teacher before she finally said, "Lunch time!" and they are supposed to run away. Oh well. When you're seven and you've got the giggles, sometimes you've gotta just go with it!