The Second Week of our Second Summer Vacation

We continued with and finished our swimming lessons last week and the boys both passed off their classes.  Elliott's class only had two kids in it, and his teacher told me on the 4th lesson that he was not only going to pass, but that she was going to bump him up to the next levels class skills.  Sweet!  But, Wyatt passed!  He had been at the turtle level once last summer, and all this summer - that's three times a turtle.  But, this time he had a guy teacher, Andre the hairy gentle giant, and this guy got Wyatt doing swimming skills he's never been brave enough to do.  It was fabulous and amazing.  I think in the future, I'm going to either request male teachers for Wyatt, or do a private or semi private lesson for him.  He just did phenomenal this round and I was so proud of him.  Quinn?  He was not so excited to just sit and watch this round and we did a lot of walking around the pool, and a lot of trying to run away from mom and jump into the water.  But, I always managed to have enough gold fish to keep him busy for most of the 40 minute lesson.

Luckily, we didn't have to deal with too much rain during our second week off track (but we still had quite a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday), and the weather was nice and cool.  For this off track period, I let each of the big boys pick an off-track activity.  Elliott's was during week 2 and he picked the Tracy Aviary.  We hadn't been since Wyatt was two, and he said his favorite bird was a dump truck, so it was good to head back.  We had fun, saw some cool birds and the weather was great.  Quinn was a little upset that we didn't see anything besides birds, but what are ya gonna do?  Can't please everyone!



During this week, Elliott started a goalie clinic run by REAL salt lake for his soccer league.  He thinks he wants to be a goalie.  His dad thinks he needs to run and kick.  Hopefully Elliott, his dad and his coach can find a happy mix between all their goals.  (ha, that's a pun!)



Also this week, we did a "secret project" with mom, and the boys and I met cousin Jenn (cousin Matt's talented wife) at the International Peace Gardens for a kid and mom photo shoot.  I'll write more about that later, but the pictures turned out great.



And, what time off track would be complete without completely stir-crazy and exhausting boys.  Thursdays are always our rough days, and even though we spent the morning getting our pictures taken, the afternoon needed to be busy - and we spent it doing science projects.  I made goop out of cornstarch and water and we made homemade lava lamps with water, oil, food coloring and alka seltzer.





Now, as I'm writing this in the middle of week three, I am so tired.   I love my kids to the moon and back, but they wear me out like nothing else.  That's another blog post, too.