Summer Starts...Finally!

Whew! After vacation, I need a vacation! We've been home almost two weeks and I finally feel like we've recovered. Now that we're home, it's time for story time, swimming lessons and a new addition: day camp. Every day I take Aiden to the bus stop and he is taken to the park. At the park, he plays with his friends until I come with Avery for swimming lessons. After lessons, we all eat a picnic lunch and then stay for free swim until about 2:00. This year, Aiden has lessons in the big pool, but since he's a year younger than all his friends, he doesn't know how to swim yet. At first he wouldn't even get his head wet, but then I said he couldn't go in the big pool during free swim until he knew how to swim. Now, two days later, he can use the paddle board to cross the pool and willingly dives to the bottom to get rocks his teacher has thrown. I estimate he'll be swimming in two weeks! Avery, on the other hand, has "keep-up-with-brother" syndrome and can do everything Aiden can except dive to the bottom. We've also been planting veggies: peas will be ready soon, but we'll have to wait for August to eat tomatoes and peppers. Hopefully, the strawberries will thrive and we can have some of those too!

Karate Boy Demonstrates Proper Usage of a Family Independent/Co-Dependent Play Device

Fig. 1: "the zip line"

Fig. 2: "the slide:

Fig. 3: "the swing"

Zip...Zip...thud...Zip!

Felix rigged the zip line with a handle-bar made out of c-pvc pipe and two elbow joints...Aiden spent the rest of the afternoon launching himself from the top of the slide and down the line. There was only one small mishap, and it scared Felix and I more than it did Aiden. As Aiden launched himself, his hands slipped and he landed on hands and knees on the ground a few feet below. He was fine, but my heart skipped a beat!

Karate Boy

I was originally going to post only pictures of the zip line on the swing set, but I found these pictures as well. Family day was on Thursday and Aiden chose Avery as his guest. She did pretty well, but Aiden had a hard time. He wanted her to do everything perfectly...Avery just wanted to punch stuff!