A Lotta Swimming

We were packed and ready to go...and we waited and waited and waited for Patrick to get home from work. Onto WI Dells! Some of the pictures are clear, some are fuzzy with sunscreen, steam, and water (I might've tossed the camera into an inch of water saving Hadley, fortunately both she and the camera are OK). 

We traveled with Mike, Suzie, Simon, Peter and some of their friends. Poor Hadley was WAY outnumbered, ten boys and one girl.

The Tommy Bartlett Water Ski Show!

My kids both fell asleep, we took turns carrying Finley (up hill) out of the amphitheater. He's not really awake. 

Our condo had three bedrooms, lucky us we had a bunk bed.

Water slides...I like the facial expressions.

The lazy river, my kids liked it and so did I. The green tubes were perfect, the front hole was netted so even the littlest could be lazy. 

Waiting for the giant bucket to fill...

...and a giant spill.

Finley followed a natural progression through the water slides. On the first day he stuck to the kiddie slides (the really little ones) and the lazy river slide (about as lazy as the river)...

...then he moved up to a mid-sized kid's slide...

... then a group slide...

...until finally a big slide coming down face first!

After he went down it once, he went again and again and again. From left to right it's Easton, Spencer, Heidi & Finley.

Hadley also enjoyed the littlest slides...

 ...and the fun kinda stopped there.

She did NOT enjoy the group water slide in the pitch black tunnel.

Finley was very sweet after the traumatic experience.

She wanted Uncle Ryan to take her up the mid-sized slide...

...but she didn't actually want to go down the slide (it looks like he's yelling at her, he wasn't)...

...he set her on and down she came. She didn't seem to enjoy it, but she did try it again (kids are weird like that).

We didn't swim the whole time...Finley loved that he could drive the kids' go-karts on his own.

Hadley rode shotgun.

Mealtimes were crazy-ness.

 

The Wilderness Resort's Moose.

Bumper boats were fun...

...until I was attacked.

Water basketball with the big boys.

Lazy river with Grandpa.

Tube slides.

And just playing. The kids were in the water 90% of the time.

Hadley was rescued once by me and once by the lifeguard. Grandma was watching her and she walked right off the edge into the lazy river. The set-up was a little deceiving, about ten feet over the water was six inches deep and the littlest had been jumping in. But where she stepped in, the water was 3.5 feet deep with a current. Fortunately she did it right in front of a lifeguard that quickly snatched her up.

Nighttime snuggles.

The original Wisconsin Dells Ducks.

She takes care of her Nolan.

It was a great weekend!  Thanks Mom & Dad for taking us all!

 

After a full weekend of swimming, Monday kicked off our second week of swimming lessons. The kids swam in back-to-back classes, so Hadley & I hung out while Finley swam, then we flip-flopped.

Finley was in Level 1, they worked on swimming a few body-lengths (front and back), jumping/submerging and floating.

I was incredibly sad that it was my last parent-tot swimming class. Never mind, I will NOT miss this at all, I want to sit with coffee and watch. Since I was swimming too, there was no one to take her picture in class. But we did fine :)

Finley passed in all areas except swimming on his back independently. Without mastering the back floats, he'll need to repeat his class. I'm hoping to get him into Level 1 again this winter, so hopefully next summer he can move to Level 2.

Even though Finley didn't pass class, I cannot get over what a difference a year makes. We stayed for free swim a couple times and he showed off his new tricks. He is jumping off the edge - like way off the edge. Last summer he'd only jump in holding onto the wall...

 ...and he's swimming with his face in the water!

Finley had his annual eye exam, his vision has stayed the same. That's great news because it's not going to get better, so staying the same is better than getting worse.  His 'good eye' is 20/20 and his 'blurry eye' is 20/100.

Finley has had glasses for two years already and amazingly he's never broken them. Dr. Jackie said that's almost unheard of for small kids, especially boys. But, he's grown a lot and his current pair of frames are too small. We started shopping for new frames. This cute nerd came with us.

We tried on a few pairs and we're going back tomorrow to finalize our order - he likes one pair and I like another. The clinic was getting in new frames, so we'll check those out before one of us compromises our choice.

Rachel & I are fully into our training plans, we completed our first 20-miler.

Training is (almost) a team sport. When we're running for threeish hours, I need help with the kids. Grandma kept them overnight so we could run at 4:30 a.m. Lucky her - it was the same night the other three were there too.

Summer is starting to wind down. I'm hoping to get the kids' rooms finished, they have vacation bible school this week, Patrick & I are flying to Indiana on Friday for a wedding, we have a couple play dates planned and next week we'll be starting to prep our classroom. Ugh, it makes me sad to think about starting the school year routine again, this time with my own school kid at home.

My weekend was kid-free with a group of girls. We ate good food, had a few fancy martinis and like all mom-only outings, we talked about our kids ;) And if my kids knew I'd been swimming without them, they'd be totally jealous.