Pools

I decided that this weekend should be all about swimming. My reasoning is as follows: it's July, we live in Texas, and the daily high temperatures routinely hover around 100 degrees. That calls for liquid relief. We haven't felt victimized by the extreme heat that much since we have been traveling quite often this summer, but honestly we needed some pool time just about now. While Scott was away this weekend in Miami, the kids and I had a VERY relaxing time enjoying our local pools.

It started on Friday evening, when we journeyed to our local community pool immediately after I picked up the children from school. I retrieved a cooler from home that I had stocked with drinks and fruit, then stopped to pick up a pizza on the way, and were soon lounging poolside with dinner and entertainment in hand. Amelia ran into a few classmates from school and consequently I had some adult parents to engage in conversation while the kiddos played. Much fun was had by all!

Today was Saturday and Amelia was gone for much of the afternoon on an extended playdate. So John and I took advantage of our time alone to enjoy the pools at SMU. First we went to the outdoor splash pool (a.k.a. the bikini-clad sorority girls' tanning pool) where John delighted in splashing in the cool water and playing in the waterfalls. Then we retreated indoors where John practiced kicking and worked on swimming skills with me.

We have been enjoying our pool time! I hope tomorrow will bring more fun for us outdoors....

Birthdays

Amelia was lucky enough to celebrate her birthday three times this year. Yes, that's THREE times in one year. The first celebration occurred in May and took place at Amelia's school. Kids that have a birthday during the summer months get to select a day in May when they can celebrate their "summer birthday" with their classmates. Celebrating the birthday involves bringing in a treat to share and getting to be the birthday kid of the day. Amelia loved this, and it instigated my first trip to the cookie store in our local mall to order the cookie cake to share with her class.

Birthday #2 occurred on Amelia's actual birthday (July 6) when we were on vacation in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Scott and I trekked 20 miles down the beach to the closest Publix grocery store to order Amelia's birthday cake. The cake had a Tinkerbell design (Tink is dangling down in the photo so is difficult to make out precisely in the photo), and Amelia loved it!



We celebrated Amelia's birthday one night wth all of my family, where John, Amelia, and Jack rivaled each other in terms of who could eat the most cake. YUMMY! Amelia was thrilled.


Amleia's third birthday celebration occurred recently when we hosted a party for Amelia and her friends at ASI Gymnastics. Below is a shot of Amelia and John just before the party started.


This fun party spurred my second trip to our local mall's cookie cake bakery where I ordered a FULL size cookie cake for the young children (you wouldn't believe how big this cake was!). During the party we enjoyed 25 screaming, laughing, and tumbing 5, 6, & 7 year-olds for two hours on a Saturday afternoon at our local gymnastics studio. I do believe that much fun was had by all. Below is a photo of Amelia receiving her special birthday medal from her "party coach".



Happy 6th birthday, my sweet girl!

Gulf Shores, Alabama

We had a great time on our family vacation to the Gulf Shores area!

We spent a lovely week at our rented beach house enjoying the beautiful, warm sunshine and good times spent with family. The children all had fun building sand castles, burying each other in sand, splashing in the waves, and learning to body surf. Scott rented a sea kayak for a change of pace, so the adults had a good time paddling around the gulf waters.

A highlight of the trip for Amelia and John was playing with their cousin Jack, who was a few days shy of turning two when we were in Alabama. Below are photos of the cousins posing for photos and playing together. The leis were courtesy of the grandparents, who hosted a Hawaii-themed evening for us all. They cooked delicious Hawaiian-inspired food and showed us photos from their recent trip to Hawaii in celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary.

I was the one watching over the children the night when thought it would be fun to play in the curtains. Of course, I would never allow the kids to play in the curtains in my own home. But on vacation, well, why not?

Another one gone

Amelia lost her second tooth on Sunday. This tooth had been wiggly for weeks and was long overdue to fall out. This tooth fell out while Amelia was swimming in the indoor pool at SMU with Scott and John on Sunday afternoon, and Amelia proudly showed me the missing slot in her mouth when I saw her about 20 minutes after it happened. Amelia did not have the tooth itself, however, because it had slipped into the water and was somewhere in the pool (oops!). Scott creatively improvised and told Amelia that she could put a button under her tooth fairy pillow in place of the tooth so that the tooth fairy would know that she had lost it, so Amelia didn't seem to care at all that she did not have the tooth in hand.

Once again Amelia left a note for the tooth fairy next to her pillow when she went to bed Sunday night. Amelia's first note to the tooth fairy was very sweet and expressed her love for the fairy. This note was less emotional and was more direct and to the point:

"Dear tooth fairy,

I lost my tooth today in the pool. My mom thot it went down the drain. Will you still give me mony?

Your friend,
Amelia"

I think Amela was still excited to loose a tooth, though this time it was more about the cash (as evidenced by her note). I don't quite understand why the money was so important, as Amelia rarely spends her money. She used to say that she was saving her money to buy furniture for her house when she is older (long story to explain where I think that thought comes from), even though I routinely explain that it is OK to spend a few dollars when she wants a new book or small toy. In any case, the tooth fairy brought her five dollars again, so Amelia was a happy girl.

The.Best.Part.

