Swimming Lessons

Since my little girl loves the water and has no fear of just jumping in, I decided that swim lessons were in order this summer.  Luckily, my cousins teach a class at their house a mile from my house, so no grand research project was in order.

Emmy loved all the attention and getting to swim like a big girl with Kayela and Kelley without her puddle jumper.  She may not have gotten super high marks on following instructions, and there were a few meltdowns over the course of the ten lessons...but we weathered the storm.

This was the first day when Kelley was teaching Emmy about using her "cups" to move the water.



Emmy wasn't super excited about putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles at first, but she caught on in no time.



These two were great at working fun games and breaks into the lesson.



She practiced floating as well.







Her kicks weren't strong enough in the beginning, so she needed to drill that skill.



She loved holding her breath and going underwater.



And then popping back up to scare us.



Eventually she was even swimming under water a little.





With plenty of breaks to jump into the pool.



These two did a fantastic job with Emmy this summer, and I can't wait to see how she changes over the next few summers because we will definitely be back! :)

Dance Moms: Season 1

Because Julie and I are glutton for punishment, we decided that we should enroll Emmy & Abby in a two day dance camp here in town.  In theory, it sounded like a great idea.  For $25 dollars, the girls would get to go to dance camp for two mornings and leave with valuable dancing experience and a t-shirt to boot.  Needless to say, that is not exactly how it went down in reality.



They were probably a little too young for an undertaking like this, so we spent both mornings feeling embarrassed by our two bad little divas that ran around the dance studio while everyone else participated and followed along.  In fairness to the divas, the class had children ranging from three to 18, so it wasn't as if anyone expected the fifteen-year-old kids to be running around the room.





They sure knew how to rock snack time though!



Back to goofing off!



The people were all very nice, but in the end, we decided to put everyone out of their misery and we left early the second day and took the girls swimming.



This is definitely more our style.







For now Dance Moms: Season One is on hiatus, but there  may be a new show on the horizon.  Stay tuned for Gymnastics Moms: Season One on a Facebook feed near you soon!

SeaWorld Summer: Trip 2

We headed back to San Antonio for our second trip to SeaWorld.  We filled up the church van and Jake's truck, and we got to the park a little after opening (which is big for us!).   The kids were really excited, and I was super excited by the semi empty parking lot that we were met with.  I don't know if it was the Spurs parade happening downtown that day or the fact that it was an overcast Wednesday, but it was the PERFECT day to be at SeaWorld.  All day long, we walked on to rides, showed up at shows minutes before they started and got good seats, and enjoyed the light day at the park.




The girls took a group photo!



Emmy desperately wanted to ride this the last time we were here, but there just wasn't time.  I made sure it was my first priority today.





Group photo...this is a little out of order.



Emmy and I on top of the ride.  It had a killer view.



Not too shabby huh?  You can see the whole Bay of Play.



Next Elmo and company were ready for photos and so were we!



The morning Shamu show was great.







We met up with these yoohoos right before lunch.





Seriously.  You can't take them anywhere.



After our sack lunch, we went to the dolphin cove to pet the dolphins.  We weren't as lucky today.





It was getting HOT, so we decided to change the littles and let them play in the water.










It was a great day, and we can't wait to go back again soon!