This past week held a few sort of spontaneous situations:
Situation #1: The kids started swimming lessons. I’ve been saying that we needed to get them into lessons, but the situation never felt right. Then a friend of mine, who does one-on-one lessons, opened up another session. I signed the kids up with her and it’s been so great! We’re only one week in (they have one more week to go) and they are both doing…swimmingly. 😉 Joseph has gone from being only comfortable with standing in the water (he has never liked putting his face in the water) to swimming with a bit of help across the pool. Abigail has gone from screeching like a banshee to being more comfortable in the pool.
Situation #2: since we finished paying off the car that Paul primarily drives, we have been researching vehicles to replace the family car, since it was starting to get up there in age (we didn’t want to miss the window for still getting a decent trade-in value). The problems we were running into were lack of inventory and higher APR rates. Paul watched the rates and when they started getting better, we started looking for cars. There were a couple that we thought we might get, but with one, we found out that it was pre-sold (the salesperson we were dealing with didn’t realize it). With the other, it ended up getting sold because of a miscommunication between two salespeople. Another one popped up and we talked about it briefly and then hurried down to the dealership to buy it before it got sold. It was stressful for a bit (is it ever not?), but we got it accomplished!
Situation #3: We decided to take the kids out to the Hill Country for a kind of quirky family field trip. Out in kind of the middle of nowhere is a replica of Stonehenge…along with a couple of replicas of the Easter Island stone heads. We took the kids out there to check it out. It was rather hot, so we didn’t stay long, but we did tell the kids that we might go back another time when it wasn’t so hot (there’s no admission fee, so we didn’t lose out anything there…and the drive through the Hill Country is almost always pleasant).
I never know what’s going to happen next in this house. I was in my room reading when this ball of awesomeness waltzed in and started serenading me with her party blower (a prize from her swimming teacher for surviving her lesson).We have had quite a few baby pumpkin plants sprout up around the front and back yards because there were pumpkin seeds in our compost that apparently hadn’t fully broken down. We’ve pulled up almost all of them (because they were in the middle of the yard or in other plants’ pots), but we left this one alone to see what happens (since it’s already in a spot where the grass isn’t really growing and it’s not smack in the middle of the yard). The kids helped me with dinner on Thursday night. We took a loaf of French bread, sliced it, and turned it into mini pizzas.Adding cheese to the pizzas. It was her idea to make sure she was properly dressed for the situation. At first, she was putting little tiny pinches of cheese on.She realized that was going to take a super long time, so she switched to handfuls.Putting on the toppings.Into the oven they went!A bit of steamed broccoli on the side makes for a delicious dinner!Our new ride: a Mazda CX-5.Joseph using the paddle board to swim across the short end of the pool.Then he used the paddle board to go across the long way. At the very end of his lesson, my friend had him swimming using arm scoops (so kind of like a doggy paddle, but with his face submerged). This is my kiddo who has never liked putting his face in the water or even getting splashed in the face. He has made so much progress this week!Abigail learning to glide. She struggled with putting her face in the water, but my friend kept working with her. We want her to be able to not be freaked out in case she were to ever fall into water, so submerging her face is a must. By the end of the week, she was no longer screeching/crying. It helps a lot that my friend has a small canister full of little prizes. Abigail picks her prize out at the beginning, which really helps with motivation.Learning to float. My friend will help her float and sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. It would help her calm down after having to be under the water and also teach her to spread herself like a star in order to float.The replica of the Easter Island statue. Both kids got a little statue from the gift shop to bring home.Hanging out by Stonehenge II (that’s what they call it).The boys.Someday I do want to travel to England and see the real one, but this one was pretty cool to get to see.