During our last day in Colorado, Amelia and John declared that the best part of their vacation was riding the alpine slide. For those who have not experienced an alpine slide - a brief explanation. The slide is a track built into the side of a mountain which is normally used for skiing in the winter and the slide is used for recreation in the summer. Customers of the alpine slide ride the chair lift up the mountain and then ride a custom slide down the track, gaining acceleration from the steep decline in altitude down the mountain and from the friction of the slide on the track. Alpine slides are essentially very safe and bunches of fun! Picture a water slide in a fancy amusement park without the water where patrons ride on plastic slides instead. My parents took us on alpine slides during western summer vacations when we were kids and Scott and I rode an alpine slide together during an early-dating vacation to Wyoming nearly 10 years ago. Thus, it seemed appropriate that we would take Amelia and John for their first alpine slide ride in Steamboat Springs.

Photos above are Scott and John on the chair lift up the mountain as well as one I took of Amelia as we were sitting side to side on the chair lift. Look at the gorgeous views! Below is a photo of the track of the slide from the chair lift as we ascended up the mountain.

And look at Scott and John below ready to ride down the mountain! This photo was taken on our second round down the mountain, where the children were super excited about the chance to ride tha alpine alide again! I believe that given the chance, they would have ridden the slide all afternoon. We had a great time!

John

John was a little stinker during certain portions of our trip to Colorado. Though some of his behavior episodes were relatively normal for a three and a half year-old kid, his refusal to cooperate at times was quite annoying to Scott and I while we were trying to enjoy our family trip. John's worst time of the day was generally mealtime. Though he was cranky from need of food, he often did not want to eat what he ordered and then subsequently had a meltdown in whatever restaurant we were eating lunch or dinner in that day.

Towards the end of our week in Steamboat we had a lovely lunch in a Mexican restaurant. The setting was cool in that we were sitting on the patio, which was actually the roof of the second story of the restaurant overlooking downtown. I thought the children would enjoy being able to look down over the activity on the streets below, and Scott and I were excited about the view of the mountains and the fresh air from being outside. This should have been an easy meal.

Here are the kids coloring before the meal arrived (it was relaxing enough at this point that I was trying to snap photos to enjoy the moment). However, as soon as the plates were set down, John started his act. He refused to touch a thing on his plate, and was acting horribly about it - shouting, putting his feet up, throwing crayons to the floor, etc. - really awful stuff which reminded me of a child much younger than his age. Now you would think that nachos with cheese and Spanish rice - our staple children's meal at Mexican restaurants (yes, I know this is not at all healthy for the kids but we don't feed it to them often)- would be acceptable in some form, and I offered for him to taste the different foods on my plate as well once it became apparent that he didn't like what he was served. But none of that worked. Our rule with the kids is that they have to try a few bites of what they are served and then they can be finished if they don't like the meal. We don't make them clean their plate or eat a large portion, but they at least have to try a few bites.

So here we are trying to talk to John rationally and make his mood lighter, but nothing is working. John won't eat anything and I am getting really frustrated and embarrased. And then Amelia spouts out what might have been the best quote of the week. Just as John was refusing for the XXth time to try anything (shouting "I will not eat this, mommy!"), Amelia looks at him with all seriousness and says, "Well, good luck getting a treat with that attitude, buddy". The look on her face was priceless.

Scott and I couldn't help but start laughing because she was right on point. Of course, reminding John that he in fact would not get a treat because he didn't try his lunch did nothing to improve his mood towards the food. And as soon as Scott was finished five minutes later he had to take John downstairs to a noisier area of the restaurant so that Amelia and I could enjoy our meal in peace. But we replayed Amelia's comment several times that week as it was just perfect! Amelia knows the rules and was trying to help John, though his stubborness dominated at the end of the day. Later that afternoon John watched as Amelia ate her treat from the candy store next door, while Scott and I were lucky enough to deal with another round of crying and protesting as to why he didn't have his own treat.

As is always the case, there were other days where John was on his best behavior and was completely delightful during lunch. The next day we again were enjoying lunch outdoors at a local restaurant, where John was in a much better mood. Maybe he liked the meal choice better, maybe he was better rested that day - who knows. But he behaved well, ate a good portion of his lunch with little prodding, and even smiled for the camera when I was snapping photos afterwards.

Steamboat Springs

The first few days we were in Steamboat Springs we reveled in the area's natural beauty and tried to take advantage of child-friendly activities that we could all enjoy. Monday we took a gondola ride up to the top of Mount Werner, where we were rewarded with views of the valley below as well as the mountain ranges all around us.




















On Tuesday we took a white-water rafting trip on the Colorado River! I decided not to take my camera on this trip for fear of it getting wet so I don't have any photos to share, but it was a fun trip! We drove through some gorgeous scenery about an hour south of Steamboat to the launching site, and then enjoyed a two-hour trip through Class I, II, and III rapids on the Colorado River. The children enjoyed the rafting trip, especially the parts with "the waves" (the rapids), as Amelia put it.

To round out the beginning of the week, we decided again to enjoy the beautiful weather and visit Fish Creek Falls, a waterfall in a state park just north of town. This was Amelia and John's first visit to a waterfall, and Scott and I had fun explaining why the waterfall was there and where the water came from. Below is Scott and John's "man-style fist pump" in front of the waterfall. The children were excited by the hedgehog that was spotted along the walking trail to the waterfall (the animal is just to the left of Amelia in this photo in the grass). We saw some wildlife during other parts of our trip - mainly deer and antelope roaming the plains on the mountainside - but the hedgehog and chipmunks we saw near the waterfall were a highlight for the children. I think they liked these animals so much because they were close enough for them to get a good view.