"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." ~Lin Yutang

Monday, July 25, 2011

today and yesterday and even the day before that

i'm breaking this into three posts i guess.  one was just too long!  i'll start with saturday (the day before that)
saturday morning bright and early, i took the kids down to see my parents and my sister and brother-in-law.  the purpose of the trip was two-fold though.  adejay was invited by my thrill-seeking, adventurous parents to go on a week-long rafting trip with them and their friends.  the river they float is in the middle of no where and protected by the wildlife-protection-people to be a pack-in/pack-out area.  there isn't supposed to be any trace of people on it.  i haven't floated it, so i can't tell you if that's the case.  the only pictures i've seen are of people being sprayed to the high heavens with white water while they dodge rocks with their raft through the river.  i haven't seen litter in the background of the pictures mostly because it's all white water!!!  i'm totally stoked for adejay to get this opportunity.  i'm going to be praying like a crazy mama though that everything goes very very smoothly because when you're that far away from everything, even little things can go very wrong. 
a couple of years ago my parents raft flipped.  they got out and were fine, but the raft got plunged/stuck to the water up-side-down and ALL of their stuff was inside the up-side-down boat... after hours of all the men pulling and pulling and pulling on the raft there was success of getting the raft back to land but, everything my parents had brought (sleeping bags, clothes, tent, EVERYTHING) was soaking wet!  for pretty much for the rest of the trip they had to deal with soggy everything.  unfortunately they don't even camp in one place long enough so that their things could dry out.  they float during the day and sleep at night.  and they're in the mountains, so the night air isn't a "clothes line drying" type air. 
anyway, like i said, i'm really excited for adejay and i'm sure she'll make the most of the fun and adventure.  but, i am a little nervous for her.





it was good to see my parents and my siblings for the day on saturday.  i don't go down there very often, so it was fun for the kids to hang out at their grandparents house for a change!  we made some cookies for the trip and then we all went swimming at a local hot springs that we all love. 
i love to swim.  i love the water.  i usually introduce my babies to swimming and to the pool as soon as the outside pools start opening up the summer after the babies are born.  i don't remember when jones was introduced, seeming that he was born in the summer!  but usually it's about 3-5 months old.  i really want my kids to share my love of water and never have that fear that a lot of individuals have of water.  water is FUN!!!!!  but, having 4 kids that are all familiar with water but none of them are independent enough to just let loose is kinda stressful in a pool full of people!  aleemay is really almost independent.  and if we didn't have all the others to teach i'm sure she could've had it down last summer if not the summer before.  she strokes and kicks and is just learning to come up to breathe.  jones is my scaredy cat.  he finally gave in last year and decided he wanted to swim like a shark.  so he learned everything last summer and he's ready to start learning the strokes.  boo hasn't had much of a chance to get a swimming lesson.  she usually just rides on whoever's back will hold her.  she's my only one that hasn't liked to get her face wet.  it's totally my fault for not exposing her more to the pool... but with only two arms, i can't do it all!!!  she still loves the water and is pretty daring.  and then i have my little starboy.  wow!  he is READY to swim!!!  he'll dive right in and splash splish splash!  he also LOVES (with hearts on both sides) to float on his back with his head on your shoulder.  (loves it!)  he would be the perfect candidate to learn all the aspects of swimming this summer, if only i had six more arms!
we came home late saturday night and all i wanted to do was sign the kids up for swimming lessons.  here's what i found though:  most places won't really do lessons for anyone under 4.  lots of places offer "mommy and me" classes for 3 y-o (boo), but no real swim instruction especially for babies.  so, i think that sucks.  and i wish i had a pool (and six extra arms.  well, 8 actually) so that i could offer some lessons and get my kids taught at an early age.  i think it's easiest to teach them while they're still too little to touch anywhere.  as soon as they realize they can put their feet down and touch the bottom... why learn to swim then?!  anyway, so that's my swimming soap boat...  :)
go HERE for what happened on Sunday or HERE for what happened today.
Try to remember, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." 

1 comment:

Nicnic said...

i find it strange/stupid that they only offer classses to 4 and up...what is up with that? the younger they learn the better!