Swimming Fun

While away for 2 weeks the kids spent a lot of time in my parents inground pool.  They love, love, love the water.  Eventually when the time is right, we too will own a house with pool so the kids just have to go out the back door to get to the pool.  Both kids are fishes.  After watching Emi this summer I am seriously going to be looking into a toddler swim class so she can learn to swim.  At my parents house she was crawling along the edge.  She also kept stepping off the last stair to touch the bottom.  The problem was the water was over her head if she stepped down.  But did she care?  Noooo!  She thought it was hilarious.  We also had a get-together one day with the kids' cousins and friends.  And about the time we were wrapping everything up, a thunderstorm hit.  It was a great afternoon and I'm looking forward to next summer when I will be home for good spending more time with my family and friends.

My mom swimming with the kids.

My cousin Rob's kids S & E.  They are really cute kids.  S looks like his Grandfather (Rob's dad) and E is the spitting image of her father.  I always tell Rob that E is him in a dress!

Laila's 1st Birthday

While up in Indiana the kids and I were able to celebrate my niece, Laila's 1st birthday with her.  In all honesty it was planned that way.  I wouldn't miss Laila's birthday.  It's hard to believe that a year has flown by.  My parents within 2 weeks or so last year had 2 new grandchildren.  Laila loves cake and couldn't get enough of it.  We loved watching her eat it.

Week in Michigan

With the exception of last summer we have spent at least a week up in Michigan at my parents "summer place" up on Clear Lake.  It's nothing fancy.  Just a permanently parked trailer with a very nice deck in a great setting.  Eriks attends camp for a week at Garezers, the Latvian Camp there.  We love it there and are waiting for our own trailer space to open up so that we don't have to room with my parents anymore.  Cell phones rarely work there and forget about internet.  It's a very peaceful and relaxing place to spend a week unwinding.  Eriks has a great friend also named Eriks that he has gone to camp with 3 out of the past 4 years.  They would've been together again last year if it hadn't been for Lane's adoption trip during camp.  Next year they will be together again and they can't wait.

Eriks has a 1st while we were there.  The Friday afternoon after camp was over, my uncle M who has a boat took Eriks tubing for the first time.  He is hooked.  He loved it and I loved watching him have so much fun.  Unfortunately, the silly mommy forgot her camera and has no photo proof.  I'm still kicking myself.  There's always next summer!

Here are some of the photos from our week in the woods.

Emi found a woly worm and loved it.  She loved having them crawl on her hand and up her arm.

Eriks and the woly worm climbing up his arm.  If you look back at my old blog you can find a similar photo.  It's a tradition we've done every year up there.

Her future's so bright, she's gotta wear my cousin's shades!

Singing at camp with some of the other kids and counselors.

Eriks and his friend Eriks and K.

Being silly with Eriks's sister A who is Emi's new buddy.  A is 4 months younger than Emi and they will be at camp together next summer!

Dancing in the rain.  We actually ended up stripping the kids down to their birthday suits, grabbing the shampoo and soap and giving them a shower!  They loved it!

Pool Play Date

The Thursday before we left for our vacation which was 3 weeks ago we had a pool date with Miss Briana and Lisa.  It was a great day as the sun was shining and the temps were perfect for staying cool in the pool!  Lisa and I bought our girls the same swimsuit without each others knowledge.  When Lisa posted some photos of Briana wearing the suit either on her blog or Face.book did I notice that I had bought Emi the exact same swimsuit.  Guess we both have good taste!  So we both (without discussion) put the girls in the same suit that day.  I'm sure there were some people at the pool that thought that the girls were sisters. 

Emi had a blast.  She loves the pool and it is impossible to keep her out of the water.  Once school starts I'm going to have to look into some sort of Aquatots swim lessons for her in hopes that she might be swimming by herself next summer.  Briana has become a great swimmer!  She's been taking lessons this summer and her teacher is great and it shows. 

Here are the photos from the afternoon.  Enjoy!

Emi has the greatest facial expressions.  You never know what she'll do next with it!

I'll be playing catch up so look for lots of posts over the next few days!