We are so blessed to have a homeowner's assn pool in walking distance!!  Here's our typical schedule these days.  Kids get up dressed into their bathing suits (I have almost NO laundry this week because they have pretty much only worn their bathing suits.  Think I can keep this up long term?).  We do a little work, a little play and go over to the pool for EF's 10:30 swim lesson.  While she is having her lesson, the olders & Aaron are in the "baby pool", a 1 ft deep wading pool.  By the time we get home, it's time for lunch and naps and usually a movie during the hottest part of the day(getting conflicting reports about how hot it's actually been.  Yesterday yahoo weather said the high was supposed to be 94, but the current temp when I checked said 106 it felt like 121??).  Then it's back to the pool for the olders 4:00 lesson.  By the time we get back, it's time to get dinner cooked and eaten.  Then usually back to the pool in the evening for fun swimming with Dad.  We're back in time for a quick shower to rinse off the chlorine(though at this point, I am pretty sure CJ will need a haircut at the end of the season to cut the chlorine damaged hair), a little reading aloud from our current Little House book, The Long Winter(ironic, huh?) and it's off to bed!!!  Additional good news:  Kids are sleeping so well because they are exhausted by the end of the day from the swimmng & heat.  Slightly bad news:  We've been going through food like crazy because they are always starving!

I found this baby boat and AF is having a blast swimming in it every day.  The baby pool is 1 ft deep so he can touch bottom making it more of a walker!  We do have to keep an eye on him though as he has tipped it over a couple times leaning too far over and yesterday he was so relaxed he rested his head on the side and fell asleep!

EF has had swim lessons for the last two weeks and has come a long way in a short amount of time.  My 3yo can now put her face in the water, blow bubbles, kick and jump in off the side.  She's doing this funny thing to hold her breath where she sticks out her belly, scrunches up her face to hold her breath and falls into the water.  AK's swimming has much improved too.  We are hoping that he will complete a lap in a swim meet without his instructor swimming with him by the end of the season.  He's pretty close.  CJ has learned how to backstroke in just a week.  At last week's swim meet she got stuck about 1/4 way through her lap and the instructor jumped in and held her head up so she could finish.  On Monday she was determined to figure it out and by the end of our evening swim had done 5 laps of backstroke!  It's amazing to watch her when she sets her mind to learning to do something (Hopefully that will carry over when we start school in two weeks:) 

Tomorrow is another early swim meet.  Every parent is supposed to volunteer for 6 hours during the season and I haven't really done any yet because it's been enough work for me just to get them to their heats on time.  And honestly I didn't want to do anything where I was going to have to stand in the heat (snack bar), yell at the kids(heat seater) and I don't know much about swimming so I didn't think I could be a stroke/turn judge or other official.  After watching all the different jobs the last couple weeks I think I figured out the best job for me - data entry!  It's the person who enters the times into the computer to keep score.  I get to sit inside because the computers need air conditioning and outlets:)  I tried to sign up late enough that my kids heats should be over so I won't miss anything and BW can then just take them all home to eat lunch and nap.  I'll let you know how it goes. We've got two more full weeks of swim team(2 Saturday meets) and then we'll have to go back to our mundane lives where we may only go to the pool once a day or even every other day (gasp!) :)

Despite putting 50 sunblock on each day, the kids are all tanning except for AF who is going to be my fair kid but hasn't burned at all.   

-J