Campers Return

Jamie and Caitin spent the weekend camping with Grandma and Grandpa Astle, and look what kind of monsters we got back:



OK, well the facepaint was all us (a reward for being good while away), but they have never had a pillow fight before, and this one broke out spontaneously. I think they got some coaching while they were away!

Sarah and I had a great time in our quiet house. It was sweet to just go do whatever we wanted without planning around the kids. But it was great to see them again this afternoon and to have their laughter and scheming to deal with tonight...for the most part.

Wakeboarding Coach

Recently I've been coaching my friend Adam along in his wakeboarding skills...

He seems to be making good progress. Since he didn't quite land that backroll at the end, I decided to show him what he did wrong:

Just one of the sacrifices us coaches have to make!

Ballet

Near the end of her gymnastics class, Caitin was getting tired of the practices. But she did want to try out ballet. She's had three or four ballet classes now (out of eight for the summer), and she's loving it. We had our doubts, but she has made new friends and is having a great time.

Near the end of each class they play a game called "Sleepy Butterflys". Whenever the music is playing, they practice the moves the teacher calls out, and then when the music stops they fall asleep. You can see Caitin loves her new friend Heidi.

Swim Lessons

This was Caitin's first time off the diving board. Another mom was bribing her daughter with a churro from Costco.  I told Caitin I'd give her a dollar...it worked!

Here she is doing the "doggie" stroke

I was really proud of this.  She went down the adult slide and even ended up using her swimming techniques to get to shallow water.  Her teacher wasn't there in time to catch her.  The look on her face when no one was there was like, "Oh my gosh, where is he."  She hit the water and the rest seemed natural.

Jamie was in her first swim lesson this year.

This is her class playing Ring Around the Rosie.  They sang "Ashes, ashes, we all blow bubbles."

I am really proud of them both.  They have never been scared of water but Caitin used one of her new techniques to save herself, and Jamie got over a little fear of putting her head in the water while doing a bob. 

Gymnastics

We're proud of Caitin. She completed a year of gymnastics, and seemed to really like it. She particularly liked doing the dance routine, and this summer has chosen to try ballet.

These clips are from her final show last week.