Summer Activities

Since school was cancelled for the Summer, we have those 'extra' funds that we decided to use towards some fun activities for the girls. Brooke gets the main benefit from that, since she is old enough to do most of the activities and camps and such.

First off, we decided to enroll her in gymnastics over the summer. They are once a week classes that run throughout the year. The plan is to let her take the classes through the summer. She is really really loving it though and already (since she started mid-May) has gotten a lot out of it!

She just finished up the last class in karate for a few weeks (another session will start in a couple weeks if we choose to re-enroll her). Her teacher spoke to me after class and told me that (her words)...Brooke is really too smart and too advanced to stay in this preschool class now, that she'd really like to see her in the "real" classes in the evenings since she has mastered everything she can in this class. Which is nice to hear....but the evening classes are more involved and therefore a little more expensive too, so I don't know..... **sigh**

Here's a short video showing her getting hit in the head......not. :P

And the girls have both been in swimming lessons. For Brenna, its just a waterbabies class, but she had the time of her life! She loved every second and asks to go swimming every single day now. She actually does do all the swimming motions all the time, goes under water by herself and loves jumping in from the side.

Brad mainly went with Brenna to most of the classes... It was nice daddy bonding time. That way I got to watch Brooke while he and Brenna were in the water at the same time across the pool. Here she is pushing Daddy underwater...

Here's her underwater picture from class...

And the last day of classes they let any of the kids go down the big slide that wanted to. I don't think they expected any of the ones in the waterbabies class would go, but of course, Brenna was definitely up for sliding! She wants to be big so bad! And she is so adventurous!

As I mentioned, Brooke was on the other end of the pool for her lessons. They lasted two full weeks, once a day every day. When she started she would not even get her hair wet....mainly cuz she hated any water in her eyes. When she finished, she was going underwater regularly, going down for rings, floating on her back, and basically swimming with her face in the water. The instructors had yet to 'let go' of her, but she was definitely there! I couldn't believe it. She even went down the slide! (and that's monumental in itself b/c she doesn't typically even like regular slides) So, she got bumped up to Preschool Level 3 class. Therefore, she is now re-enrolled doing a second session in that class for these two weeks. She is doing well again and we are so proud of her! We didn't re-enroll Brenna, though, so shhhhh!!! We have to keep it a secret so she doesn't get jealous of her sister getting to go swimming every day. :)

Here's a quick video of Brooke going under searching for rings. This was taken a while ago, during her first week in Preschool 2 class and now she is about to start week 2 of Preschool 3. On Friday, in fact, she was going under and getting multiple rings at one time! And swimming for longer periods with her face in the water the whole time. She's becoming quite the fish! :)

Next week begins Vacation Bible School for both girls and later in the Summer I think Brooke will go to the local high school's drill team camp for little kids. So even thoughwe started with nothing to do this summer we have become quite the busy little bees. :)