Annual cousin swim 2012

After having no plans for the first 2 weeks of summer, things started to pick up last week. Katy and David went to VBS for the first time. Our church doesn't offer VBS, but our friend Stephanie invited Katy and David to their church, where they'd be in class with her kids Brooklyn and Maddie. I have such fond memories of VBS from childhood, I was excited for them to go. (Bonus - it's a daytime VBS, which I prefer so much to the evenings!)

So they had a great great time, except for one little hiccup that I anticipated would be a problem. Every morning opened with 30 minutes in the auditorium with music, dancing, and...Lord help us...a skit. As soon as I heard the word skit I knew we were in trouble. And yep - Katy was a bucket of tears. I got her calmed down and the she loved the rest of the morning. That night she got all worked up about it and we had a really good talk about her fears. She worked up her courage and made it through the next morning without tears (covering ears and eyes), but guess what? She had gotten David so worked up that now HE was in tears. It wasn't until the final morning that they both made it through without crying. But if you ask them about VBS, they'll tell you they loved it and won't even mention the blasted skit. *sigh*

Then we just returned from 4 nights in Kentucky for the much anticipated Annual Cousin Swim. Grammy and Papa John did a fabulous job of hosting the whole crazy crew and cooking lots and lots of good food for us. They are the king and queen of hospitality.

Grammy made an awesome cake for Luke's birthday (and mine and Aunt Kelly's)

Can't believe he's about to be 2!

Whenever we make them get out of the pool? They play Disney Monopoly.

Katy has been enjoying her rollerblades so much that she asked her cousins to bring their skates.

David LOVES his friend Kimmy. He follows her around like a puppy and she is so kind to oblige him.

We took turns pushing each other in the hammock. It's actually really comfy and I could have fallen asleep in there.

And of course there's swimming. These kids swam for hours and hours and hours for 3 days straight. My three reached a new level of exhaustion that I didn't know existed, but they had a blast doing it.

It's always fun to see each kid's progression in the pool each year. David was able to move himself all around the pool with this floatie, even in the deep end (with adult supervision of course). On the last day, he stood up in the shallow end and shouted "I can touch!" Then he explored what that was like for awhile.

There's always great conversation going on among the lifeguards in the shade.

Katy made several big accomplishments this year. She was able to go off the slide into the deep end and swim to the edge without an adult. She could touch in the shallow end and swim well enough in the deep end to get to the side or to a raft as needed. So basically she could do anything she wanted throughout the pool, which was awesome. We always kept a close eye on her, because she tends to get cocky in her ability to swim and I was nervous she'd get tired in the middle of the deep end.

The big kids were holding hoops for each other to jump through and Luke wanted to try. He jumped right through, it was hilarious. He got a lot more comfortable - jumping off the edge, riding around on rafts, playing with his cars in the steps, etc.

And he even went down the slide on Brian's lap - and wanted to do it over and over again!

Rest time!

David introduced the cousins to Cars 2, his latest obsession.

We had such a good trip, thanks everyone! Now that we're back from all that swimming, the kids have 2 weeks of swim lessons at the local pool. They're going to be swimming like fish after all this!