NO JUMPING

I find these pictures hilarious because of the sign that says NO JUMPING. Chloe and her swimming pals, Leah and Camryn, are jumping in the pool on the last day of summer before school started. We ate lunch at the pool that day and they had a fun time.








Owen and Phoebe had fun too, but didn't do any jumping in the water.




We'll swim this weekend for Chloe's pool party (it is supposed to be cold which has me stressed out about her party), and that will be it for swimming this year. Goodbye summer.

High Dive

This summer Chloe has been going off the diving boards at the pools. She has never had swimming lessons, but taught herself to swim, and has always loved the water. Swimming is her favorite summer activity. We usually go to our little country pool, but sometimes we go to the town pool which has a couple diving boards. This week we went to a different pool about 30 minutes away. It's a much bigger pool than we are used to, with a slide, a mushroom of water, and two diving boards. One of the diving boards is pretty high. Chloe and her friend Camryn were brave enough to jump off of it on Monday when we were there. It made me so nervous, but I'm proud of Chloe for being so brave (and Cam too). (I wouldn't jump off that high dive for $100!)







Here is the summer pool crew! Front: Sophie and Carolee, Middle: Owen, Leah, Phoebe, Back: Camryn, Chloe, and Joseph. When we first started our summer friend swims, we only had two kids between us. Now we have 8. (When we went into the new pool this week they asked me if we were a daycare!)



Owen with his friend Carolee. They have a love hate relationship. ;)



And this pic is for Mindy because she said it was good blog material:



Thanks for the great summer, friends!

Father's Day and First Day of Summer

We had a fun day on Sunday. We went to church and in the afternoon we celebrated at Mom and Dad's with a cookout and swimming. My Dad assumed his role of King of the Grill (as his apron says)and made us his famous fries. He deep fries them outside on a huge fryer. I'm lucky to have the best Dad in the world, and not just because he makes great fries. We camped out in the backyard on Saturday, so we were tired and napped some after the cookout. A great day. Too bad every day isn't a Sunday.

Swimming in the rain

The kids (mainly Chloe) have been wanting to go to the town pool. Because according to Chloe, everyone goes to the pool. Which, to her credit, many of her friends do go very often. We used to always go to a little country pool that not many people went to. A couple of my friends and their kids met us there and all was well. Now I apparently am going to have to parade my chubby self in a bathing suit in front of everyone we know. Now that Chloe is older, our summer swimming is changing. She wants to be dropped off at the pool. That strikes fear in my heart. Our country pool has five foot water. The town pool has ten foot water at the deep end, and gasp, two diving boards. Also there are rules that Chloe has laid down for me to follow. Like, no embarassing her and no putting sunscreen on her at the pool (has to be done in the privacy of our home).

Yesterday was a sunny day but we were busy and the kids were bad at the store yesterday morning so I said if they couldn't be good we weren't going to the pool. So we didn't go. I said we'd go today. Well, today was cloudy and gloomy. We went anyway. It drizzled rain. Then it rained hard. Then it thundered. So our day at the pool lasted about an hour. But they were satisfied with that. We are busy the rest of the week, but hopefully next week we'll hit the pool a day or two. Hopefully in the sunshine.

Phoebe wearing Chloe's goggles:



Owen in his new diving gear. Never mind he hardly gets off the steps. He wore it in the bathtub last night. Then this morning as soon as he got up and went to the bathroom, he put it back on, then went back to bed.




Oh, these two.




No pictures of Chloe, because that would be embarassing if I took her picture at the public pool. There are rules, you know.