Pool Time: Becoming Fish

If I had to count up how many times we have been at the pool over the past 2 months I am pretty sure it would be close to 50. We have spent countless hours in or around the water by ourselves (rarely), with cousins and with our good friends. 
Anna and I were recently talking wondering if someday the kids would say "Hey remember that one summer that we went swimming all the time" Hopefully next year won't be any different and they can recall multiple summers spent that way as they get older.  Creating memories for my kids brings so much joy to my heart.
Last year we mad a few pool trips and took swim lessons towards the end of the summer. We grew a bit in confidence but finished summer just a little better than where we started. 
Last day of swim lesson August 2014

Last day of swim lessons July 2015

Oh how quickly things change.

Just two months ago Marissa would only go down one of the "baby" slides, wouldn't put her face in water, disliked floating on her back, wouldn't jump off the edge of the pool and could not swim.

Emily, well let's just say she was exactly like her sister only more extreme.

The proof is in the photos (and a video) friends.
Take a look at a few things that happened during our summer at the pool.
You learn how to swim... all the way across the pool.


Nail your cannon ball form.


Emily has a pretty silly face with goggles on. 

Tread water? No problem.

Lifeguards get to know you by name.

And make water balloons out of gloves for you. 

You make improvements on diving and finally quit belly flopping (most of the time).

With only a couple weeks left of summer you learn to swim

 Then conquer things you never would've done just a few days earlier. 

Pool time and swim lessons are better with friends.

As well as jumping in the pool.

No slide is to big.

And if you have enough confidence the guards might let you go down a slide that you are actually to short to go on. Which will be repeated by you going on it 50 more times that day.


Words can not express how proud I am of these amazing girls.

This is the summer they learned to swim.  The summer they became fish.
The best summer we've yet to have .... so far.

Far From Being Fish, But Better

Last week we wrapped up our second week of swim lessons.

Two weeks of swim lessons resulted in some very busy mornings, the husband riding his bike to work every day and a lot of laundry but I couldn't be happier that we decided to enroll the girls. 
I would be a liar if I said that it was a lovely experience start to finish. In fact I don't have a single picture from the first day of class. If I had to rate how bad day #1 was I would say off the charts epic failure. Marissa screamed and cried the entire 45 minutes, refusing to go to class and her sister was only slightly better about half way through class. After some a lot of disciplining and talking the rest of the day and evening, the rest of our lessons were wonderful

Marissa started off terrified, worked up to scared and ended up being a nervous but definitely more confident swimmer.

She tackled and conquered two huge fears of hers. Putting her head in the water and going down this slide aka getting her face wet.

Emily ended up having one on one lessons due to her class size being small. The main thing she learned from lessons was how to be more comfortable in the water. She loved using the buoy to kick around on and playing with her teacher. 

After two weeks of work it all came down to one last day.

First a quick skill test then they were able to go down big blue the slide over and over and over again. 

 The girls are still far from being fish, but with their new found confidence and skills I am excited to see how they progress through the year. We plan on making weekly trips to the YMCA to work on our swimming. That is what you call home school P.E. folks. 

Now I am left with two very sad little girls but I keep assuring them not to worry, we will definitely go back for swim lessons again next summer.