Clifford Can SWIM!!!

Where we live, there's an indoor pool/spa as well as an outdoor one. The outdoor one is closed for the season, so we're taking full advantage of the indoor one. The last couple of days Pete has been working with Clifford to learn how to swim without using his floaty devices. After about two days of doing this, Clifford can swim!!! (well, he still has a long way to go to be "super good" but it's still great). He's fearless!! He runs and jumps in. He loves doing cannon balls. And he'll even jump in at the deep end and swim all the way to the stairs. Pete tried to teach him how to dive. After a few tries and just doing belly flops, we decided to give up on it and try again in the future. Today we went swimming and there were 3 boys at the pool. Clifford watched them for a few minutes and then decided to go jump in the pool himself and try some of the new "jumps" like the other boys were doing. This time I remembered to bring the camera. I got a few video/pics in before Clifford came up to me and quietly, but firmly said "mom, don't take pictures of me". That's when I realized that Clifford was "embarrassed" of his mommy taking pictures of her little boy. Pete and I just laughed.

We also worked on teaching Kristjan how to swim. Kristjan is a "big baby" (we would never say this to him though)-he prefers the hot tub where it's warmer. Kristjan was wearing the other swimsuit that has floaties built in to the suit. So we worked on him swimming in the pool. He would only use his legs and not his arms-though he was fast in the water; he'll have some strong legs if he keeps that up. He didn't like it much, so after about 10 minutes we let him go back in the hot tub. We'll keep working on him. Pete's going to work on editing the videos and then we'll put them on.

A Great Weekend

This weekend so far has been so enjoyable and relaxing. Yesterday here in Lynnwood it was in the 70's and sun shining! After Clifford came home from preschool the boys' were outside just about all day. We started at the playground here at home. After Pete came home from work, we put shorts on and walked about 10 minutes to Martha Lake. It's a kewl little lake where you can fish off the dock, take a boat out on the lake, a playground for kids, and a section of the lake roped off to wade/swim in. The boys went straight for the water (pics to come later). We even saw a mamma duck with all her little baby ducks-so adorable!!! We were there for a little under an hour, then made our way back home. Pete went to work out in the weight room while the rest of us headed back for the playground. For dinner, we bbq'd some delicious burgers and lounged out on our patio.

Today it was cloudy and a little rainy, so we felt like going for a hike!! We went back to Meadowdale Park. I love the hike-it's short and simple for the kids (although Kristjan cries and whines at every hike we do). The kids played in the sand, and pete and I walked around in the sand w/o our shoes-so relaxing. Clifford and I took a mini-walk on the beach. We felt so bad for this one guy-his boat was tied up close to shore, with the boat practically submerged in water!! (pics to come later) He said the boat started filling with water all of a sudden and they had to jump ship. Everyone who came to the beach (and those out in boats on the water) had to come over and take pics. Poor guy.

Finally

we took kristjan in for allergy testing (found out he's actually suppose to have one every year, so that's good to know). talked with the doctor, who explained a few things. With the answers from the doctor we found out that he can actually eat pecans, the one and only nut he did not react to, and that there is a difference between ingestion and topical contact with the nuts that he is allergic to.